Re: [Lingo] 悪党ども、海賊ども

["Josh Glover" <jmglov@example.com>]

On 05/08/07, steven smith <sjs@example.com> wrote:

> I know part of it is aesthetics, part of it is the feeling
> of the message and there is a bit of the smart-ass in it.

Yes, I think you are right to summarise thusly.

Biscuit, thanks for pointing out the socio-linguistic aspects; I
really had not thought of that, and I think you are spot on.

> My instructor mentioned long ago that getting a letter from
> a friend who said 有難う　instead of ありがとう was not a
> good thing, but in business correspondence, the kanji is
> normal.

Interesting. All of my written Japanese is in the formal business
style (keigo and everything; surprised?), so I am perhaps not the best
chap to comment on how to write a personal letter. :)

> But even my instructor can't explain when to use
> each.  Such an interesting language -- everything depends on
> context.  Just hearing all the possibilities actually helps.

Is your instructor trained in linguistic pedagogy, or just a native
speaker? As anyone who's ever tried to teach a second language (I've
done both ESL and JSL; the wife has done ESL, JSL, and BSL--Bulgarian
as a Second Language) knows quite well, teaching *SL effectively is
hard, and more importantly, it is a skill divorced quite a bit from
being well-spoken and well-written in the target language, especially
if that is your native one. Comparing my wife and I before either one
of us had any pedagogical training (including self-training), she was
a better natural ESL teacher than I, simply because she had learned it
as a second language and I had not, so she could use what worked and
did not work when she was learning as a basis.

> It seems like in wwwjdict, many are marked as uk (usually
> kana) but in my Canon Word Tank, you have to guess based on
> the example sentences -- unless I'm missing something.  In
> the case of these two words -- they don't even show in the
> dictionary at all, although there are lots of …共 words.

Get yourself a 広辞苑、mi amigo.

> Thanks everybody.

Repay us in beer when you arrive in Japan! :)

-- 
Cheers,
Josh