Japanese Language Discussion

[TLB]

Hell yes it is. We're on a forum dedicated to shooting games, as though it's still a real, living genre.



Also, out of curiosity, is anyone familiar with bumnumba1 on youtube? He happens to be my personal hero and mentor, and I'm thinking about learning a little of the language from him for shits and giggles. And to give me some preparation on the off chance I ever take a class.

[Ed Oscuro]

A gaijin's a gaijin. The train of thought is that Japanese are immune to STDs, which is why the service is by and large exclusively aimed at them. Hey, living in a gigantic fucking bubble that shields you from reality is cool sometimes.

But they're afraid of getting STDs from the evil dirty bearded ones. I would think it's more along the lines of "Japan has a homogenous population, thus we have no social problems (or STDs, filthy gaijin)"

I guess in Japan STDs are either brushing your teeth too hard or a girl suddenly turning half into a man. AWESOME

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Hell yes it is. We're on a forum dedicated to shooting games, as though it's still a real, living genre.



Also, out of curiosity, is anyone familiar with bumnumba1 on youtube? He happens to be my personal hero and mentor, and I'm thinking about learning a little of the language from him for shits and giggles. And to give me some preparation on the off chance I ever take a class.

Don't know the man but if you're gonna ask him, learn some basics like say Hiragana and Katakana first. They're as basic as learning your ABCs, and it's annoying when someone asks for help and that person hasn't done anything to help themselves.

[TLB]

Nah, I meant watching his youtube vidyas. They're fucking hilarious and informative. He's an English teacher in Japan, so he made some shit where he taught some Japanese over the course of seven hundred years.

http://www.youtube.com/user/bumnumba1?b ... GxvUZQ6U_0

is his channel and shit.

[NTSC-J]

Seriously, that was awful.

[Animaitor]

Seriously, that was awful.

Agree, I rather have NTSC-J teaching me his techniques in the arcades than learning a single word from bumnumba1 or whatever is the name of that looser.

[GaijinPunch]

But they're afraid of getting STDs from the evil dirty bearded ones.

A gaijin's a gaijin.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

NEWS: JLPT 2009 Results Online!!!

Didn't check my personal email for a couple days and just found out now. Results were available on February 2nd. You should update your mailing information before February 15th so your certificate is able to get to you.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Here's my results:

Year: 2009
Site: New York
Level: 2
Section1 (vocabulary): 88/100
Section2 (listening): 75/100
Section3 (reading and grammar): 163/200
Total: 326/400
Result: PASS

Yeah, PASS, bitches . I'll get a picture of my certificate once I get it. Anyone else has happy news to report?

[Animaitor]

Yeah, PASS, bitches . I'll get a picture of my certificate once I get it. Anyone else has happy news to report?

... sure, I lost my job. Felicidades compadre!!

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Que mala suerte, amigo. Ojalá y te encuentres otro pronto.

for moderators and noobs: "What bad luck, my friend. I hope you find another one soon."

[Animaitor]

That's one of the fun things of being in Japan. Your boss can fire you without a single reason and get away with it, the law will support him 100%. There's no compensation for you of any kind! The "without a single reason" meaning the boss used way too much money last year in prostitutes, "business parties" and a satellite studio in LA that gives him one million yen debt a month. To make the last year profitable, he fired...

1. 25% of the employees, most of them parents with kids. You don't want people that stays with their families on the weekends instead of coming to the studio. You need fresh meat out of some school with no social life who will spend all his time locked inside his tinny cubicle for cheap!
2. High position leads. Who needs quality when you are mainly doing pachinko crap?

... lucky me, I'm in both groups.

In Europe you will get 4, 6 months or even a full year of salary in a single check from the company if you are laid off this way and 2 years of unemployment support from the government (3 months in Japan and you get half your salary). So for all of you who are dreaming about coming to Japan to work, think twice. If you don't mind becoming a legal slave and get something in return fine. Just don't do it for too long. I already got what I was looking for, experience in some wacky projects (who can say they spent 2 weeks animating Marinchan's boobs? ), videogames (SF IV, Monster Hunter Tri, Lost Odyssey...) and movies (Vexille, Halo Legends, Garo...). So time for me to get the hell out of here. zap, good luck buddy!!

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Hahaha, I thought you were being sarcastic, but that was actually good news. Sounds like in Japanese corporations are run by a bunch of dicks. No wonder nobody has time to get married and have kids over there, and they'll have to start importing gaijins in the near future to do the dirty work.

[Animaitor]

The truth is I was already looking for a job so this actually helps at getting the unemployment money faster from the government.

The reasons as for why people don't have kids here are many. For one, it will cost you around 500,000 to 650,000 yen for hospital fees per kid even though we are all paying public insurance like idiots. The government will give you back 380,000 yen but you are still loosing money. As far as I know, in Europe (most countries) you don't pay for this kind of things. I could go on and on but I'm getting this off topic, sorry.

Don't get me wrong though! I enjoy Japan and there are awesome things to do and see here. Certain things just don't make much sense... like in any other country in the world I guess.

[GaijinPunch]

That's one of the fun things of being in Japan. Your boss can fire you without a single reason and get away with it, the law will support him 100%. There's no compensation for you of any kind! The "without a single reason" meaning the boss used way too much money last year in prostitutes, "business parties" and a satellite studio in LA that gives him one million yen debt a month. To make the last year profitable, he fired...

Uh...are you seishain or keiyaku shain? If you're the former, the laws are in your favor (in landslide fashion)... you can get a nice severance package or sue the company for firing you unjustly. If you're keiyaku shain, yes, you're fucked: but that's b/c you're only on a contract anyway. They can simply state theyr'e terminating the contract. If you're working on a contract you seriously need to be getting a LOT more money and you should be compensated for your overtime. The flip side is you get no bonus, and no job security.

The reasons as for why people don't have kids here are many. For one, it will cost you around 500,000 to 650,000 yen for hospital fees per kid even though we are all paying public insurance like idiots.

Actually, no, that's totally wrong. W/ the money back from the government it's a scratch if you go to a normal hospital. You have to go to a very nice hospital for the child birth process to actually cost anything worth bitching about. My son was born at Aiiku (where Aiko-sama was born) and it only cost us sheckles when it was all said and done.

The reason people don't have kids is b/c of the cost on down the road: Daycare, Juku, College, not to mention the space they take up which is a premium.

Certain things just don't make much sense...

Dont' get me started on that one.

[Skykid]

The reason people don't have kids is b/c of the cost on down the road: Daycare, Juku, College, not to mention the space they take up which is a premium.

I thought it was also to do with a social issue, at least in part?

[GaijinPunch]

I thought it was also to do with a social issue, at least in part?

None that I'm aware of but I'm sure different people have different reasons. The cost involved is a given though. The economy never bounced back from the original crash. The bubble built this huge infrastructure that requires lots of people and lots of money... nobody's having kids, economy is deflating, and the don't import foreigners in large enough scale. It's bleek over here.

[Animaitor]

I was seishain for the last 3 years. Got together with the rest of the people that got laid off and tried to look for a way to get any compensation but checked everywhere, read documents, even contacted Arudou Debito and Akira Higuchi and there was nothing we could do. Even the accountant was laid off and couldn't do anything himself, and he was pretty much the guy who was running the company from the legal side of things.

As for the hospital, don't know how much is to get birth at Aiiku. We chose the nearest hospital to our house, Seibo I think was the name, nothing fancy and paid 575,000 yen, normal delivery with no complications (that would have made the final check even higher). You can get 420,000 yen if your baby was born after 2009 since the new government changed the law I believe, yet you still loose money.

The reason people don't have kids is b/c is not trendy. Just go around Ginza and count how many couples are pulling a cart with not a baby inside but a fucking tinny dog as if dogs needed one year to learn how to walk... people in Ginza have 0 problems with money, yet they rather have a dog instead of a kid.

[GaijinPunch]

Funny... I was just thinking the opposite (walking through Shibuya). Seems I see gal-mama every time I ride through.

>> employment: if his company is still up, you can, at the very least, be a pain in his ass with little work. You might need to put some money up though for a lawyer.

>> birth: I don't recall our final number. I left all that shit to the wife. It was definitely cheaper here than it would've been in the states, and we had a nice plan there. I think we might have made a few bucks as my wife has private insurance as well as NHS.

[zap]

Oh, wow. You're scaring me Animaitor!

From what I've heard is basically what GaijinP says. A company can easily fire you for no reason for the first two weeks, and for some reasons within the first 6 months. But after that, it's hard for the employer to even fire staff that just sit on their butt all day. And if you do get fired, you can easily sue. Looks like it doesn't work like that in practice?

For those who don't know, I've plans to study CG in Japan and then start to work there (like Animaitor did). But I've suddenly hit a brick wall. With relatively low payment I don't know if I want to work my ass off to repay student loans, when same type schools in Sweden are actually free (I applied to one last year but didn't get in). Also read some comments about the school (and CG schools in general) at 2ch, which got me scared. Are comments on 2ch usually always negative?

[Animaitor]

Oh, wow. You're scaring me Animaitor!

From what I've heard is basically what GaijinP says. A company can easily fire you for no reason for the first two weeks, and for some reasons within the first 6 months. But after that, it's hard for the employer to even fire staff that just sit on their butt all day. And if you do get fired, you can easily sue. Looks like it doesn't work like that in practice?

Sorry about that, it was not my intention. I was just explaining what I went through. I know of other people working in the game industry from this forums and their story is not too different from mine. I got some pretty hard times and also wonderful memories (you won't forget your first 72 hour straight shift ) I'm sure there are happy foreigners doing CG stuff in Japan. Just don't expect to get rich or have free time to get to know the country. If you are lucky as I was, get some experience and let it help you find a better job in the States or Europe.

A company will not lay off people based on the CEO's lack of perspective, sense of reality and whore addictions. The reason they will state on a the legal notification will be based on the bad economy situation and the impossibility if the company to survive otherwise. Just trying to hire a lawyer is a nightmare and crazy expensive... not worth my time or patience. Getting the unemployment money is already a pain in the ass!! I rather move on and find a job as soon as possible. I have a wife and a 5 month old daughter to take care of.

[GaijinPunch]

From what I undertand: the games (and CG) businesses in general are not child's play. The ceiling for pay is somewhat low (unless you become a manager or open your own shop of course) and the hours are just fucking grueling. Deadlines out the ass. You need to really love your job.

Of course, most jobs in Japan demand heaps of overtime. The contract employment setup can be better as long as you get paid hourly and not daily or monthly.

The one time I got laid off it was painless, but it was a large company and they didn't want trouble. It was during the 2003 shit storm for the most part. Got our government money, they bought back my holidays, gave me a rather shitty but nonetheless more than zero bonus for the previous year worked, left me on the payroll for 3 months after not working, and I got my government unemployment (3 more months). I even had options that vested 6 or so months later that they called me to tell me about. Weirdest thing: my group had a record year the year they let us go.

[Animaitor]

The one time I got laid off it was painless, but it was a large company and they didn't want trouble. It was during the 2003 shit storm for the most part. Got our government money, they bought back my holidays, gave me a rather shitty but nonetheless more than zero bonus for the previous year worked, left me on the payroll for 3 months after not working, and I got my government unemployment (3 more months). I even had options that vested 6 or so months later that they called me to tell me about. Weirdest thing: my group had a record year the year they let us go.

So you also went through the Hello Work crappy process... at least you got a good and long vacation. The company I worked for also had a profitable year in 2009 but they fucked it up big time in 2008 so even after getting rid of a lot of us, still doubt they'll survive, even if they focus 100% on pachinko now.

[GaijinPunch]

My vacation was 3 days. I started work immediately after: my group split up into two groups. Group A was a spin-off group of the company that fucked us (it was Bank of America Japan, btw) and the other is the group I'm with now.

There was no external help. HR told me this is how much I should get from the government, and this is how much they'd be giving me back, and this is how long they'll keep paying me. I would've rather had about 2 weeks off to play some games and chill, but I hit the grind almost immediately.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

NEWS: JLPT certificates out!

I just got my certificate today!



I censored some sensitive details. Tho, you can still see my first name.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Hi folks, I'm in the market for a good Japanese/Japanese, Japanese/English, English/English (just for kicks) electronic dictionary and intermediate/advanced Japanese study materials. The dictionary has to be somewhat compact and I don't care much for touch pen functionality. Any recommendations appreciated.

PS also looking for short story and essay collections, light novels, and novels with both English and Japanese translations.

[GaijinPunch]

I highly recommend the iPhone. There's quite a few J/J dictionaries. There's one in particular I'm about to pull the trigger on (for 2000 yen) which has handwriting input. I'll be honest -- the handheld electronic dictionary market died years ago. I can't remember the last time I saw one. You'll look horribly unfashionable.

[adversity1]

I highly recommend the iPhone. There's quite a few J/J dictionaries. There's one in particular I'm about to pull the trigger on (for 2000 yen) which has handwriting input.

Name pleaz

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

What? Really? Can I get them cheap, then? I don't mind looking like a dork too much, and I don't have an iphone. My phone comes from the Jurassic era.

[EOJ]

I'll be honest -- the handheld electronic dictionary market died years ago.

No way, they're still very popular in Japan (I saw people with them every day when I was in Japan last year). My recently purchased Casio EX-Word XD-GF9800 is one of the best things ever made. No Iphone app can come close.