Time to explain the previous “yaka” advertisement.

This ad is just a string of “na” adjectives with a little catch at the end… So here’s a giant word list.

Honestly I didn’t know a lot of these before looking them up. This is good stuff!

「はれやか」- 「晴れやか」- “Radiant” or “Bright”, as in 「晴れやかな顔」, for a “bright face”.

「しとやか」- “grace” or “modest”. There is an old Japanese movie called 「しとやかな獣」which roughly translates into “the graceful beast”. You can also describe someones personality as 「しとやかな性格」

「なごやか」- “friendly” or “sociable”, as in 「なこやかな雰囲気」to describe a sociable atmosphere.

「まろやか」- 「円やか」”mellow”, “mild”, “smooth”. As in「まろやかな味」

「さわやか」- 「爽やか」”fresh”, as in 「爽やかな空気」

「こまやか」- “detailed” or “warm”, as in 「こまやかな愛情」 or 「こまやかなやさしさ」or 「こまやかな気遣い」

「しなやか」- “limber”, “flexible”, “elastic”, as in 「しなやかなネコ」or 「ねこのようにしなやかに歩く」or 「しなやか指使い」for someone who plays the piano extremely well.

「はなやか」- “gorgeous” or “showy”, as in 「華やかな衣装」for a “flamboyant costume”.

「おだやか」- 「穏やか」means, “mild”, or “gentle”, as in「穏やかな気候」or 「穏やかな公園」

「かろやか」-「軽やか」is “light”, or “airy” as in 「軽やかな衣装」for a “light and airy outfit”, maybe some long flowing gowns a magician would wear in a fantasy movie or something.

「すこやか」- 「健やか」means “healthy” or “wholesome”, as in 「健やかに暮らす」to “live a healthy life”. Note you wouldn’t use this word to say something like, “tomatoes are healthy”, in this case you would use 「健康にいい」or 「健康的」

「にぎやか」- 「賑やか」this means “lively”, like 「賑やかな街」

「スポやか」- This is where the advertisement breaks in. This is an advertisement for a sports newspaper called Sankei Sports. They are using the 「スポ」from 「スポーツ」 as a joke, to make it a “na adjective” like the rest of these words. There is no such word as 「スポやか」in actual Japanese.

「 ウマやか」- Same here. I think this is because the sports paper covers horse racing? (JapanNewbie pics of horse racing in Tokyo) It could also be a pun on the word 「うまい」which literally means tastes good, but can also just mean “great”… But I’m pretty sure it’s the horse pun.

I don’t like this advertisement!

- Harvey

Going to explain this one in about 48 hours.

I think it’s pretty difficult to figure out what this is an advertisement for just from the text. So let’s let it simmer in suspense.

Anyone have a guess?

- Harvey

If you read JapanNewbie you already know, but I recently went to a talk with Jay Rubin, translator of Murakami Haruki works as well as author of “Making Sense of Japanese“.

Check out the original post if you haven’t already!

- Harvey

Dakara is one of my favorite pet bottle drinks in Japan. I like it more than Poccari Sweat… Maybe about as much as I like Amino Supil.

Anyway, Japanese time.

Ad Text in Japanese:

「中からスッキリ！」

「食塩不使用になりました。」

「中からスッキリ！」

We have seen 「スッキリ」before, in fact just in the recent Pepsi Nex advertisement. It means the same thing, “refresh”. The first part, 「中から」means “from the inside”. 「中」means “inside”, and 「から」means “from”, in terms of direction. It might be better to translate this as “refreshing from within”.

「食塩不使用になりました。」

This one looks scary, but in fact it is just a vocabulary problem. Let’s break it down.

「食塩」means “cooking salt”. If you knew each individual Kanji, you could probably guess this, as 「食」means “eat”, and 「塩」is “salt”.

「不使用」means “does not use”. 「使用」is a fancy way to say 「使う」which means use. You can often see 「使用する」used as a verb. To get a little more geeky, the Kanji 「用」is from the verb, 「用いる」which also means “use”. The character in front, 「不」means “not” usually when used in compounds such as this one.

For example… 「不利」、「不便」、「不足」、「不満」。

The last verb,「になりました」is just the past tense of 「になる」which is “to become.”

So, Dakara now does not include any salt additives!

Yum.

- Harvey

Ad Text in Japanese:

「こっち。」

「おいしところが、いい。」

「ペプシネックス 」

「あと味すっきり」

I heard that this new Pepsi Nex is actually pretty good, compared to the low calorie Coke that came out a while ago. I have yet to try this stuff though… Maybe the extra sugar would help me get posts done more often!

「こっち」basically means, “here”, but has a nuance of “over here”. You can say 「こっちこっち！」to someone to say “this way!” or, “come here!” It can also mean “this one”, for example if there is a red bike and blue bike in front of a kid at the store, he may say 「こっちがいいの」to mean that he wants the one here, that he’s pointing at. Just like 「これ、それ、あれ」you can also say 「そっち」for “that one” or “that way”, as well as 「あっち」for the even further distance variation.

「おいしいところが、いい。」

「おいしい」means “delicious”, we have seen that recently on the eel ad. 「ところ」means “place”, and you probably know that 「が」is just a particle and 「いい」means “good”. So all together it looks like, “the delicious place is good”. However, that doesn’t make any sense. There are a couple of tricks to this one.

First, 「ところ」in this case, doesn’t literally mean “place”, but is more naturally “the part”. 「がいい」can be more naturally translated as “I like”. So, if I had to translate this, I would say… “The thing I like about it, is that it’s delicious.”

Does anyone have any examples of this usage of 「ところ」? It’s pretty different than what textbooks usually teach.

「ペプシネックス 」This is Katakana for Pepsi Nex, ’nuff said.

「あと味すっきり」This is written in the small white circle on the lower left of the bottle in the advertisement. 「あと味」literally translates to “after taste”, and guess what, it means just that! Sometimes Japanese makes sense.

「すっきり」is a word I thought that describes a feeling. When you are constipated, and finally, after much toil able to empty your bowels, you feel 「すっきり」. You also feel 「すっきり」when you wash your face with cold water after a one hour ride on an incredibly packed commuter train in the summer… Basically, it means “Refreshing”.

So, to get to the point… 「あと味すっきり」means, “refreshing after taste”.

That’s all!

- Harvey

Increased the font size, let me know what you think!

Andreas asked for a deeper explanation of 「ように」and 「ために」so I hit the books, and came up with this geeky explanation. let me know if you have any questions after this!

The difference between 「ように」 and 「ために」 can be a little tricky to get the hang of. In English, they both tend to translate into things such as “in order to” or “so that” or “for” and the like. I’ll give examples of the correct use of each, and then give some tips on how to know when to chose one or the other.

Let’s look at some examples of the usage of 「ために」

「コーヒー豆を買うためにスーパーに行った。」
“I went to the super market to buy (in order to buy) coffee beans”

「漢字を覚えるために『Remembering the Kanji』を買いました。」
“I bought “Remembering the Kanji” so that I could learn Kanji.”

「ビタミンCを摂るために毎日梅干しを食べている。」
“I eat Umeboshi (a pickled Japanese ume) every day to get my Vitamin C.”

The 「ために」in each of these sentences emphasizes that the reason something the speaker did, was to achieve the goal in the latter part of the sentence.

「ために」 is normally used only for things that are directly controllable by the speaker. For example in the examples above, the speaker can control whether or not he goes to the super market to buy beans. Likewise he can also control if he buys the book Remembering the Kanji, or eats Umeboshi. Examples of sentences that have “uncontrollable” clauses are introduced in the 「ように」section below.

「ように」is used especially for things which cannot be controlled by the speaker. Also, it is used when you are using a negative clause to describe something before using the 「ように」. Lastly it can also be used when the verb is in “potential” form. As in, 「買える」 or 「走れる」. I always learn better b example, so here we go.

「日本語を忘れないように日本語の新聞を読んでいる。」
“I read the Japanese newspaper so that I won’t forget Japanese.”

「彼女に怒られないように洗濯物を丁寧に干している。」
“I hang up the laundry (to dry) very carefully so my girlfriend doesn’t get mad at me.”

「パンがかびないように冷凍庫に入れてある」
“I put the bread in the freezer so that it won’t get moldy too quickly.”

「うまく乗り換えができるように階段に近い一番前の車両に乗りました。」
“I rode in the front train car so that I could change trains effectively.”

「パーティに間に合うようにタクシーで行きました」
“I took a taxi so that I would be on time for the party.”

In the first example sentence, we use 「ように」instead of 「ために」mainly because “forgetting something” is by nature something that the speaker cannot control. To say 「日本語を忘れないために毎日日本語の新聞を読んでいる。」would be incorrect. Also, 「わすれない」is the negative form of the verb 「わすれる」, and it is impossible to use 「ために」with the negative form of verbs.

The second example is 「ように」instead of 「ために」because the “girlfriend getting mad” is something that someone other than the speaker does. You cannot control (not really anyway, and anyway, not in this linguistic sense) what actions another person takes, so in these cases you can never use 「ために」. Again, this is also a negative verb, so this fact makes 「ために」inappropriate as well.

The third example is also a case of the negative verb.

The fourth example is a case of potential form. The verb 「できる」is automatically potential, so it takes 「ように」instead of 「ために」always.

The fifth example we have a verb that is uncontrollable by the speaker. The verb is 「間に合う」and means “to be on time”. You may be wondering why someone couldn’t control if they were on time or not, but in Japanese the verb “to be on time” is considered to be uncontrollable.

There are a few special verbs that are considered “uncontrollable” in Japanese, even if we may think of them being “controllable” in English, or whatever your native language may be. One of those verbs is 「間に合う」which means “to be on time”, or “arrive on time”. In Japanese, this verb is considered uncontrollable, so it will always take 「ように」and you will never (or at least shouldn’t!) hear 「会議に間に合うために新幹線に乗りました」 in modern Japanese. Instead, 「会議に間に合うように新幹線に乗りました。」should be said. This means, “I rode the bullet train so that I would be on time for the meeting.”

Another verb that is considered “uncontrollable” in Japanese is 「わかる」, which means “to understand”.

Regarding the nuance differences in 「ために」 and 「ように」, it’s a little hard to put it precisely, but if you ask me, I would say that 「ように」has more of a future tense, “preventative” feel to it than 「ために」, which is more direct connection as in, I did A, for B.

If anyone has questions about this, or specific examples they want explained, let me know in the comments and I’ll get your questions answered!

- Harvey