Tourism: Ijinkan in Kobe

Today I went to Kobe and brought a visit to Ijinkan-gai (異人館街).

First, I have to explain the name 「異人館街」. The Japanese word for "foreigner" is 「外国人」, which is sometimes abbreviated to 「外人」, literally meaning "outsiders" (with a negative connotation). But an older word for "foreigner" (especially Western foreigners) is 「異人」. The Kanji in this word are 異, meaning "strange", "different", "unusual", and 人, meaning "man", "human". 「異人」 thus literally means "strange people", and this word too has a negative connotation. It is basically not used anymore.

In the case of 「異人館」, 「異人」 refers to Western business people living in Japan at the end of the 19th century, mainly in Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagasaki, the three main ports that were open to foreign trade at that time. The word 「異人館」 refers to the houses these business people lived in (館 means "mansion", or "building"). 「異人館街」 refers to a village of mansions of these foreign business men. There are such villages (or better: what remains of them) in Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagasaki.

Phew, that was a long introduction!

I went to visit the Ijinkan-gai in Kitano in Kobe. It contains about 40 such buildings, all reflecting the life of Western people over 100 years ago in Japan, a country where contacts with the foreign world was very limited and strongly regulated. I really admire these people, as many foreigners find Japan a difficult country to live in, even now.

The picture below is the 風見鶏館 ("Kazamidori-kan). 「風見鶏」 ("Kazamidori") stands for "weather vane", referring to the weather vane on the top of the tower of the building.

Today's Japanese expression: 猫を被る

This is the conversation where I originally heard this one: one Japanese guy is considering getting a job as a teacher in a 女子大学 (women's college). He says he feels the students there are more intelligent and easier to work with. However, the other guy says: 「気をつけた方がいいですよ。あの女子大の学生は猫を被っているかもしれないから！」

「猫を被る」(ねこをかぶる) literally means something like "to put on a cat"?? which doesn't really make any sense. 被る is usually used for example for "to put on a hat" (帽子を被る). A better interpretation I guess would be "to behave like a cat". The actual meaning of this expression is "to play the hypocrite", or "to pretend to be friendly", "to feign friendliness".

Book review: 絵でわかる日本語使い分け辞典1000

Today I want to review a book entitled: 絵でわかる日本語使い分け辞典1000, a dictionary of Japanese expressions.

I first knew about this book a couple of years ago when I was enrolled in a 6 months Japanese language course. One day one of our teachers used this book to introduce us to some expressions. I liked it pretty much so I bought it a couple of weeks later.

Let me tell you what I liked about this book. Normal text books contain mainly grammar and vocab, some texts, etc. but only little attention is paid to expressions. However, the Japanese language often uses expressions that you can't really understand from vocab alone (see some of my posts on Japanese expressions. It might not always be easy to guess the meaning of 鼻にかける without actually studying this phrase). This book on the other hand is filled with expressions and in that sense I think it is rather unique. A second point I liked is that for each expression there is also a small cartoon illustrating its meaning. A bit childish, you say? Might be, but it often helped me understand expressions without having to look them up in my electronic dictionary.

Don't you sometimes notice people using 「びっくりする」 every time they are surprised by something? Read this book and you will learn alternatives like 「仰天する」,「息をのむ」, or 「目を疑う」. Even if you read just 1 page a day this book will make your Japanese so much richer.

The book is loosely organized by time of the year. So, you are likely to find expressions used in the context of what is going on during each month of the year. For example, in the chapter for August some expressions are used in the context of the Obon vacation. At the back of the book there are some pages focusing on expressions concerning specific parts of the body, and animals.

Recommended.

Today’s Japanese expression: 目に浮かぶ

Well, once you start paying attention to it, you really see and hear expressions everywhere.

Last night someone said this on television: 「彼女が家に帰って皆に嘘をついたのよ。そういうのありありと目に浮かぶのよ」("She went home and told lies to everyone. I can easily picture that in my head"). 「目に浮かぶ」(めにうかぶ) means "to picture something", "to come into one's mind". 浮かぶ in Japanese means "to float", "to come to the surface", so I guess that 「目に浮かぶ」 means literally "to come to one's eyes"...?

There are also the following Japanese expression:「心に浮かぶ」「頭に浮かぶ」「胸に浮かぶ」, which all have a somewhat similar meaning ("to come to mind", " to cross one's mind").

Today’s Japanese expression: 鼻にかける

Again from a novel I am reading. I found this interesting expression: 「鼻にかける」(はなにかける). I have to admit this was my first encounter with this expression so I checked it in my electronic dictionary, although I could easily guess the meaning from context:

A person is talking about her sister, who is really smart and talented. But, she says: 「つんつんしたり鼻にかけたりするような人ではなかった」. The meaning of 「鼻にかける」 is "to be boastful".　So, although her sister is really smart, "she was not the kind of person to behave in an arrogant way".

Which made me think about another expression in the Japanese language: 「鼻が長い」(はながながい, literally: "having a long nose"), which has a similar meaning.

These are certainly not the only examples where Japanese culture makes a connection between noses and pride. See for example 天狗 (てんぐ, Tengu), which are mythological creatures characterized by arrogant and boastful behaviour. These creatures too, are often pictured as humans with an unnaturally long nose. 「天狗になる」 ("to turn into a Tengu") means "to become arrogant" or "to become boastful".

Today’s Japanese expression: 息を殺す

One fun part of learning Japanese is the many interesting expressions this language has. Today I am going to introduce one that I came across recently while reading a novel.

The main character of this novel is walking through a dark forest late at night. He feels as if the animals in the forest are holding their breath as he walks by. The Japanese expression for “to hold one’s breath” is “息を殺す” (いきをころす), which literally means “to kill ones breath”.

Example:「私は息を殺して、様子を見守った」- I watched what was happening holding my breath.

Study Japanese!

To Study Japanese! Especially for Westerners it’s not an obvious thing to do. Japanese is regarded as one of the most difficult languages to master, with thousands of Chinese characters to memorize and subtle honorifics that need years of study to understand. It is not surprizing that even foreigners living in Japan often give up on mastering Japanese.

Yet, my personal experience is quite different. After about 2 years in Japan my conversations with my Japanese friends were 100% in Japanese. In 3 years time I was ready to start reading Japanese novels… in Japanese. I read close to 10 novels in Japanese last year.

Somewhere my way of studying Japanese must have been different (better?) than that of other people.

In this blog I want to introduce some ways of studying Japanese that I used, with attention on textbooks, dictionaries, other study material, and strategies in general. I would be happy if I could help a some people with their study, because after all I have found Japanese a beautiful and fascinating language to study.