Dance of the flurries

I just learned a cool J-go turn of phrase from one of my colleagues, who came in from his smoking break to inform me that it was flurrying out:

「小雪が舞う」
(ゆきがまう)

Normally in Japanese, we say 「雪が降る」 (ゆきがふる) to express that white stuff is falling from the heavens. 「小雪」(こゆき), literally "small snow," apparently means "flurries."

And 舞う (まう), which means "to dance," can be somewhat poetically applied here. You can picture it, can't you? A beautiful little snowflake, dancing its way down from the sky. I was told that 「舞う」can also be used to describe falling flower blossoms. Elegant, huh?

This GIF doesn't particularly apply, but I like the Peanuts, so.

(J?)-Music and Me: Jurassic Park

Among the first CDs I owned as a kid was one of Weird Al's albums. I believe it was Bad Hair Day, but who knows? In a pretty short timespan I accumulated a number of his CDs, including Alapalooza, which featured a parody of "MacArthur Park." I actually never listed to the original song until now. Wow, Richard Harris did music?

My childhood.

Anyway, Weird Al's version was "Jurassic Park." Wasn't one of my favorites, and until recently I thought that song and those days were behind me. Until recently...

Someone discovered a Japanese version. I think it may have been Tofugu that started circulating it around the J-blogosphere.

I would embed the video here, but that feature has been disabled. You can check it out at this link, though. Weird Al's Japanese accent is actually pretty serviceable! But then I bet that guy watched a lot of anime...

Japanese in League of Legends

League of Legends is a hugely successful MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) and currently the most played online game in the world. I've been at it since I was in Japan, so perhaps about 4 years now. For some people it's serious business, and it has been one of the driving platforms for Esports in recent years. As with games like Starcraft, there are professional teams out there, especially in Korea - that is, people whose literal job it is to train at League of Legends and then compete in tournaments. These individuals play on teams that have some high-profile sponsors like Samsung.

Personally I'm not that great. Increasingly I like to read about what's going on in the pro scene, but I hadn't even really participated in ranked mode (akin to ladder matches in other games) until this year. I did a fair amount of duo queue with a friend of mine this season, but we just didn't seem able to break out of the Silver league. If we could perhaps scrape together a team to fill all 5 positions we might get further. Anecdotally, playing by oneself (solo queue) or with a full team (team queue) seems to be easier than duo. Perhaps that's not it; perhaps we're just not good enough to get out of Silver. Regardless, there's something for players of all skill levels to enjoy.

LoL also boasts over 100 different "champions," unique characters with their own abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. There are some cool affiliates and links between characters - factions, "types," etc. For example there are pirates, ninjas, and yordles (a race of short and sometimes furry humanoids). I've noticed there are also a few characters with Japanese names. Here they are:

Akali - Akali is one of the ninja characters. 明かり (Akari) is Japanese for "light" or "brightness." This may seem odd, as she is seemingly a character of darkness. Two of her abilities are Twilight Shroud, a smoke cloud which grants her invisibility, and Shadow Dance. Her name and nature fit, however. In the game's lore, Akali is a member of the Kinkou Order. In Japanese, 均衡 (Kinkou) means "balance" or "equilibrium." Thus Akali represents both darkness and light.

Kennen - This one I am a little unsure of. Kennen is another ninja (also a yordle) and is a member of the Kinkou Order with Akali. League reference sites (and a commenter here) I have read note that Kennen means "to be familiar with" in German and Dutch. However 懸念 (Kenen) means "worry" or "fear" in Japanese. And Kennen is a ninja, so I think his name could be of Japanese inspiration. Though the consensus is that his name is German, I'm not sure I get what the meaning would be there.

Nami - Nami, the Tidecaller, is one of League's water denizens. Inspired by the mermaid, she possesses the lower body of a fish, and her abilities are water-based. 波 (Nami) means"wave" in Japanese. You may recognize it as a component of 津波 (tsunami).

Soraka - One of League's healer characters, Soraka's lore states that she was once a celestial being who sacrificed her immortality to enter the world of mortals. That being the case, I suppose it makes sense that the first part of her name, Sora, means "sky" in Japanese. The character for "sky" (sora) is 空.

An anonymous commenter adds that "ka" is probably 下, which means "under" and can also be used to be "fall" or "descend." This makes a lot of sense, as she descended from the sky.

Yasuo - The quintessential samurai character, Yasuo is a master of the sword and the wind. He searches for the one who killed his master and framed him for it. Yasuo is a Japanese given name, with many different possible kanji expressions. According to League of Legends Wiki, his kani are 康夫. 「康」typically means "health" but can also indicate "peace." 「夫」means "husband" or "man." So perhaps they were going for "peaceful man."

There are a lot of reasons why I have enjoyed League of Legends so much - the solid gameplay, constant updates, amazing focus on the player community, the fact that it's free! Little tidbits of culture-influenced lore and nods to Japan are frosting.

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Images Source: League of Legends

Poor Gladiator and apps with J-support

What a productive day - first a blog makeover and now a new post! The Muse visited briefly after I read about a neat little mobile game this afternoon. It's called Poor Gladiator, and it's kind of a sim/tycoon/roguelike? There's a pretty good review of it over at TouchArcade, but it basically boils down to partially controlling a little gladiator who must kill to earn money and dig his way out of debt. That debt grows every 30 seconds, and if he can't make a payment it's the end of the line. You have to decide how to spend his earnings - either leveling up stats or putting money towards his ever-increasing debt. Damn you, compound interest. You can also adjust the number and difficulty of his foes. More slaying = more money, as so often tends to be the case.

Charisma is an integral skill for any bout.

Anyway, I downloaded it during my lunch break and gave it a little spin. Much to my surprise, the intro splash screen was followed up by little story, which greeted me in Japanese!

Translation: "Blah blah blah - you're in debt so kill stuff for money." The story, it is deep.

Ha, even Japanese ads! It still surprises me, how many apps will magically 'turn Japanese' when you switch your phone's language settings. While this may not actually be "study" per se, I maintain that it's a great way to keep your language skills sharp. If you're lucky you may even pick up a few words when you're not rapidfire tapping through text. 

Oh, and surprising passengers with Japanese turn-by-turn guidance a'la Siri or Google Maps is always amusing.

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Image Source: Touch Arcade

Japanese...easy?

It's funny how things work out.

I've talked before about my friendship with my JET predecessor, Dylan, who stuck around in Japan after JET to attend grad school at Osaka University. He ultimately decided to focus his anthropological research on Thai culture. I think this must have been influenced by his dating a girl from Thailand while living in J-Land. He fell in love with her, then with the culture and language of her homeland. These days he's semi-permanently living in Thailand as he toils away at his PhD. 

Lo and behold, first I followed Dylan to Japan, and now I am dating a girl from Thailand (alas I haven't followed him in achieving JLPT N1 yet). I've been on both sides of the international relationship before; my first girlfriend was Japanese, but since my ability was crap back then and her English was decent, we spoke English. My most recent ex-girlfriend knew little English, so we spoke Japanese. Now I find myself back in English mode. It's a little weird this time, since I don't know any Thai at all aside from a couple random words she's taught me, but interesting nonetheless.

Still, I find myself at a crossroads of sorts now. I'm not going to abandon my Japanese study. I still want to get to N1, and a career in translation still sounds appealing to me. Before meeting Mint, I had been half-heartedly starting to study Korean. I do want to learn another language or two. But time is an issue these days - there are jobs to get, kanji to learn, exercises to be done, and Fields of Justice to stain with the blood of mine enemies!

Well, I like studying and languages, so よっし行こう, right? But man, I am kind of intimidated. When I started Japanese, I thought it was hard bollocks. I sometimes still do. Thai, though! I never thought I'd say Japanese is easier than another language, except maybe Chinese. Thai has a kind of large alphabet, like Japanese. Despite its letters looking like they require a calligraphy class to master, Thai doesn't use kanji, though, so that's one less thing (or several thousand!) to worry about. But what it lacks in writing difficulty, it makes up for in the speech department. Thai has tones - the one thing that was really dissuading me from Chinese! There are like 3 or 4 different ways to pronounce "ma" - each with a different meaning. I imagine that such nuance takes a lot of time and practice to get passably good at. And yet, I do want to learn more about my girlfriend's native culture. If I meet her parents someday, it would be nice to be able to exchange rudimentary pleasantries. And of course I'd love to know what she's saying on Facebook!

And so I press on.

From the Archives: Warm and Cold

I don't usually repost old material, but lately the weather has really been making me think of this Japanese expression that I introduced a few years ago. Although perhaps now I'd translate it as "three cold four warm," as this time of year it doesn't really get "hot." Anyway, if you're living in a temperate clime and just biding your time until spring arrives, here's some Japanese for you, originally posted in March 2010:


The last couple weeks have been pretty mild. There was even a day or two that got up to around 18 C (about 64 F). And then it got cold again. And rainy and miserable. Towards the end of the week, though, things may heat up again. This kind of weather isn't unusual for the end of winter in temperate climes.

The other day I learned that there is a Japanese expression for this type of weather behavior. It's even a yo-ji (word or phrase made up of a 4-kanji chain)! Ready? Here it is:

三寒四温

It's pronounced 「さんかんしおん」(sankan-shion). Literally, the kanji mean "three cold four hot." When put into its proper context, it refers to the weather cycle that follows the rough pattern of three cold days and then four warm days.

I think it's a pretty cool phrase to know, but just be warned that it's not exactly mainstream. I learned it from a teacher that I work with, and although I tried to sneak it into conversations with some of my Japanese coworkers and friends, only about half of them knew what I was talking about.

10 Colors

Although they may not come up super frequently, Japanese expressions and sayings can be fun to learn. One of the first ones I remember learning is 一石二鳥 (いっせきにちょう) - "two birds with one stone." That's also a good example of 四字（熟語）- an expression made up of four kanji. There are tons of these yoji.

If you're familiar with the expression それぞれ, which can be used to mean "to each his own," then here's another yoji for you:

十人十色

1, 2, 3...close enough.

If you've studied some basic kanji, you should be able to recognize these ones and maybe glean the meaning to be found here. 十人十色 (じゅうにんといろ）is made up of:

十 - 10
人 - people
十 - 10 (again)
色 - color

So 10 people, 10 colors. 10 people each have their own color. Each individual has his own likes and preferences. To each his own.

Alc: 十人十色

My first freelance translating experience

Keep those connections alive - especially those JET alumn among you!

A couple months ago I exchanged a few messages on Facebook with a JET friend of mine who I keep in loose touch with. Our time in Hyogo overlapped for a couple of years and we hung out now and then with mutual friends. These days she's working as a professional Spanish to English translator in Ireland, and I was picking her brain a little about her experiences with and leading up to that, as I see J>E translation as a definite possibility on my horizon. 

Fast forward to last week. She sent me a brief message that an old college friend of hers who's now working at a translation agency was looking for someone to translate a Japanese article to English and that she'd like to put us in touch. I agreed and thanked her, and was on my way to my first paid translation gig.

Ultimately over the course of about a week I wound up doing one translation and proofing another assigned to someone else. I don't know if the agency will contact me again to see if I'd like to do more work from them, but if so I'm going to decline for now.

I'm really grateful that I have that experience under my belt. Provided I can reach the right point and attract enough business, I could see myself being content or maybe even happy doing that kind of work. At this point, though, it's just not time effective, and I don't think my abilities are quite where they need to be. The translation was about 1800 words (roughly two pages of Japanese text) and it took me about 12 or so hours to translate and finetune it. And I had to ask some people for help with a few tricky sentences (didn't help that the article was written with some strange grammar, as a couple of my Japanese coworkers pointed out). 

They sent me the final, proofed versions of the articles this morning. They made some minor changes to the article I did, mostly playing with wording, and they did take some of the editing suggestions I made for the other piece. I'm not sure how long it'll be before I'm able to consider doing translation as a career, but I'd say this particular job was a valuable experience and a success. And the extra money this month won't hurt, either.

Japan Blog Matsuri: It's all about context

Holy shinola, it's been a while since I've posted. There's a backlog of things I've been meaning to share, but I fear that time has gotten away from me. I've gotten quite a bit busier and posting regularly seems to have fallen by the wayside. These things happen, but I do need to redouble my efforts. Anyhow, moving on - it's also been a while since the last Japan Blog Matsuri. I was contacted last month by Declan of KanaKanji, who's making a move to revive it, and asked if JADJ would submit something. Well, we always do our best here to oblige.

The theme of this month's Matsuri is "Japanese in Context." Specifically I think we're asked to talk about some Japanese that was really solidified for us in a particular context. I'm doing to stretch the theme a little bit, though (申し訳ない！) and talk a bit more broadly.

If you're reading this, chances are you either know first hand or have heard that Japan has a pretty high context culture. This is built into the language. The grammar, conversational style, and vocabulary lend themselves towards subtly and indirectness. This means that without a context, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to understand precisely what's going on in Japanese (written and spoken elements with their own respective challenges). Japanese nouns and verbs normally have no distinction between singular and plural forms. Last names are often used without any kind of gender-indicative title. Subjects and objects are often implied. Take a simple sentence like 「りんごを食べる」. This could presumably be translated into English as "He/she/you/I/it (will) eat(s) (an/the) apple(s)." There are probably dozens of possible meanings for this simple two-word sentence, depending on who the subject is, whether we're talking about now or in the future (or in general), how many apples we're talking about, and whether the apple(s) in question is specific or not.

I've been thinking about this kind of thing a lot lately as I contemplate the practicality of shifting my career goals towards pursuing professional translation.

A good example of the import of context (and this is uniform for any language) can be found in the case of homophones (同音異義語). Three or four weeks ago I started taking another weekly Japanese class, and we've been briefly studying a few of these every class. Just as a refresher, homophones are multiple words that share the same pronunciation but differ in meaning and sometimes spelling. Like "fair" and "fare."

Japanese has a fair share of these that usually have different kanji and sometimes slightly different intonation. Hashi - 橋 (bridge) and 箸 (chopsticks) springs to mind. When you add 熟語 (kanji compounds), there are quite a lot of these. I think this is one of the more difficult but also more interesting elements of learning Japanese - seeing all of the ways that kanji can be cobbled together to create new words. Well, it is for me, anyway.

Things that run

One occurrence I find particularly interesting is how there are words in each language that have a variety of different meanings. I've noticed this especially with Japanese - words like 出す and 行く can be used in a ton of different ways.

I guess it's kind of 当たり前 (a no-brainer), but it occurred to me the other day that it works both ways, though I've never really given that much thought to the English side of things. The word "run" in English, for example, can be used to mean a lot of different things, and corresponds with a number of Japanese words. Like:

走る（はしる） (run as in "the car was running smoothly" or "I ran in a race")

立候補する　（りっこうほする） (as in "to run for office")

動く　（うごく） (as in how a machine runs; "is your refrigerator running?")

（鼻水が）出る（はなみずがでる） (as in "my nose is running")

And I'm sure those are just a few...

Bach

If you've ever heard the Japanese pronunciation of "Bach" and you're anything like me, you've probably scratched your head (at least figuratively) and thought "hmm, that's odd." Yes, I'm talking about the Bach the composer.

In Japanese, it is spelled/pronounced 「バッハ」. Yup, like "Baja." I always think of the Mexican chain Baja Fresh.

Well a little earlier I did a web search and found a few answers like this one: basically that the Japanese pronunciation is closer to the original German than the way English-speakers pronounce it. While this is certainly possible, I decided I didn't want to take it on faith from Japanese people that their way of pronouncing "Bach" is more correct than ours. 勝負！(showdown!)

After a few searches in English, I came up with this link, which has a little audio clip near the bottom with the proper German pronunciation of "Bach." Basically, English and Japanese are both off.

Not that I can speak any German, but I've heard enough of it in movies and such that I can somewhat pick up on pronunciations. The "ch" sound seems to be a more guttural union of "h" and "k" than we use in English. Almost a soft "k," if that makes sense. If you've studied any basic German, one of the most basic words is "ich" (I), and it has the same kind of sound.

It's not a sound we use. Japanese doesn't have it either, and so while we English-speakers decided to just go all in with a hard "k" sound, the Japanese dropped the "k" and went full "h."

Honestly I was going into this one hoping that English had it right, but it looks like a draw.

Hold up! Haf, one of our resident Germans, offers these comments:

The "ch" in "ich" and in "Bach" is pronounced completely different, it doesn't sound the same at all. I can't really describe it, but at least for a German person the voice samples show the difference quite well. Bach: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/De-Bach.ogg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/De-ich.ogg

I don't see where a "K" is supposed to hidden in the German pronunciation. It is however my impression that English speakers often substitute a "K" in place of the "ch". ;) 
Now Japanese people have a whole lot of other problems with the German language, oddly enough also with the distinction between the pronunciation of "auch" and "auf". But they usually can manage with a few minutes of pronunciation training. :)
[...]
I also believe that Englsih speakers map the German "ch" sounds to a "K" because it's the closest thing they got. :) That's usually how people start listening to and speaking a foreign language and it's where all the funny accents come from. 
Describing the pronunciation it really hard for me though, for one because English is not my mother tongue and second because I would even have problems describing it in German. ;) If I absolutely had to describe it, I would reluctantly say that it might relate a bit to how it's pronounced in Japanese and at the same time that the "ch" sounds a bit like the "wh" in "cool whip" (or was it whipped cream?) when Stewie from Family Guy says it with his odd "hwip" pronunciation, albeit more roughly expressed. 
I can't really say if the term "guttural" describes the pronunciation. I would say that the "ch" is aspirated, with a lowered jaw, a stiff and raised tongue and relatively closed lips, pressing the air out slowly. Is that guttural? :)

So then it appears that the Japanese does edge out the English pronunciation! And if I ever take up German, I'll have to work on my "ch"'s.

Good heart-ism

So recently we got kind of screwed over by Dell in our office. I won't go into boring detail, but suffice it to say Amazon.com took care of us (as we ordered through them) after Dell gave us the runaround on faulty equipment.

Today my boss declared that Amazon was 良心的 (りょうしんてき), and asked me what that is in English. I told him I wasn't sure, and he said "maybe something like 'kind?'" When he suggested that word choice, I was able to surmise what kanji the word uses, and I guess I've heard it before. I'm not exactly sure that 「良心的」has a direct, clean English translation (maybe "fair," "honest," or "conscientious"), but the word itself is a good example of how straightforward some terms can be in Japanese. The kanji are "good" (良), "heart" (心), and 「的」, which is kind of like "~ism" or "~like."

Could you repeat that?

It's amazing sometimes how much there is to learn. Earlier I was looking briefly at today's copy of the 日経新聞 (the Nikkei) and I noticed one of the headlines contained a non-kanji character I wasn't familiar with. The word was 「いすゞ」。

I asked one of my coworkers, and it appears I discovered the hiragana version of 「々」. This character is used to indicate repetition of the character before it. For example 「色々」is another way of writing 「色色」。

According to my research, these things are called 「踊り字」or 「繰り返し記号」, though you can call them up by simply typing 「くりかえし」and scrolling through the kanji choices.

Apparently there are separate characters for use in hiragana, katakana, and kanji:

Hiragana - ゝ (or ゞ)

Katakana - ヽ (or ヾ)

Kanji -　々

As you can see, unlike their kanji kin, the kana versions can be accented to represent a change in sound, just like normal kana (though the little circle versions don't seem to exist).

Learning something like this now makes me feel a little noobish, but at the same time it's gratifying to know that there are still simple elements of Japanese like this out there for me to discover.

あけおめ

Happy New Year! Just a quick Japanese post to start 2013.

If you follow a lot of Japanese accounts on Twitter or Facebook or other social media, you've no doubt seen a sizable amount of set phrases thrown around the past couple days. One that I started hearing a lot a few years ago (though it's quite possible it was a popular expression before that and I just was unaware of it) is あけおめ.

Japanese likes to shrink, shorten, abbreviate, and compress words and crunch them into nifty little phrases (NG, anyone?). あけおめ is a shortening of one of the two standard New Year's congratulations - あけましておめでとうございます.

Incidentally, the other standard (ことしもよろしくおねがいします) is also going around as ことよろ.

Note that these are casual and probably shouldn't be proffered to one's superiors or elders.

Far Cry

I don't play a ton of FPS (first person shooter) games, but some of the reviews I was reading about Far Cry 3 sounded pretty interesting. Particularly I like games where there is a lot of progression and customization. In FC3, there are level-up and crafting systems. Plus the visuals are pretty amazing (again, not usually a reason why I buy games, though).

Anyhow, found a little Japanese! One of the cars is sporting some katakana on the dash, reading "Far Cry."

Never know where it's gonna crop up, apparently.

和製英語: Reform

Another Japenglish word I remember coming across now and then is 「リフォーム」. Although from the English "reform," it actually means "renovation" or "remodeling."

Often usually there seems to be some reason why the Japanese adopted these slightly off adaptations of English words (sometimes due to an old usage or a discrepancy between American and British English). So it's possible that in the U.K. people don't renovate their homes but actually "reform" them, I don't know. In American English, however, "reform" is most often used in the context of changing something bad about a person or an intangible (like a way of governing). You often hear about reforming healthcare laws or immigration policy.

In Japanese, however, you get something like: 

その店は来週からリフォームすると聞いた。

(I heard that shop will be under renovation from next week.)

The many faces of "ki"

Sometimes getting your thoughts and feelings down on (virtual?) paper can really be helpful, even if they are kind of crazy and/or melodramatic.

On a completely unrelated note, I was thinking that it's about time for me to write up a post on 気 (ki).

気 can be translated in a number of different ways, depending on its usage - spirit, energy, life force, mood, etc. Just as the word itself has several meanings, so is it used in a ton of different expressions. So many, in fact, that I'm not going to attempt to list them all. I did want to jot down a few of the more commonly-used ones, however. And then if any of you have any favorites that I haven't mentioned, I invite you to share them in the comments.

1. 気をつける - 「きをつけて！」is an oft-used expression telling someone to be careful or to take care. You'll often hear it used when parting from a group of friends (or maybe coworkers after a drinking party) in the evening. Kind of like saying "Have a safe trip home!"


2. 気がつく - to notice. Sometimes this one can be used in one of the same ways as わかる. If you're not so observant, you'll want to condition your tongue to saying 「気がつかなかった」.

例：飲み放題は、いくら？値段気つかなかったんだ。
Ex: How much is all you can drink? I didn't notice a price.


3. 気がする - to have a feeling about something or to feel ~. I didn't start noticing this one until recently for some reason, and I get the feeling its usage is a little more broad than simply to "feel." Still, that seems to be the primary use.

例：俺は負ける気がするな。
Ex: I have a feeling I'm gonna lose.


4. 気になる - to be on one's mind or to be anxious about. This is also one feel I've not employed to the fullness of its potential. You can use it to say that you're interested in something (or someone) or that you're worried or uneasy about something.

例：そのレストタンはいつも通ってるけど行ったことないから最近気になってる。
Ex: Recently I've been interested in that restaurant since I always pass by it but have never been there.


So how about it? There are plenty more 「気」 phrases out there. What are some other good ones?

Let's Enjoy Japanese: Fail

Watching Game Center CX, it's not uncommon to hear Arino laugh in frustration and moan 「もううう」or exclaim「やられた!」. Another one, similar to 「やられた」in some ways, is 「まいった（な）!」.

参った (まいった) means something like "I lose" or "I've been beaten." If you're thinking in terms of current slang, it might be close to how the young folks these days use "fail." Interestingly, 「参る」 is also 謙譲語 (humble form, usually used along with keigo) for "to go" or "to come," but it also can be used to mean " to be overwhelmed," "to be defeated," etc.

I think I've also heard this one used in my Japanese lesson DS game, where the girl will say 「まいったなぁ」sometimes if you get an answer wrong. I'd be willing to bet that it's used fairly often in anime, as well. Below are some more examples of natural usage:

First off, here we have a blog entry posted by someone whose computer appears to have crapped out on him. He tried restarting it several times, but to no avail. If the system restore doesn't work, he is completely out of luck. Fail.

Next up, a commercial for Boss coffee that couldn't be embedded here, so all I have for you is this lousy link. Basically you have a salaryman who looks to be low on sleep (and the lyrics of the song in the background indicate so), but that won't discourage him from getting to work like he does everyday. Hey, when life is a fail, at least there is Boss coffee.

Last, here's one more video for you. Some guy opens up his bento to find that his egg...well, just play it and see. Not a big deal, but still an egg fail of sorts.



Anyone else have any good examples of 参った?

Let's Enjoy Japanese: What's in a name?

There's a post over at Tofugu today about country names in Japanese. This got me thinking about when I used to play a certain "game" for DS that's basically a Japanese dictionary with some quizzes and such built in. Some of the quizzes ask you to write the kanji linked to certain countries (e.g. 日 is often used for Japan). I remember being struck by this; at the time I didn't realize that many countries have alternate names in Japanese. As I encountered them, they seemed to me like little secret pearls of knowledge that would elevate me from novice to...I don't know, a master of Japanese national nomenclature?

As it turns out, I don't think these alternate names are encountered all that much, but they can certainly help depending on what you're reading. I've come across some of these in newspapers and online publications.

By this point you may be wondering what I'm talking about exactly. Well, as you probably know, the Chinese language uses kanji exclusively. And some of the Chinese names for countries were carried over into Japanese. Over time, however, these Chinese names have come to often be abbreviated in Japanese; reduced to one or two characters to indicate a particular nation or culture. Here's a partial list (link from Tofugu).

As Hashi notes in his piece at Tofugu, these days country names are most often written in katakana. However, there are cases where the kanji are used, especially in 熟語 (じゅくご, kanji compounds).

For those who understand are confident enough in their Japanese, there is a pretty comprehensive list on Wikipedia. But a few are (these are the abbreviated names, not the long Chinese ones):

The United States - 米国 (べいこく) - literally "rice country."

France - 仏国 (ふっこく; though my Japanese input won't even recognize that to convert to kanji) - literally Buddhist or "saint-like" country.

Italy - 伊 - (い) - although I suspect this must have some other meaning, according to my searches, this kanji is used pretty exclusively to mean "Italty"

Germany - 独国　(どくこく) - according to Wikipedia, 独 was converted from 徳 in Chinese. Literally Germany was/is called "virtuous country."

The Netherlands - 蘭 (らん) - "orchid."

Although it seems to often take some research to find out what the original intentions behind some of these names were (if it is even known), it's pretty cool to see how some of these countries are named. "Virtuous country" and "rice country" for example. Of course in many cases these are just cut down versions and abbreviations of longer names, so perhaps they are just nonsense at this point...

I think if you notice these, they will often be in compounds. One that is used quite often in newspapers is 日米関係 (にちべいかんけい), which means "Japan-America relations."

For those of you familiar with these, any favorites or others you'd like to share?

Kotowaza #2: You only live once

Ok, so I'm not quite sure whether this one is so much a 諺 (proverb or saying) as much as a popular 表現 (expression). But I'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt because either way it's one that you may actually hear used a fair amount in real life:

一期一会

（いちごいちえ）

いちごいちえ is a phrase I've heard especially often around adventurous, younger people. I think it gets kind of cliche and overused, but it's a great expression to throw into an enkai (drinking party) speech to impress an unsuspecting group of Japanese people.

Actually, Yoshie likes this one quite a bit and I think her former blog was called 一期一会.

Anyway, when you break apart the two pieces of this four-character construct, you have 一期 (lifetime or one's life) and  一会 （one encounter). The ALC rendering of the phrase is "Treasure every encounter, for it will never recur." That is the basic sentiment of the expression, but not quite as catchy and concise in English as it is in Japanese. While the literal meaning is a little different, I think the closest thing we have is "You only live once."