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Initial D 4th Stage comments... - Archive Topic (Locked)
Yoten:
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If you're fluent in Japanese and work for a Japanese show, then sing in Japanese.
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That would be the point, yes. Yet, who's to say that Japanese music can only use the Japanese language? You seem to be awfully stuck up on homogeneity, and that's completely wrong when it comes to Japanese culture. Despite some of its aspects that seem to point to such, incorporating aspects of foreign culture, including its language, has been central to the development of Japanese culture since the Meiji Revolution. A lot of the newer inventions, like say "chocolate", don't have a native word for it. The Japanese just use the English word "chocolate" for it. And since English is taught in every Japanese middle and high schools, it's expected that any Japanese adult will know English words and phrases here and there and that's why English words in Japanese songs are more prevalent.
--- Quote ---I would expect no less from a professional. If the people that work at Live-Evil can do a nearly flawless translation while working only during their free time, shouldn't a singer achieve a comparable level of excellence, especially while working full-time?
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I think she's doing an excellent job, myself. What you're failing to grasp is that speaking with an accent does NOT make it "wrong". Pronounciations aren't something you learn from a book... it's a carry-over from whatever language you first learn to speak. For someone who speaks multiple languages, you're pretty negative on something that's a natural product of multilingualism.
--- Quote ---Some people might find it cool, but I find mispronounced words that do not make sense by being there absurd.
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Ah, here's the problem: You seem to think that you matter. Trust me, you don't. We all have our own tastes, sure, but taking yours on a crusade and using it to lambaste someone, especially in light of things like reason and reality, is pretty dumb.
--- Quote ---You are absolutely correct. The reason for that is because the fans have been learning bad engrish from their idols for years. And I'm not just talking about the pronunciation, the logic and structure of their songs are also bad.
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Oh sure, the structure/logic of English in mainstream Japanese culture is often pretty bad (like the stuff on engrish.com), but reaching 100% perfect pronunciation and intonation between languages as different as English and Japanese is extremely difficult. I know I sure as hell speak Japanese with a heavy accent, and like I've said before -- an accent doesn't make it WRONG. Once again, that "bad pronunciation" that you keep harping on is nothing more than English with a Japanese accent born from their language system.
Oh, and the use of English words in Japanese music isn't always as random as you think. In many cases, even in Dogfight itself, it meshes and flows very well with the Japanese to form something that makes perfect sense.
--- Quote ---If you feel that her superb music is worth defending, go ahead. I was just giving legitimate arguments why there are people, not just me, who find engrish music to be silly. Currently, such people are numerous enough to fill a very large forum, but I'm sure their numbers would soar if Japanese artists decided to bring their engrish goodness to MTV and the mainstream radio :)
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Your arguments seem pretty biased, actually, in that you expect everyone that speaks another language to speak perfectly and without even the slightest accent. It's just not realistic, regardless of whether someone's a "professional" or not. Oh, and whoop-de-doo about the "very large forum"... you can find forums equally as large about child pornography. ::)
Bukkake-Kun:
--- Quote ---That would be the point, yes. Yet, who's to say that Japanese music can only use the Japanese language? You seem to be awfully stuck up on homogeneity, and that's completely wrong when it comes to Japanese culture.
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I have always heard that Japan is one of the most homogenous societies in the world, as opposed to America which is often referred to as a melting pot.
I wouldn't mind that much if the added english words didn't sound so horribly different from their original sources. the Japanese are free to use any mix of language they want in their songs, but I think a song is more interesting when ALL the words are sung correctly. The opposite just sounds stupid.
--- Quote ---Despite some of its aspects that seem to point to such, incorporating aspects of foreign culture, including its language, has been central to the development of Japanese culture since the Meiji Revolution. A lot of the newer inventions, like say "chocolate", don't have a native word for it. The Japanese just use the English word "chocolate" for it. And since English is taught in every Japanese middle and high schools, it's expected that any Japanese adult will know English words and phrases here and there and that's why English words in Japanese songs are more prevalent.
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If you're going to call it english, then say the word the same way you heard it from the people who taught it to you. Otherwise it becomes a japanized word and can no longer be considered as english. For example, the english word city comes from the french word cité. City is less different from cité than astasi is different from ecstacy, or snore from know. However, city is not a french word.
--- Quote ---I think she's doing an excellent job, myself. What you're failing to grasp is that speaking with an accent does NOT make it "wrong". Pronounciations aren't something you learn from a book... it's a carry-over from whatever language you first learn to speak. For someone who speaks multiple languages, you're pretty negative on something that's a natural product of multilingualism.
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When the accent distorts a word to the point that the literal representation of the accentuated word is different from the literal representation of the original word, it becomes wrong.
--- Quote ---Ah, here's the problem: You seem to think that you matter. Trust me, you don't. We all have our own tastes, sure, but taking yours on a crusade and using it to lambaste someone, especially in light of things like reason and reality, is pretty dumb.
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Lambaste, nice word, 1st time I've heard it and I'll certainly remember it :)
And yeah, I don't matter to people that I have no interest in buying music CDs from.
As for me, it's the fact that people appreciate the poorly sung and absurd engrish music that I find silly. And the reality is that some of these singers cannot speak correct english, yet insist on adding it to their songs.
--- Quote ---Oh sure, the structure/logic of English in mainstream Japanese culture is often pretty bad (like the stuff on engrish.com), but reaching 100% perfect pronunciation and intonation between languages as different as English and Japanese is extremely difficult.
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Not as difficult as you think. My old supervisor was Russian, yet the way he says hello in Cantonese is very similar to the way my friend says it. Same goes for an Algerian colleague I had.
One time I was saying rice in Filipino to my friend (rice is bigas in Filipino). I was pronouncing it big-ass the 1st time. He corrected me, telling me not to put too much emphasis on the g, after a few tries I got it right.
--- Quote ---Oh, and the use of English words in Japanese music isn't always as random as you think. In many cases, even in Dogfight itself, it meshes and flows very well with the Japanese to form something that makes perfect sense.
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"You're big time gambler"
"Rocket dance (DOGFIGHT)"
In Move's defense, the male singer is a good english singer. Beat of the Rising Sun was nice, plus all the lyrics seem to make sense.
However, I saw the clip of another song called "supersonic dance", which didn't seem to make a lot of sense.
And of course, this:
http://www.animelyrics.com/anime/hacksign/obsession.htm
and especially this:
"I want to throw my brain of a half,
I want to throw my brain of a half,
wanna throw it away."
Brain song by the pees
Bukkake-Kun:
--- Quote ---Your arguments seem pretty biased, actually, in that you expect everyone that speaks another language to speak perfectly and without even the slightest accent. It's just not realistic, regardless of whether someone's a "professional" or not. Oh, and whoop-de-doo about the "very large forum"... you can find forums equally as large about child pornography. ::)
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It's possible, Utada Hikaru is one of them, and there are others as well. I don't know the following singers but others say they have good pronounciation: Ken Hirai, tatsuro yamashita. It's not that difficult, and certainly not unrealistic, given my own experiences.
--- Quote ---It's just not realistic, regardless of whether someone's a "professional" or not. Oh, and whoop-de-doo about the "very large forum"... you can find forums equally as large about child pornography. ::)
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Whether or not people are into child porn has nothing to do with the fact that there is a lot of people out there laughing at the Japanese's horrible pronounciation of english. And, like I said earlier, there would certainly be more laughs if the engrish artists had more exposure in the west.
Evolution:
I can accept that you are annoyed about the pronunciation of certain words but I think you are being a little harsh.
After a certain age it gets harder and harder to pick up new languages. It also becomes harder to learn new pronunciations and get rid of ingrained accents. Engrish exists because they just plain do not have the 'l' sound and the closest equivalent sound to make is 'r'??. English is apparently one of the harder languages to learn because of all the rules for different pronunciation and spelling that exist, (although America removed some of the spelling rules :( eg colour vs color)
I really don't think that her singing is that bad. The only Engrish song that annoys me is the Sonic anime song "look alike"
http://www.animelyrics.com/anime/sonicthehedgehog/lookalike.htm
This is an example of using English because it may sound good but makes no sense what so ever in some parts.
Learning another language is made harder or easier depending on how often you are exposed to that language and correct pronunciation. What really matters is that sense can be made out of lyrics and that it sounds good. If it is so Engrish it does not make sense then that is another issue. Yeah the Hack Sign theme song is really Engrish but at least is sounds good :D
She probably does not have much impetus to fix up her pronunciation, it would require a rather large effort. It really depends what sort of pronunciation problem it is, eg Xiao and Shiao is different from English and Engrish.
English is my first language and the only other languages I have learnt are European languages, Italian and German, which are quite compatible, but even then my Australian accent affected what I said, not as much for Italian because I was younger.
You can pretty much tell how old somebody was when they learned a language by their pronunciation but their are other factors. Basically I would say that after 12 years of age it becomes increasingly difficult to learn a new language perfectly.
Within a country also the pronunciation can be very different depending on the region where you live, in Australia you can tell sometimes the exact suburb someone lives in, eg there was a lady on television who said, "he hurted my boy". That is just one example I can think of right now.
Bukkake-Kun:
--- Quote ---After a certain age it gets harder and harder to pick up new languages.
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Completely agree with that. When I was in primary school I've heard people say that they did a research and that kids that took multilingual courses at a very early age can master 7 or 8 different tongues. Kids that start 1 year later can learn 1 less, etc.
--- Quote ---English is apparently one of the harder languages to learn because of all the rules for different pronunciation and spelling that exist, (although America removed some of the spelling rules eg colour vs color)
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Learning english is a cakewalk compared to learning French :). 4 different accents é è ê ë, words have a sex, either masculin or feminin, and articles also have a sex. There is a ton of grammatical rules, I don't remember all of them, I just write by instinct and it works fine for me.
--- Quote --- The only Engrish song that annoys me is the Sonic anime song "look alike"
http://www.animelyrics.com/anime/sonicthehedgehog/lookalike.htm
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Yes I've heard other people label that song as bad.
--- Quote ---Learning another language is made harder or easier depending on how often you are exposed to that language and correct pronunciation.
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Yeah, it helps if you have friends that know the language. Right now, I think the most difficult language that I could learn is Chinese, mainly because every word has their own character, although some words are a combinations of other characters. But I'm fairly confident that I could handle the pronunciations pretty well. I'll test it out next time I talk to my Cantonese or Mandarin friends. Memorizing a sound and reciting it isn't nearly as hard as memorizing a character and associating a meaning to it.
--- Quote ---Yeah the Hack Sign theme song is really Engrish but at least is sounds good
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Some like it, others abhor it. The friend that tried to identify the words was not familiar with anime and labeled the song as garbage.
The friend that introduced me to that song wasn't into it at 1st because of the "decrepit" pronounciation. But as he watched the series the song stuck in his head, and he ended up listening to it for hours straight. Considering that this person is writing his 1st book and pays a lot of attention to his style, it is quite a paradox :) He considers the Japanese pronounciations to be cute, even though he thinks that they are wrong.
--- Quote ---She probably does not have much impetus to fix up her pronunciation, it would require a rather large effort.
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I've heard that all of the other english songs found in hack sign were sung by western performers. Personally I feel that they should expand on that :) Outsourcing can be a good thing.
--- Quote ---Within a country also the pronunciation can be very different depending on the region where you live, in Australia you can tell sometimes the exact suburb someone lives in, eg there was a lady on television who said, "he hurted my boy". That is just one example I can think of right now.
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The pronounciation might be slightly different, but not nearly as different as some of the things I'm hearing in the songs. Although Australian English sounds different from what I'm used to, I consider it to be proper english as opposed to English spoken with a heavy French Canadian accent. An American that does not know any French will probably have an easier time speaking with an Australian or a British than a Quebecer. As for the hurted expression, I don't think it would be considered grammatically correct if someone were to write it down.
But anyway, although the pronounciation is poor, and sometimes the lyrics do not make sense, the songs sell, at least in Japan, so from a business perspective, the only one that really matters, engrish is useful.
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