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Old 11-21-2016, 04:20 PM   #451
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Ah, the reading direction reasoning slipped my mind ^^;

But yeah I'm with you Talon. I still find it particular though how two very similar boxes (even by design), made by the same company, yet have a different order of text! Maybe, I guess, with the Mario Pikachu one, they wanted to take a more traditional take? *shrugs* And the fact that although the text is a bit slanted, the image of the box is more vertical than horizontal, so... I mean look at the picture from the auction page:




Edit: Just for comparison's sake, here's some other of Nintendo's hanafuda boxes:
Spoiler: show

traditional, Daitoryo/Napoleon:


Mario-style:

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Old 11-21-2016, 08:19 PM   #452
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Yeah both of those have the order reversed (they would read LtR as 大統領 [president] and マリオ [Mario], respectively). It must be some kind of nod to the traditional hanafuda cards or something of that sort
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Old 11-22-2016, 08:49 PM   #453
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Huh. Seems the one that was actually in order is the one odd out! XP It's still strange and funny though! At least I know it's something to keep in mind when reading things that are more in a "traditional" context. Good thing it isn't a long text though, because I would find it confusing to start reading and it feels like non-sense at first but then you go "wait a minute, it's written right to left" ^^; Out of pure curiosity, is there situations like that that happened to you guys?
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Old 11-22-2016, 10:01 PM   #454
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Not really, no. But I was already used to RTL reading conventions. The closest example I can think of when I began studying Japanese is when you see words that are each other's backwards order. So like ...
  • 日本 vs. 本日
  • 会社 vs. 社会
  • 腹切 vs. 切腹
  • 神風 vs. 風神
When I first started, this would slip me up some since often times it's the pair of characters (and in no particular order) that your brain identifies at a glance rather than the individual characters (and in a particular order). But it was only ever the occasional slip-up. And it doesn't much happen anymore. Familiarity with both words in a given AB-BA relationship helps with this. It's much easier to misread 本日 as 日本, for example, when the only word you know is 日本. Know 本日 too and the spell is broken. (Though perhaps not for dyslexics.)
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Old 02-07-2017, 06:53 PM   #455
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BORKED

A Japanese variety show polled news announcers across Japan for their top 10 hardest-to-say words in Japanese. For those who don't want to watch the video (or who can't understand it very well) the top ten are, in descending order

Spoiler: show
10) 火星探査車 (かせいたんさしゃ)- Mars Rover/Exploration Vehicle
9) 暖かく (あたたかく)- Warm (adverbial)
8) 老若男女 (ろうにゃくなんにょ)- Men and women of all ages
7) 栃乃洋 (とちのなだ)- The name of a sumo wrestler
6) 出場 (しゅつじょう)- A performance, a stage
5) 白装束集団 (しろしょうぞくしゅうだん)- a meeting of people in white clothes (associated with this)
4) 取り沙汰される (とりざたされる)- to cause rumors to spread
3) 貨客船万景峰号 (かきゃくせんマンギョンボンごう) - A North Korean ferry that used to run beetween North Korea and Japan
2) 手術中 (しゅじゅつちゅう)- in surgery
1) 高速増殖炉もんじゅ (こうそくぞうしょくろもんじゅ) - Monju Fast-Breeder Nuclear Reactor


Even if you can't understand it very well, it's worth watching to see all the professional announcers bungle words.
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Old 02-14-2017, 10:59 PM   #456
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>Talon
Oh alright, so just a question of getting used to see them in whatever order to mean the same thing.


>Jeri
That was quite the interesting video. I didn't really understand what was being said (I'm still very much a beginner ^^;) but it was still great to see the difficult words being said with the Hiragana displayed, so I was able to read it aloud, and agree that they are difficult to pronounce, like tongue twisters... Admittedly though I found the sumo wrestler's name fairly easy to say, despite my limited practice/experience.



In other news, I've actually been keeping up on what I said last time about finally learning how to read Japanese (and at the same time following up on a new year resolution about it) and guess what? I've actually made some major progress! \o/ While I used to know only very few Hiragana by heart, I know fully know how to read Hiragana (although admittedly I still mix up し and ち, and have trouble remembering the dakuten variants) and a few basic kanji, along expanding my vocabulary a lot! ^^ It may not be much, but I still feel proud of myself for getting improvements despite my restricted time to study

I thought it would be interesting if I put here the study sources I've been using, in case some fellow UPNers want to start learning but taking perhaps a different route than usual:
  • about.com Japanese lessons: This is where I started to introduce myself to Japanese for the first time, a long time ago. Although it is very extensive and have regular lessons/things to read for practice, the fact that there's a LOT of information and put a bit all over the place makes things quite daunting and confusing on where to start.
  • My Japanese Coach: This is the second source I've ever used, and one of the rare ones that actually cost something. (They're about 25$ on Amazon.) It's also one of the sources that has the best results for me in terms of learning, namely because everything is divided in lessons (and you can't go to the next one until you mastered all the words/characters of your current lesson) and the way you master them is by playing mini-games, like whack-a-mole and timed crosswords. The lessons themselves are very informative too, covering everything from writing to pronunciation, and has a "I'm actually going to a class with a teacher" feel. The problem I have with it? I found it way too easy for the game to consider I "mastered" the words/characters, when in reality I haven't mastered/remembered them much. Plus when you master them, it just doesn't force you to go back to them for a refresh. (You can do it by tinkering with the settings and going back to the related lessons, but it isn't something you'll intuitively do.) Because of that, I eventually lost interest to continue. There was also the fact that they showed a lot of romanji, but it didn't bother me that much.
  • Tofugu's Hiragana guide: To slowly get out of my Japanese-learning funk, I ran into that little page. Admittedly I haven't gotten through the whole site (it might be good but I cannot tell), but just that one page was very useful for me. It uses imagery to relate to the pronunciation/meaning of Hiragana.
  • PuniPuni Japan (and YouTube channel): I seriously have NO idea how I ran into this website. It looks so random and silly and childish... but I think that's what makes it work and teach you basic vocabulary, grammar and phrases. It reminds of a children animation show (which is how a lot of kids learn new languages without a parent's or teacher's help... I mean look at me, I learned most of my English that way when I was very little!) and, like Japanese Coach, has that "class" feel. Only downside is that there's nothing for keeping a regular schedule of looking at those videos nor practicing it.
  • Shiritori: I think this was referenced here before, but I am not sure. Basically it's your regular game of shiritori (where you have to say a word that starts with the same character as the previous word, until you say a word that has been already said or that finishes with ん) but with a computer to check the words out. I haven't played it much as my vocabulary is still too low to my tastes (and my keyboard isn't set up for Japanese yet), but it is still a cool thing.
  • Memrise: Now we're in business. This app (and website) is the thing that made me not only go back to learning Japanese, but also made me do everything regularly (both learning and practice). I heard it is similar to Duolingo, but has Japanese lessons available. It has a similar "mastering" mechanic like Japanese Coach, but a lot of things makes it stand out. It gives you more of a push to use the app again and again, as you can set up a notification every day to warn you about your time to study, set up daily goals, and on top of that going through the exercises raises your "level" and gets you badges for, say, studying 10 days in a row. Although the games are not as playful, they are pretty effective. When you have problems learning a things, you can read up on tricks to remember written by other users, or write up your own. My actual favorite mechanic is the fact that even if you master a word, they still "force" you and remind you to continue to practice on them every now and then, so you don't actually forget them over time. All and all, out of all the things I used and read, it was the most effective. All that said, I am disappointed in a few things, and it isn't perfect. The first thing is as much as it is amazing to make you retain hiragana and basic kanji, it doesn't show any katakana whatsoever (which is why I haven't learned it yet.) It also doesn't explain grammar at all, as they teach you everything through phrases and sentences (with no explanation besides the meaning of individual words). The other thing is that some very good available mechanics, including video learning (shows you native speakers speak the phrases you're learning), relearning difficult words and speed practicing, are reserved to that "premium" version, which is a very expensive prescription (ie. full price of 85$/year.) One little thing that annoys me is it doesn't ask you to practice on pronunciation or hand writing (just comprehension and typing-writing) but that isn't too bad.
  • Learn Japanese To Survive! Hiragana Battle: A Steam game I picked up on curiosity and because it is pretty cheap. Through a nice simple storyline, it teaches you hiragana through lessons which after you apply on a small basic quiz... and then to old-school Final Fantasy battles! Although when I played it I was at the point I already learned hiragana, I thought it was an interesting way to learn. Plus, one thing that surprised me, is that of all the sources I've tried, this is the only one that actually asks me to both take physical, paper notes during the lessons AND to practice my writing! (I was very horrible at it, but it made me realize that I'll may want those papers with the characters put as faded dotted lines in the future.)

Hope this will help someone in the future Now off I go back to studying!
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Old 03-06-2017, 10:01 PM   #457
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In 2015, I flirted with the idea of taking the N2 but ended up not registering for the exam because of prior obligations that autumn. Last year, the same flirtation arose -- and this time, I determined to make good on it. I quickly decided that I would prefer to sit the N3 first. It would help serve as a diagnostic tool, and given the horror stories I'd read about online, not to mention my own difficulties with the N2 practice tests, I could avoid wasting years sitting an N2 I'm not ready to take were my level more deteriorated than I realized.

Signing up for the N3 was first and foremost a motivator. I used my registration to get myself to formally review material I've sat on for nearly 10 years. I used the looming "threat" of the exam, and the very real payment of $60 to register and an additional $60 to make the trip to Chicago and back, as a sort of "fire" lit under my own ass to get me to study seriously. It was exactly what the doctor ordered. For the first time since 2007, I formally studied Japanese rather than casually absorbing it. It felt really nice. It was hard, satisfying work.

I ended up studying for the months of October and parts of November. The exam was on December 4, the first Sunday of the month. Because of the short time window, my thoroughness, and a few other factors, I was actually not able to complete all of what I would have liked to have reviewed before exam day. (As we speak, after a three-month sabbatical, I am working on and have been working over the past week towards completing this.) But I did make fairly good progress. And like I said: the effort I put in was very satisfying.

You can find an explanation of the JLPT exam levels here. The scoring for the 2017 JLPT N3 was such that a passing score for each section was 19/60 and a passing score for the exam overall was a 95/180. You can read more about scoring here.

If you have any questions, either about the exam itself or about my studying regimen, feel free to ask. For now, I'll wrap this post up by saying that my next goal is the N2. This is "the big one," the one that really makes a difference on your resume. The N3 is like "Oh that's nice, dear," but the N2 is what gets you hired as a translator for a Japanese or American corporation with ties to the other country. Anecdote pulled from my own life: a friend's friend applied for a job with Subaru here in Lafayette and they told her she needed to get certified for the N2. She signed up for the exam, she passed, she re-applied, and they hired her within the week. My personal hope is that with an N2 certification I can possibly open some doors within my own fields of interest.
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Old 03-07-2017, 03:45 PM   #458
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Oh daaam, congrats Talon! ^^
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Old 03-08-2017, 07:22 AM   #459
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I took N2 a couple years ago - I managed to do pretty well on everything except the listening, which is why I ended up flunking despite a pretty good score overall.

Don't ignore listening kids.
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Old 04-01-2017, 10:18 AM   #460
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隣の花は赤い (tonari no hana wa akai, lit. "the neighbor's flowers are red" / "the flowers next door are red") is the Japanese version of the English saying, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."
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Old 04-02-2017, 10:45 AM   #461
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I was explaining 思う "to think; to believe" vs. 考える "to think" to a coworker yesterday, shortly followed by 思う vs. 信じる "to believe [in]". He remarked that it was difficult to wrap his brain around how a language could have more than one verb for thinking or for belief.

Unrelated to this conversation, I was just now looking up a particular application of the verb kakeru that was new to me and was reminded, courtesy of WWWJDIC, just how many definitions there are for kakeru, both in the sense of "we have multiple different words for the same homophone" and in the sense of "even within a given spelling we have so many different definitions." Observe:


(Click for full size)


Spellings 駆ける, 掛ける, and (as a boy's name) 翔 I would say are all very common. (欠片/欠けら as kakera the noun I would say is too.) And within 掛ける, we have twenty-four different applications in the Japanese language, applications many of which would be covered by different words in English. You "hang" a picture, you "hoist" a sail. Things "take" time, they "cost" money. You "make" or "place" a phone call, you "fasten" a lock, you "sprinkle" sand ...

I had forgotten just how many different applications kakeru takes in Japanese. It's a bit nuts, honestly. And it's a good case study for second-language acquisition when looking at the Japanese native speaker who acquires English as a second language. Having to go from, in your native tongue, one word which covers aaaaaaall these bases to having to go to 24+ different verbs and having to keep straight in which scenarios you use which ones ... Man!
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Old 04-02-2017, 01:37 PM   #462
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It does sound intimidating having to learn a whole new set of words just to eg speak formally vs speak casually. In English, you speak the same way formally as you do casually except you stop saying "dude" and "fuckin".
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Old 05-01-2017, 01:18 AM   #463
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Conjugate help?

The line in GaoGaiGar, to my ear sounds like:

"Niseimono ni wa nakete honmono ni wa aru mono."
"Sore wa"
"Yuusha no akashi da!"

...

"No fake possesses that which makes the real thing real."
"That is"
"The proof of a hero!"

...

"nakete" isn't a word a recognize. For some reason I want to think of it as a contraction of naka de, with "naka" meaning "inside". But that might be the wrong way of looking at it. I still am bad at Japanese grammar, so listening to lines like this is how I try to get better.

Granted I'm not sure "nakete" is correct. The vowel is silent. It just comes across as "nakde" or "nakte".
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Old 05-01-2017, 12:13 PM   #464
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
"Niseimono ni wa nakete honmono ni wa aru mono."
Nisemono and nakute. It's the linked clause form of ない, "not [being, existing; having]".

Using a basic い adjective in 青い aoi "blue", I'll explain:
  • 青い aoi is the adjective
  • 青く aoku is the adverb
  • 青くて aokute is the adjective in a string
"It's blue. It's big. It's new." 青い。大きい。新しい。
"It's blue, big, and new." 青くて、大きくて、新しい。

The て form allows you to form strings, as in English, rather than having to awkwardly produce a series of short independent sentences.

But it can also be thought of here as permitting you to string clauses. You have the main clause, "Something which the genuine article possesses," and then you have attached to that the preceding clause, "That the fake doesn't possess".

て form is a must-learn for all first-year students of the language. If you haven't studied it yet, I'd recommend you look into it. It has a broad range of applications, including:
  • one form of the imperative (e.g. "Listen!")
  • stringing adjectives, nouns, and verbs in sentences
  • as the first half of the verb in many verb-auxiliary verb pairs (e.g. -ている, -てある, -ておく, -てしまう)
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Old 06-04-2017, 02:26 AM   #465
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Want a bit of validation that my grasp of Japanese grammar, however nascent, might be coming together a bit.

俺の母さんは娘本当にです

Does this make sense? Context...

Spoiler: show

BBB: That's actually a really weird title. "She's my daughter AND my sister!"
DCD: Ore no kassan honto musume ni desu
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Old 06-04-2017, 01:09 PM   #466
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
Want a bit of validation that my grasp of Japanese grammar, however nascent, might be coming together a bit.

俺の母さんは娘本当にです

Does this make sense? Context...

Spoiler: show

BBB: That's actually a really weird title. "She's my daughter AND my sister!"
DCD: Ore no kassan honto musume ni desu
So if I'm understanding correctly, you're trying to say that the speakers mother is really their daughter. In this case, you have the particle に placed incorrectly. Additionally, you would usually just say "母"(はは) for your own mother, rather than 俺の母さん.

A more correct sentence would read "母は本当に俺の娘です"

Let me know if I misinterpreted what you were trying to say, though!
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Old 08-29-2017, 09:07 AM   #467
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I'm trying to write a rhyming, accurate "Yuusha-Oh Tanjou" translation. There's a bit of a problem.

One line:

今だ! 超人合体だ!

超人合体 sure looks like "superhuman fusion". Not "super human, combine", although I'm not sure if this is an intentionally vague part of Japanese that can't be visualized, or it's missing a period there to really emphasize the noun in the sentence.

In the song itself, it sounds like IMA DA. CHOUJIN. GATTAI DA. Lyrics can stretch sentences out though, so I don't know.

Am I fine translating this either way?
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Old 08-29-2017, 04:28 PM   #468
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I would lean towards "superhuman fusion" if I wasn't given any context but I could see it being parsed the second way with the right context.
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Old 09-12-2017, 07:26 PM   #469
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The 2017 JLPT will be held in North America on December 3, 2017. The American Association of Teachers of Japanese, or AATJ, has a website for Americans wanting to take the JLPT. I am certain that Canada and other countries have similar organizations who provide similar resources to help prospective test takers.


No point in keeping it a secret: I've gone ahead and registered for the N2. I do not expect that I will pass, but for me the motivations for taking the exam are similar to what they were before with the N3. External assessment of proficiency. Proverbial "fire under my ass" / "carrot on a stick". Studying for true fluency anyway and so why not stop along the way to take the test. This year, though, attaches a rather meaningful bonus. I can discuss that more later in the event that I do pass.

In the United States, registration costs $60 non-refundable. You then have to factor in travel expenses as well. Registration closes towards the end of the month (September 29 @ 9:00 PM Eastern Time), so you still have several weeks to consider if you're on the fence. There are many good arguments against taking an exam like this. There are also good arguments for taking it. Consider your individual circumstances and decide accordingly.
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Old 09-13-2017, 07:02 PM   #470
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Why am I subscribed to this thread...
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Old 10-24-2017, 11:05 PM   #471
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I'd like to know the story behind 即席 sokuseki. It translates to "extempore; impromptu; improvised; ad-lib; off-the-cuff" in English, but with the two characters that comprise it being 即 "instant" and 席 "seat", I feel like there has to be a story there. Google was unhelpful; I found someone asking for the etymology and being redirected to the etymology of the English loanword インスタント instead. Other pages merely provided definitions, not etymologies. (FWIW, searched for 即席 語源.)
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Old 10-25-2017, 02:39 PM   #472
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So I've wanted a good Japanese etymology reference for some time, but it seems that the only real good one is a large reference book that only exists in print (日本語源大辞典). I wanted to see if I could find it in Japan but physical copies are kind of pricey and it would have been hard to transport, so I never did get one. There is, however, apparently a copy in a library at Harvard (I'm in Boston now for those who don't know), which I might try to get my hands on, so perhaps I can get you a satisfactory answer?

EDIT: This is proving a bit harder than I thought but I do want to get access to this book - stay tuned.
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Old 11-01-2017, 04:47 PM   #473
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Do you know how old the word is? The only context I know of for "seat" in terms of the translations you listed is the phrase "to fly by the seat of one's pants," or to make something up as you go along. It's a long shot, but hey there's the word.
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Old 12-03-2017, 10:43 PM   #474
Talon87
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Took the 2017 JLPT N2 today. Perhaps more details later, but for right now before I forget: my two favorite reading sections from this year's exam.

1. 3rd grader Shōta writes in to a children's magazine asking why it is that birds can fly yet humans can't. Japanese Beakman writes back, explaining the significance of birds' weight-to-size ratio; he also explains that even if we were to give humans artificial wings that could account for our body mass and size and were proportional to that of birds the wings would have to be as long as three buses lined up end to end and this presents its own fair share of physics problems for the human.

2. An (iirc) art student explains, by means of sharing with us his own tale of discovery, why it is that you can erase pencil normally but you can't erase it once it's been traced over with pen.

I really enjoyed these reading sections. Both the practice exam and the real exam that I took last year had at least one or two really amusing reading sections, and I am glad to see that the tradition continued on this year's N2. I only wish that more standardized tests' reading sections were as interesting, and that the JLPT's listening section could have as interesting of conversations as the reading section has essays.
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Old 12-05-2017, 02:34 PM   #475
Talon87
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スモモ (李) sumomo = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_salicina
ume = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_mume

"Most of the fresh plums sold in North American supermarkets are Prunus salicina cultivars. They are grown on a large scale in a number of other countries, for example, they dominate the stone fruit industry in Western Australia." Interesting.

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Another etymology question for those who might be in a position to answer it: what is the story behind the word 敗北 haiboku? The 敗 alone would be enough to connote defeat. The 北 doesn't bear an innate meaning of "defeat" all on its own, only "north". And it can't be a case of ateji put to a native Japanese word as, despite that hypothesis working for the boku, it falls apart entirely for the hai -- clearly the word was synthesized after the Japanese received kanji from China. So ... I'm curious! Why did "defeat north" become a word that symbolized (utter) defeat? There has to be a story behind this, whether a Chinese one or a Japanese one.

I actually found my answer from a Google search made prior to posting and decided to share. From this Chinese language student's WordPress,
北 Sound loan. Original meaning 'to run away from battle/conflict (still preserved in the modern expression 敗北 bai4bei3 'suffer a defeat') formed by two 人 (人) 'person' standing up against each other's backs (see Seal script). Character borrowed for the meaning 'north' based on its sound.
Fascinating. :o So apparently 北 did not originally mean north, but rather connoted the idea of fleeing. And was later given to "north" as a character because they shared the same reading.

Even more fascinating to me is that we had a character for "fleeing from battle" before we had a character for "north"! O_o I mean ... the importance of having a "north"-dedicated character is fairly obvious: "north" has all but usurped 北's role as a character, with me having no idea that it had anything to do with fleeing or battle (敗北 aside) before today. Even Breen simply agrees:
北 [JIS] 4B4C [Uni] 5317 [部首] 21 [教育] 2 [画数] 5 [音] ホク [訓] きた [名] きら ほう ほっ ほつ [英] north
with only one solitary root meaning given for the character: "north".
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