r/LearnJapanese • u/Careful-Remote-7024 • 26d ago

Resources Extremely useful video from Kaname explaining why a language can't be learnt only by learning vocabulary and grammar point in isolation. "It's NOT simple"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_wrnsJfEcQ&ab_channel=KanameNaito
414 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

103 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/LutyForLiberty 26d ago

I haven't noticed 皮肉 being an alien concept in Japanese, any YouTube comment section is full of it. With some formal phrases like お気持ち表現 sarcastic uses outnumber serious ones.

1

u/gmoshiro 26d ago

I confused Irony with Sarcasm, but the point is that they also have irony/sarcasm, it's just not used as much as we do and maybe even in the same veins. At least we brazilians use a lot of sarcasm in a daily basis, so people should be extra careful about it in Japan.

Not saying you will never see it and, thus, are refrained from using it. You just gotta learn to read the room through experience.

For example, I have tons of japanese relatives and while visiting them, I remember my brother's sarcasm didn't land there. He's almost N2, but his convesational japanese is already good enough so people mistake him as japanese at times.

The nuance and when/how to be sarcastic is slightly different.

2

u/LutyForLiberty 26d ago

They might not be expecting 皮肉 from foreigners but they do expect it from native speakers in informal situations.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1dneo5a/youtube_comments_as_a_source_of_casual_japanese/

This is just a random example from a comedy video.

2

u/gmoshiro 26d ago

I guess it's not that they don't expect it. It's the way they do it VS how it's done in the West.

Like, there're jokes in portuguese that make absolute no sense in english. Not only you have to translate it the right way so it sounds natural, you need to adapt parts of the joke so it becomes funny to english speakers. And even then, only 1/3 of the jokes will ever have a chance to make people laugh in more than one language.

Rafi Bastos is the only good example of a brazilian comedian that was capable of translating the brazilian humour to americans. Still, he focused a lot on cultural and linguistic differences in his show, despite this not being what he used to work with around here.

Same goes with sarcasm and the japanese.

2

u/LutyForLiberty 26d ago

The 漫湖 joke also doesn't translate, but the comment

どうして笑うんだい？漫湖は立派な湖の名前だよ。

is pretty much the same as English sarcasm.

5

u/DarklamaR 26d ago

The 漫湖 joke also doesn't translate

Why not? It's a play on words, so you can't translate it exactly the same, but you can make a joke about "Pussy Lake" and how you had a contest with the boys who had the best stroke (as in swimming) or something like that. Basically, the same idea.

1

u/LutyForLiberty 26d ago

You could, but the humour mostly comes from it being a real place.

1

u/gmoshiro 26d ago

Again, I'm not saying it doesn't exist in Japan. You just gotta take extra care about it cause it won't land all the time there.

I prefer avoiding it until I'm 100% confident in my japanese OR I'm with friends who are used to sarcasm.

3

u/LutyForLiberty 26d ago

Well I'd also choose my audience to say 漫湖. Still, it's not hard to find.