日本語会話: The Japanese Conversation Thread

[GoktimusPrime]

Konnichiwa.
Otherwise everything else in your sentence is correct.
And just to clarify, you are saying, "Good day, is this a Transformer?"

Now having said that, it's unnatural to start off with good day. You'd be better off saying:
「すみません、これはトランスフォーマーですか。」
sumimasen, kore wa Toransufōmā des ka?

[Bato]

I'm just finishing my first two weeks (ever) in Japan.

I had surprisingly good results by erring on the side of over-politeness and saying

"Sumimasen, Kore onegai shimasu" or "Sumimasen, doko Makurosu/toransufoma desu ka?"

Generally, i got by with a lot of "sumimasen"s and pointing at things... ^^;;;

[GoktimusPrime]

"Sumimasen, doko Makurosu/toransufoma desu ka?"

Correction on this sentence: it should be
「トランスフォーマーはどこですか」
"Toransufōmā wa doko desu ka?"

You basically omitted the topic marker particle "wa" and had adverb "doko" in the wrong position. Remember that adverbs and verbs come towards the end of sentences in Japanese, as opposed to English which typically places them towards the front.

トランスフォーマーはどこですか
Where are the Transformers?

[Bato]

Sorry, yes, I would actually say "XXXX wa doko desu ka?".

Thanks for correcting me

(that's what I get for posting late-ish at night)

[kup]

Thank you for your tips but i an looking for role play conversation to reinforce the ability to communicate. The sumimasen tip is very important and useful. Thank you

[Bato]

Be careful though.

The expression "Knowing just enough Japanese to be dangerous" is actually true.

Again, personal experience, but after I could manage a couple sentences in Japanese, they would fire off in Japanese super fast and point me to signs in Japanese. Once I told them I couldn't read/understand (spoken) Japanese, they would start explaining things in English and giving me the English sign instead :P

[GoktimusPrime]

I'm sure I've linked to this video before, but it's a social experiment to see how many "Western looking" (i.e. non East Asian) people in Tokyo speak Japanese.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8-YLAKW7DU

The problem with this experiment was that it was done in Shibuya, which is a popular tourist attraction, and I don't know how many of those people were just tourists or actual residents in Japan. Because naturally you wouldn't expect a tourist to speak the local language as they're just passing through. But a person living in Japan should absolutely be able to speak Japanese (to varying degrees of fluency, depending on how long they've been living there). I'm seriously thinking about doing this experiment myself when I'm in Japan, although we're also hitting a lot of tourist places. But I want to explicitly ask people if they're tourists or residents and just disregard all the tourists from my experiment; i.e. I only want to observe residents. Might get some of my senior students involved... hrmm... something we might discuss on the plane trip.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Shibuya is also likely to attract a lo of people who have studies Japanese, so you might be better off going somewhere else to start I guess.
Also if some guy and a kid came up to me with a mic speaking Japanese to me, I'd tell him I didn't speak Japanese to make him go away.

As a whitey, it's sometimes handy pretending to not understand. Like when I was in a shop looking at TFs and this fat angry dude was stomping around rambling on about the lack of selection. Wouldn't mind chatting to some local Tf fans, but not if they are stereotype looking otaku guys.

[GoktimusPrime]

Unleashed a Dad's Joke onto a girl working at Tokyo Disneyland, making her laugh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EwZETnP1_4

They have a dessert called "Space Sundaes" which are just called スペースサンデー (Supeesu Sandee) in Japanese, but I literally (mis)translated it as 宇宙の日曜日 (Uchuu no Nichiyoubi; "Space Sunday") when I went to order one.

[GoktimusPrime]

One topic that I was talking about with some of my friends in Japan are words used by Japanese people in Australia which are not used back in Japan. In other words, Japanese-Australian exclusive words. How many can we think of?

The most obvious ones are contractions for place names like エコポ (Echo Point), クロネ (Crow's Nest) etc., but let's exclude those for obvious reasons. So here are a few words Japanese-Australian words which I unleashed on some of my friends in Japan which actually stumped them!

スクホ
School Holidays (スクール・ホリデー)! In Japan it's 学校の休み .

ジャパレス
Japanese restaurant (ジャパニーズ・レストラン). The Japanese themselves don't often use the word for "Japanese restaurant," because Japanese restaurants there tend to be specialised, like a Ramenyasan or Sushiyasan, Ryoutei etc. But if they want to be specific then they would more likely use words like 和食店、和食レストラン、日本料理レストラン etc. - but it's often not necessary to specifically identify a restaurant as being Japanese when you're in Japan, as it's pretty much the social default setting. It's similar to how in Australia we don't often explicitly state that a restaurant serves Western food - it's just the default unless specified otherwise.

七年生～十二年生
Years 7-12. Obviously because it reflects the Australian school year system. Japan doesn't use this system, their junior high school is Middle School Forms 1-3 (中学１～３) and their senior high school is simply High School Forms 1~3 (高校１～3).

幼稚園 and キンディー生
Again, reflecting differences in education system. When my daughter was in her final year of day care, we simply called it 幼稚園 and I referred to her as a 幼稚園児. I would translate as "preschool" and "preschooler" respectively, but in Japan they translate it as "kindergarten." An ex student of mine is currently living and working in Japan as a 幼稚園の先生 and when she introduced herself to my non-Japanese speaking colleagues, she told them that she's a "Kindergarten teacher." キンディー生 obviously refers to what we would call Kindergarten or just Kindy - the first year of primary school. So when my daughter started school she was a キンディー生. When it comes to early childhood care before preschool, then I find both sides simply refer to it as 保育園 and 保育園児 respectively.

エイチ・エス・シー試験
Higher School Certificate Examinations. This obviously doesn't exist in Japan, their nearest equivalent would be 大学入試 (university entrance exams) - which isn't quite the same thing as the HSC though.

Heh, maybe we should refer to Australianised Japanese as 豪州弁. That's all I can think of for now.