Singularity on the Plane

Another song from Koharu’s 1st album (lyrics). This song is quite crazy but also fun.

3 new kanji:

腕駆誘

The stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 19.81
• New words in this song: 7
• New “average new words/song”: 19.33

And the words:

A song from Kusumi Koharu’s 1st album, Mitsuboshi (lyrics). Here she stars as the anime character Tsukishima Kirari. The anime name is Kirarin Revolution, and it is about a girl who can’t sing but strives hard to be a singer (she has a romantic motive to be a singer, but I won’t tell much further).

Well, I don’t watch the anime and not a fan of Koharu. However I got the album cover (with kanji lyrics!) and so thought it would be a cool romanization excercise.

The song itself is quite nice.

So, 5 new kanji:

暖匂斯溢飽

The stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 20.04
• New words in this song: 14
• New “average new words/song”: 19.81

And 14 words:

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This is from track 3 of Morning Musume’s 7th album, “Rainbow 7″ (lyrics). A really fun and energizing song, with trumpets and harmonica!

There are 4 new kanji:

眩吹繋輝

The stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 20.54
• New words in this song: 8
• New “average new words/song”: 20.04

And the words:

This is from Matsuura Aya’s single (lyrics). I think I first heard it on a Hello! Project concert. Nice song.

There are only 2 new kanji:

縺眺

The new word stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 21.13
• New words in this song: 7
• New “average new words/song”: 20.54

And the words themselves:

In Japanese, the kana ん (n) is considered a sound that can stand by itself. It sounds somewhat like “uhm”.

In normal speaking the ん sticks to the preceding kana. For example, りんご (ringo, apple) is pronounced “rin-go”, not “ri-n-go” (ri-”uhm”-go). Note that because ん is considered one mora (beat), “rin” (composed of 2 mora, “ri” and “n”) should sound longer than “go” (only 1 mora). The elongation is done by holding the “n” sound for a while.

However, in songs ん is oftenly detached and voiced by itself! This is very funny considering that the same thing doesn’t happen in Bahasa Indonesia and English. Consider Indonesian words like “jantan”, “makan”, and “jalan”. In songs (and conversation), they are always pronounced as “jan-tan”, “ma-kan”, and “ja-lan”. The same thing holds in English (e.g., “wo-man”, “ten”, “a-gain”, “A-me-ri-can”). ‘n’ never gets its own note.

An Indonesian or English song where the ‘n’ is forcibly separated would sound wacko. Try to imagine it… However enter the Japanese music world and a lone ‘n’ doesn’t seem weird at all… Two examples:

Anshinkan (Berryz Koubou): Nee itsu datte anshin shitai no yo (a-n-shi-n)
Aozora ga Itsumade mo Tsuzuku You na Mirai de Are! (Morning Musume): So donna toki mo jibun jishin shinjite GO (do-n-na, ji-bu-n, ji-shi-n, shi-n-ji-te)

Of course ん can also stick to the preceding sound like in normal speaking, so it all depends on the songwriter. In these following examples the ん isn’t separated:

Sakura Mankai (Morning Musume Sakura Gumi): aa sakura mankai, nee sakura mankai mune no naka (man-ka-i)
Lemon Iro to Milk Tea (Morning Musume): onnaji kuukan kuukan eiga no naka kansei kansei (on-na-ji, kuu-kan, kan-sei)

I’ve said that in speaking (conversation, speech, anything other than songs) the ん is normally attached. That is almost always the case. However, I’ve actually encountered the isolated case several times! Here’s one example from a casual talk:

Sugaya Risako: ma… zenbu… kawaiin desu kedo, atashi ga ichiban… (i-chi-ba-n)

Of course, you can deliberately separate the ん if you want to give a slow motion effect. However I don’t consider that normal speaking. Nevertheless, this is what Sayumi does on her radio show:

Michishige Sayumi: Mooningu Musume Michishige Sayumi no “Konya mo Usa-chan peace…” (ko-n-ya)

To finish, I offer the audio file that contains all the above examples:

n-sound.ogg (duration 1:01, 515 KB): MediaFire mirror; 3000mb mirror; Indonesian mirror

(Audio made using the open source audio editor Audacity. To play the audio file in Windows you might need to install the codecs from Illiminable.)

No, I’m not talking about the fruit…

In the Japanese language, なんか (nanka) is a filler that has no particular meaning. In casual speech, some people use it just about anywhere. It serves the same purpose as “like” in sentences such as “His brother is, like, very tall!”

Some examples from guidetojapanese.org:

今日は、なんか忙しいみたいよ。
Ima wa, nanka isogashii mitai yo.
-I guess he’s like busy today.

お母さんが、なんか明日まで戻らないんだってよ。
Okaasan ga, nanka ashita made tomaranain datte yo.
-Mom said she’s not coming back until like tomorrow.

Another example I picked from the novel “Wagahai wa Neko de aru“:

私は唐人の名なんかむずかしくて覚えられませんわ。
Watashi wa toujin no na nanka muzukashikute oboeraremasen wa.
- For me, Chinese names are like hard and I can’t remember them.
(My own translation, flame on for mistakes :))

OK, now to the main point of this post. Some time ago, I watched Morning Musume’s trip to Hong Kong. In the end of the trip every member gave their impressions, and Takahashi Ai spoke using nanka like all the time! Here’s the audio for your hearing pleasure:

takahashi-nanka.ogg (442 KB, 48 seconds): Mirror 1 (3000mb.com server); Mirror 2 (Indonesian server)

I won’t give any transcription nor translation. The point in hearing it is to get a feel about how it is slipped in (besides, uhm, I’m not skillful enough to comprehend her talk yet). Try to spot all 6 occurences.

This is Morning Musume’s 15th single. An energetic song (oh, with some rap!) and one of my favorites.

12 new kanji:

普迷宙悟途符宇簡訪嘩喧叶

Song stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 21.14
• New words in this song: 21
• New “average new words/song”: 21.13

And the words themselves:

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This is from Matsuura Aya’s 19th single (lyrics). Aya’s songs are usually very nice to hear, and this one is no exception.

There are 6 new kanji:

針激還傷故噛

The obligatory song stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 21.57
• New words in this song: 12
• New “average new words/song”: 21.14

Here are the words themselves:

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