昨日一日中何故お前がこれほどムカつく奴なのか考えていたんだが、お前は私が必死になって走っているところをもうすでに走っていたり、余裕で走り抜けたりするんだ。そうして私の前を後ろ走りしながら、たまに私に声をかけてくる。私は負けん気が強いから、それがすけー悔しくてムカつくんだけど、今回はお前が前は知ってたけら、助かったんだよな。

- 鮎沢美咲、会長はメイド様！

I actually spent the whole day yesterday thinking about why you piss me off so much. It’s like, when I’m running with all my might, you’re jogging relaxedly a few yards ahead of me. And then you start running backwards right in my face, and say things to me every once in a while. I’m really competitive, so that made me really mad…　but I was saved this time thanks to you being ahead of me.

- Ayuzawa Misaki, Kaichou wa Maid-sama!

Despite not bring a competitive person (at least that’s what I feel about myself), I can understand this feeling all too well. Sometimes you’re trying so hard and running with all your might, and yet, even when you’ve reached your limit, you can’t seem to do that thing well. And then while you think to yourself that at least you’ve tried your best, you see someone else excelling at what you’ve been trying to do, without appearing to be putting in much effort. And it’s not just in that one thing – it’s the same for many other things as well! It’s honestly annoying, frustrating, and it just feels unfair as to why some people seem to be so talented in almost everything, and yet you struggle with many of them.

But you know, it’s because we are all so different, that is why the world is not a boring place to live in. And as long as the other party is not snobbish, then it’s all fine. I do have some friends who are very talented, and while there are times when I wish I were a little bit more like them, I’m just glad that they’re around. Even though I may not be as good as them in certain areas, seeing them excel motivates me to keep improving myelf.

テゴマスの「キッス～帰り道のラブソング～」だ。「ラブ★コン」のエンディングテーマだから、このアニメを見た人は絶対聞いたね。歌詞は素敵で大好きだ。　

君がいれば、私は強くなれるよ。だから、君にずっと側にいて欲しい。

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さきAKB48の１０年桜を聞いた。（歌詞と英訳はこちら。）聞いた時、「あ～もうすぐ卒業だ・・・」こんな感じがあった。

大学での四年間はなんて早く過ぎる。この四年間、悲しいこと、つらいこと、もちろん楽しいこともあった。みんなといっしょうにすてきな思い出をたくさん作った。今から１０年後、みんな何をしてるかな？結婚して、家庭を持つ？その頃までにはみんな三十路を過ぎるね。（怖い！）

卒業後絶対また会おうね！

This is really random, but yesterday night, I came across this comment made online by someone. He wondered why there are spaces between words in English while there no spaces between words in Chinese and Japanese. (I think Korean too?) He felt that because of this lack of spaces, it is difficult for learners of the language to figure out where one word ends and another begins. It’s one of those things that I’ve noticed, but never thought too much about.

Having used Chinese practically all my life, I can’t really comment about how difficult it is to determine which characters make up a word or phrase. It doesn’t bother me, and I don’t notice the lack of spaces when I’m reading something in the language.

Now, when it comes to Japanese, I do sort of agree with what he said. When there’s Kanji in the text it’s not too difficult to tell which characters form a word. However, when there’s a whole chunk of text written in Hiragana or when listening to something in Japanese, that becomes a bigger problem. Sometimes a sentence can be broken up into words in various ways but still make sense, especially when the context is not clear.

For example, there’s this particular anime preview that was released recently, and different people have been translating the song based on what they have heard. There’s this line where the lyrics go こんなにももとめてたの, and there are at least 2 different translations of that line, depending on how the translator had broken up the words:

1. こん なに も もとめてたの (今何も求めてたの), which was translated as “what are you also wishing for right now”.

2. こんなに も もとめてたの (こんなにも求めてたの), which is translated as “in this manner I also wished”.

Pretty different meanings, right? If there were official lyrics released with Kanji then what the line was trying to say would have been obvious, but since it’s just based on hearing, it’s not that easy to tell, especially if you’re just starting to learn the language. It seems like the second one should be right though, since it makes more sense based on the context. Plus the first one doesn’t quite make sense grammatically, because “wish” is written in past tense, and “now” is well, referring to the present. The も in that case is odd as well.

It seems to me that online translators have this problem with differentiating words as well. When I try to translate a chunk of text containing Kanji, it usually gives me something sensible, but when I try doing the same with a chunk of Hiragana, the results can be quite weird.

Determining when one word ends and the next one starts… I guess it’s one of those things that you’ll eventually know when you’ve had enough exposure to the language then? But during the creation and evolution of all the different languages, what made people decide to put spaces between words in certain languages, yet not others?