Excuses, excuses!

So yeah... You see.... I didn't EXACTLY get to progress in my Japanese studies today... BUT I feel deeply ashamed, and I promise not to do it again! :D But I wanted to post today, because I love blogging about Japanese.

 To be honest, what kept me from my studies was one of my vices: a popular MMORPG known as World of Warcraft. A new patch came out today, and I was dying to play it! And I just got so caught up in it, it totally got caught up in playing that! Curse you, you addicting game!

 Today, as I was raiding, I was speaking with a fellow anime nerd, a close friend of mine named Cristivel. We were talking about the Japanese language, and an interesting topic came up! I, out of my evil nature, decided to spoil this week's chapter of Naruto for her. Needless to say, she was pissed. I don't know what was said, but she off-handedly mentioned Naruto's "catch phrase" that he uses in the Japanese anime.
Anyone who watches Naruto in Japanese will recognize that the main character Naruto uses the phrase "dattebayo" very often. "Dattebayo" is the romaji form of  " だってばよ ".

Now, if you're not an anime junkie like myself, you might be turned off by the above paragraph. I'm sorry! I'll try to use as little anime jargon as possible. The phrased "dattebayo" is a phrase that, in the official English dubbed Naruto anime, was changed to "Believe it!". While "dattebayo" isn't a direct translation of the phase, they are interchangeable within the two languages. You see, "dattebayo" is a phrase that cannot be directly translated to English, but has a generalized meaning that can be understood.

This is an interesting topic I'd like to reflect upon, myself. There are a multitude of phrases in Japanese that don't have direct English translations. An example of this, is the phrase "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" (yeah, i'm just gonna use romaji for the sake of simplicity). This phrase is a phrase used when meeting someone for the very first time. It can be translated to "Please be kind to me", or "Please look favorably upon me". Sure, this sounds kind of odd, but when introducing yourself in Japan, this phrase is standard. It's essentially the equivalent of saying "It's nice to meet you." in English.

Other phrases like "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu" and "dattebayo" exist in the Japanese language, but we will explore those as we encounter them! This is a cool topic to think about! The Japanese language is so complex, with it's customs and intricacies!  This makes me admire the culture even more!

I will try not to slack off tomorrow! :P I've learned my lesson, I promise!!