1. Fate; destiny; predestination.
You hear this word quite a few times throughout the episode… not because they kept saying it, but because they kept repeating that clip of the aniki guest saying it. Like 2 ‘previews’ and once in the actual video… so that’s 3 times!
背負う (せおう, seiou)
1. To be burdened with; to take responsibility for; to carry on back or shoulder.
2. To have (something) in the background; to be in front (of something).
Same as above.
大変 (たいへん, taihen)
1. Very; greatly.
2. Immense; enormous; great.
3. Serious; grave; dreadful; terrible.
4. Difficult; hard.
5. Major incident; disaster.
A very common word, and with a wide range of meanings and usage. You hear this very often on varieties… heck even on Sho’s ichimen, or in the News Zero studio…
金網 (かなあみ, kana ami)
1. Wire netting; wire mesh; wire screen; chain-link mesh.
Aiba was commenting on the wire mesh fencing used in making the set.
面談 (めんだん, mendan)
1. Interview.
The word literally means ‘face talk’. Arashi interviewed Nagabuchi, and well basically all the singers participating in Kouhaku.
囀る (さえずる, saezuru)
1. To sing; to chirp; to twitter
This was used in regard to the hummingbird guitar… it’s supposed to sound delicate, like that of a hummingbird chirping.
繊細 (せんさい, sensai)
1. Dainty; delicate (e.g. fingers); fine; slim.
2. Sensitive; delicate (feelings, sense, etc.); subtle
Ah! I was just talking about this… the delicate sound of the hummingbird guitar.
及ぶ (およぶ, oyobu)
1. To reach; to amount to; to befall; to happen to; to extend.
2. To be up to the task; to come up to.
3. To compare with; to be a match (for).
4. To commit (a crime).
5. To require (to do) (usu. used in the negative).
誇る (ほこる, hokoru)
1. To boast of; to be proud of.
Aiba’s bambi eyes, wanting to receive praise from the aniki XD
構え (かまえ, kamae)
1. Structure; construction; appearance.
2. Posture (e.g. in martial arts); pose; stance.
3. Readiness; determination; preparedness.
4. Kanji enclosure type radical (must enclose at least two sides of the kanji).
This was used when Nagabuchi aniki showed Arashi his guitar playing stance.
内股 (うちまた, uchimata)
1. Inner thigh.
2. (walking) pigeon-toed; one’s toes turned inward.
3. Uchimata (judo); throwing an opponent by putting one’s leg between their legs.
Again, the guitar playing stance XD
段取り (だんどり, dantori)
1. Programme; program; plans; arrangements.
Aniki and his hand written program… which he tossed out in the end XD
先生 (せんせい, sensei)
1. Teacher; master; doctor.
2. With names of teachers, etc. as an honorific.
3. Previous existence.
Well this is a very common word, I’m sure you all know what it means by now… well now you know what the kanji looks like? XD When broken down 先 means before/earlier/future… and 生 means life/birth.
忠実 (ちゅうじつ, chuujitsu)
1. Faithful; loyal; devoted.
2. Hardworking; painstaking; diligent.
3. Healthy; fit.
人差し指 (ひとさしゆび, hitosashiyubi)
1. Index finger.
Ahh… here comes all the ‘fingers’ hahaha! 指 means finger. It actually means… ‘people pointing finger’… The name came from the phrase 人を指差す or pointing at people with your finger.
親指 (おやゆび, oyayubi)
1. Thumb.
中指 (なかゆび, nakayubi)
1. Middle finger; long finger; second finger; tall finger; middle toe; third toe.
薬指 (くすりゆび, kusuriyubi)
1. Ring finger; fourth finger.
薬 actually means medicine. So literally it means ‘medicine finger’. I tried reading the Japanese wiki about how this term came about… It seems like it’s because in the old days people used their fourth finger to apply medicine… it could also have come from the believe that the Buddhist God of Medicine bends his fourth finger…
小指 (こゆび, koyubi)
1. Little finger; pinky.
2. Little toe.
So know you know all your fingers! In Japanese! XD
成るべく (なるべく, narubeku)
1. As much as possible; wherever practicable
A common word, though I don’t remember hearing it that often on Arashi’s shows… Aniki was talking about how you should make you fingers ‘stand’ on the guitar board. Well he actually means that you should hold make the last joint of each finger perpendicular to the board, so you press on the strings with the tip of the fingers rather than the whole big fleshy… side? Gah. It’s hard to describe! Me and J took a while to phrase this properly!
鑢 (やすり, yasuri)
1. File; rasp.
Either way. The take away lesson is that… if you are ever going to play guitar, you should trim your nails and file them properly!
誤解 (ごかい, gokai)
1. Misunderstanding.
Despite aniki’s scary outward appearance, it’s actually just a misunderstanding… underneath he’s really kind!
途轍もない (とてつもない, totetsumonai)
1. Extravagant; absurd; unbelievable; preposterous; unreasonable.
2. Enormous; tremendous; extraordinary; monumental.
Inside, aniki is a ‘途轍もない’ gentle person!
激しい (はげしい, hageshii)
1. Violent; furious; tempestuous.
2. Extreme; intense; fierce.
3. Fervent; vehement.
4. Incessant; relentless.
5. Precipitous; steep
You can play the guitar softly, or you can play it fiercely!
因みに (ちなみに, chinamini)
1. By the way; in this connection; incidentally; in passing.
Another of the very common word! XD
ふて腐れる (ふてくされる, futekusareru)
1. To become sulky; to become irresponsible (due to disgruntlement).
Aniki sulking after getting ignored by Jun….
表現 (ひょうげん, hyougen)
1. Expression; presentation.
2. Representation; notation.
This appeared when they were making their own song. Jun was saying about how girls with long hair can make different ‘expression/looks’.
怒り (いかり, ikari)
1. Anger; rage; fury; wrath; indignation.
Arashi is well known for being a group that won’t get angry. XD
何れにしても (いずれにしても, izurenishitemo)
1. Anyhow; at all events; in any case; either way; anyway.
Another conjunction! Not so commonly used on their shows. But well, that’s a long phrase isn’t it? Just look at that long string of letters in the romanji! Sometimes with long romanji strings you can’t even tell what the individual hiraganas are because you loss track of where to ‘cut’ the word… that’s why you have to learn hiragana and katakana if you want to learn Japanese. And similarly, that’s why they use kanji and don’t just leave everything in hiragana or katakana. You could end up with different sentences/meanings if you cut the sentence differently!
落としどころ (おとしどころ, otoshidokoro)
1. Point of compromise; common ground.
Aniki finding a common ground with Jun… XD
That’s all for the kanji today!
Just want to touch a little on katakana. Well just some random talk.
Katakana often gives me a big headache. Way worst than kanji or hiragana. Because you often end up having to play detective trying to figure out what they are saying. Of course many instances it’s easy. Like éclairs, names of famous musicians, or countries… but sometimes it’s not so obvious.
One thing to note about Japanese language. They borrow words from all over. Of course there’s a lot of words from English… but really they took in words from everywhere! ‘Officially’ or used as slang… There’s even a whole list on wiki about which words were borrowed from where. Like ‘パン pan’ meaning bread, borrowed from Portuguese.
Some examples of frustrating translation situations I met so far…
The Nonen Rena AnShi… and the Globe chair. Mostly just called ‘Ball chair’. No on screen kanas… but between Aiba and the narrator it sounded like ‘glove’ or ‘grove’ chair. Add that with the fact that most sites just called it the ball chair, and it was something that took us quite a while to solve.
That ‘Owafu’ took us a while to figure out too… turns out it’s Oahu island in Hawaii.
And Jun’s Guten Morgen in Abunai… unfortunately I don’t know any European languages so references to other languages besides Chinese/English can be frustrating for me… (it means good morning in German)
There was quite a lot of katakana in this AnShi episode too.
エピフォン テキサン
Epiphone what? Teki-san?
Thank fully when I searched up Paul mccartney ポールマッカートニー… I spotted this line in good old wikipedia. “He played an Epiphone Texan on many of his acoustic recordings, but also used a Martin D-28.”
Phew! No need to search all the Epiphone guitar models! Good thing I spotted that sentence! The wikipedia article is really long too!
Just a last katakana reference… this one was puzzling at first, but really easy once you get the context.
スリーフィンガー
At first I was wondering… what? Sleefing girl? Surfing girl?
Turns out it’s Three Fingers.
Of course, on second thought you’ll realized that the Japanese says girl as ‘garu’, so that ‘gaa’ couldn’t possibly be ‘girl’. But when you listen to them for the first time, and coming from an English speaking background, it can take a while to figure out how they change the English pronunciations…
Right, that’s all for this very long post! Enjoy!