language is fun

[insaneneko]

I was watching a Japanese program in which a panel of "celebrities" have to answer questions on language meaning/use. Some of it is sooo over my head, such as a segment where they quoted Diet members and asked if they used some word in the quoted section incorrectly. I didn't even know the meaning of the words that were in question, forget knowing what the right usage is. But some of the other stuff was really interesting. Another segment asked what the difference between two terms.

Questions:
1) サービルエリア vs 道の駅
2) 個食 vs 孤食

Answers:
1) The first is a rest stop for freeways and the second is for national highways.
2) The first is when people (a family) at the same meal eat different food and the second is when people (a family) eat at different times, separately. These were seen as manifestations of the deterioration of society (or something similarly bad).

Speaking of Japanese, I was trying to figure out how to romanize Jane Austen and finally had to resort to a search with the English but restricting the results to Japanese pages to get it because I could NOT romanize it correctly. The romanization is ジェーン・オースティン. I totally didn't put the dash after the "オ" and didn't think to do the "ティ." I thought it was just a simple "テ."

I hate trying to romanize English. I never get it right. :P

Comments

[madamada-chan.livejournal.com]

I know~~~ That reminds me of my first day in Japanese class. Our teacher told us to try to romanize my name. So I was like... okay, is it シエル or シェル? XDD

In the end my teacher said it's the first one.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Yeah, I just end up needing to be told what's the correct way.

[sara-tanaquil.livejournal.com]

Wow, cool program! What's it called? It will be hopelessly over my head (I can barely keep up with average dramas), but I'd love to give it a shot, especially if they put some of the stuff on the screen where I can read it.

Haha romanization, it's more like we can't SPEAK it right. Evidently Austen sounds to them like Austin, which is probably not far wrong for the actual pronunciation.

I seriously don't know how anyone ever learns English.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

I had to check out the cable programming guide to find out the program's name: Nekketsu! Heisei kyouiku gakuin (http://www.fujitv.co.jp/gakuin/index.html).

I wonder how anyone learns to spell English.