Pablo Ignacio Scalettaさん

こんにちは！

コメントどうもありがとうございます😊

ブラックジョーク in Japanese is indeed very similar to what we refer to as "dark humor" in English.

Both terms refer to a type of humor that deals with serious, disturbing, or taboo subject matter in a light or satirical manner.

However, there might be slight cultural differences in the interpretation and usage.

In Japan, ブラックジョーク can be seen as a more specific type of humor, often dealing with death, tragedy, or other serious topics, while in the West, "dark humor" may encompass a broader range of topics including societal issues, politics, etc.

You're correct that satire doesn't always involve dark humor.

Satire is a broader term that refers to the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

It can be light or dark, depending on the topic and the way it's handled.

I hope this helps clarify the differences for you:)

Sincerely,

Miho

Team JapanesePod101.com

Good afternoon,

In what sense is ブラックジョーク different from what we call in the West dark humor? To me, the expression surely sounds similar to "black joke" in English and I don't think satire always involves dark humor.

Thanks in advance.

Dustin san,

Konnichiwa.

Thank you for your posts.

:smile:

Yuki 由紀

Team JapanesePod101.com

独身者

二番の方

Tim H.さん、

:smile:

Konnichiwa.

Yes, historically でございます became short and です is used these days.

However, ございます is also used now as a polite expression.

Regarding your sentences,

人がいる Correct.

お人がでございます　/ 人がです unfortunately they don’t make any sense. Do you mean “a person is here”?

ございます is one of honorific expression however, 人 indicates low politeness level so they should not put in one sentence.

刀がある。Correct

お刀でございます。 (This is a sword.)?

Iru and aru basically indicates “existence.”

Iru is used to animate objects and aru is used to inanimate object.

Yuki 由紀

Team JapanesePod101.com

Hi Yuki-san

Is です　an abbreviation for で（ございま）す or does desu have a different origin?

desu, iru, and aru sometimes have the same English translation, but these are not the same as the English linking verb ("to be, am, are, is").

Is this correct?

人がいる

お人がでございます　/ 人がです

刀がある。

お刀がでございます。

Are these sentences technically correct?

Sherry san,

Thank you for the comment.

Take is happy to hear from you. :smile:

Yuki 　由紀

Team 　JapanesePod101.com

山崎さん won this round... Take's voice acting は素晴らしい。

マアレテン　ムンテレさん、

こんにちは。

As to 過, many kanji has "meaning component" and "sound component" and

often "sound" part doesn't reflect the meaning to the kanji itself.

Well, dictionaries only gives a basic information, so no wonder why it doesn't cover

all what we want to know sometimes:sweat_smile:

Natsuko (奈津子),

Team JapanesePod101.com

こんにちは奈津子さん,

Thanks for your reply. I'm curious, though, when you wrote:

"Sometimes the meaning of one component has nothing to do with the meaning of overall kanji itself.

I guess the typical case of that is 過…"

What exactly did you mean? Was this Kanji only chosen for its sound?

Regarding whether or not 談 indicates anything "heated" about the speech in question, you give the examples of "成功談 (someone’s success story) and 失敗談 (someone's story of failure). In both cases, I would imagine that such stories are told with more "fire" than ordinary, everyday conversation would be. I agree that these examples you list concern one-sided speeches more than actual discussions. It wasn't so much the aspect of "one-sided speech" versus "discussion" (two-sided) I wanted to point out, but more the aspect of the "heated" nature of the words being said.

To make things more confusing, my Japanese dictionary lists only the katakana word ｽﾋﾟｰﾁ as the translation for "speech". :laughing: This probably refers to an actual "speech" given by someone at a dinner, for example. Another comparison is the translation given by my dictionary for "talk" or "conversation", which is 話す or 話, so without the symbol for "flame". Whereas "discussions" are translated as 会談. And there is the "flame" again! So there are definitely some ways to translate speech that do not contain the symbol for "flame".

マアレテン ムンテレさん、

こんにちは。:smile:

Thank you for the interesting insights for kanji!

The kanji 談 actually has 炎 on the right which means "flame" on its own.

This has the meaning of something is very active and/or popular. The concept of "heated discussion"

could be correct, but it also sounds a bit too much. The basic meaning of 談 is actually

rather "talk" or "to speak", and/or its story itself. It doesn't have to be discussion as it can be

one-way speech (and I think this is the reason why Peter chose "speech").

If you take an example of 成功談 or 失敗談, you can see my point easier.

成功談 is someone's success story and 失敗談 is the opposite kind of story (hence, fail story:sweat_smile:).

Majority of kanji is actually composed from "meaning" part and "sound" part.

Sometimes the meaning of one component has nothing to do with the meaning of overall kanji itself.

I guess the typical case of that is 過...

Natsuko (奈津子),

Team JapanesePod101.com

こんにちはみんなさん！

Thanks for another interesting lesson!

I didn't quite get the "Shakespeare" reference, though. In Shakespeare's plays, his characters were rarely so rude as to try and force their way to spend a date on someone the way this ｼｪーｽﾋﾟｱ fellow tries. Or they would have used some really clever word-play (さすが in Japanese, right?) to have their way. Oh, well.

The Kanji Close-up seemed unexpectedly short, though. I expected something about 冗談 (joke), 劇場 (theatre) and 過ごす (spend) as well.

冗談 (joke) has the Chinese symbols for "superfuous" and "discuss" (and not "speech", as Peter said). Since "discuss" contains the primitive for "fire" no less than twice, this seems to point to a rather "heated" discussion. And jokes taken the wrong way can lead to really "heated" discussions for sure.

劇場 (theatre) contains smaller versions of the Chinese symbols for "tiger", "pig" and "sabre" in the first character 劇 for "drama", which suggests a pig being used as tiger bait after which the latter is attacked with a sabre. That almost seems like an Eastern variation on Spanish bullfighting, with tigers substituting for the bulls. The second character 場 for "location" contains "earth/soil", "sun/day" and "pig" once again, which is a little harder to add up. I do this by renaming this version of "pig" into "tangled", so that it may also stand for a "tangle of roads". The specific location then becomes a spot of "earth" in a "tangle of roads" that is illuminated by the "sun" overhead.

過ごす (spend) is a little more problematic, since it contains the primitives for "road" and "jaw". Perhaps the suggestion is one of using your "jaws" for talking during a relaxing stroll down the "road"? Or possibly the "road" primitive simply has the meaning of "action" here, only the action of moving your "jaws" for some idle chit-chat? Both can work.

Raven san,

Arigatou gozaimasu.

Yuki 由紀

Team JapanesePod101.com

Yuki san, konnichiwa!

Mochiron! :smile:

Raven san,

If you have questions or suggestions or find something should be fixed, please let us know again.

Thank you very much.

Yuki 由紀

Team JapanesePod101.com

You're quite welcome! :thumbsup:

Hi Raven,

Good catch:smile:

Now it's fixed!

Arigatou Gozaimashita:innocent:

Ofelia

Team JapanesePod101.com

I believe there is a mistake at the bottom of the introduction of this lesson: It lists Takase and Yoshi as hosts for the lesson, but neither of them are in the podcast. :sweat_smile:

This website is fantastic! I've learned so much from it! Arigatou gozaimasu! :smile:

wael-san,

In terms of expressing the time, these are correct.

[time]を過ごす／経る

[time]が経つ／過ぎる／流れる

But we don't say [time]を流す because we cannot control the time.

Hope this helps.

Motoko /JapanesePod101.com