I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. However, that was in the past and since then my knowledge of English has been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to submit some simple questions and comments about English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) to Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may be making elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

What is the one thing you hate about English language? | English Is Not So Easy 5

As a native Japanese speaker, my complaint with my native language is that it is hard to distinguish questions in colloquial Japanese. For example:

・宿題はもう終わりました（lit. '(My) homework is already over.'）

・宿題はもう終わりましたか（lit. 'Is (your) homework over yet?'）

a question can only be expressed by adding just one letter "か" at the end of the sentence. Furthermore, in colloquial speech, even this "か" is usually omitted. In other words, it becomes impossible to distinguish between a platitude and an interrogative sentence when the colloquial language is transcribed into written form. As a result, I often experience conversations like these examples:

Example 1

"宿題終わった？(Is the homework over yet?)"

"へぇ、そりゃよかった。(Oh, that's good.)"

"違う、聞いてんの。(No. I'm asking)"

Example 2

"あの映画観た？ (Have you seen that movie?)"

"ほんと？どうだった？ (Really? How was it?)"

"違う。聞いてんの。まだ観てないよ (No, I'm asking. I haven't seen it.)"

Example 3

"あれ面白い？(Is that interesting?)"

"ほんとに？変わってるね… (Really? You're weird...)"

"違う。聞いてんだヨォォォォォ (NO, I'M ASKING YOU!!!!)"

I know the root cause of this inconvenience is my pronunciation, but this is what I find frustrating about the Japanese language.

Then, what are your dissatisfactions with the English language? …Before I ask you this question, a native speaker already gave me an answer.

ghoti

Although English seems to be a very logical and organized language compared to Japanese, I was troubled by the discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation. For example, when I first started learning English, I could not write "hamburger" correctly.

HUMBURGER

HAMBURGAR

HUNBARGER

(Three muscular German guys?)

recognize

ReKoGuNizzZe

(Delicious Italian bread?)

claim

KuLaaIMu

(Delicious French cake?)

My advice to all English learners is, "Buy an electronic dictionary that can pronounce English, not a paper dictionary!"

As to why English has a particular form of pronunciation, I learned that it has undergone complex changes from its old Germanic origins, with words coming from the Netherlands and being introduced by the French, plus the presence of the Vikings and letterpress printing technology also influenced this tendency.

Incidentally, English is also known as a highly efficient language for information transmission, capable of conveying the same amount of information in short sentences. At the same time, English is known as a language with the largest number of syllables and the largest number of words in the world. It is not a good example, but a person who does not know the word "nipple" cannot guess what it means by looking at the letters, but this is not always the case in other languages. For example, in German it is "Brustwarze; Brust ("breast") + Warze ("wart")", and in Japanese it is "乳首; 乳 ("breast") + 首 ("neck")".

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. However, that was in the past and since then my knowledge of English has been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to submit some simple questions and comments about English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) to Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may be making elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

Of Which | English Is Not So Easy 4

A high school English teacher once told me, "For Japanese students, English as a subject is like science." Indeed, at my school, students who were good at science subjects tended to be good at English as well, but I did not like that idea because I thought it was too mechanical.

Indeed, there is a scientific aspect to language. For example, this is especially true when I am working on rearranging sentences according to the grammatical rules of English, as in a puzzle game.

1. That house with a flat roof is my uncle's.

2. That house whose roof is flat is my uncle's.

3. That house of which the roof is flat is my uncle's.

4. That house the roof of which is flat is my uncle's.

―綿貫陽『基礎からよく分かる英文法』、p.202

But even if it were possible to rearrange a single sentence so that it had the same grammatical meaning, I think the reality is that usually one of them is the way native speakers most often use them, and the rest are not grammatically incorrect but are not used very often in daily life. According to Prof. Watanuki, who wrote the book, the first example is the most natural, the second is a little unnatural in its use of "whose roof", and "of which" is rarely used today.

Then what about "in which"?

1. This is the restaurant in which I first met her.

2. This is the restaurant which I first met her in.

3. This is the restaurant that I first met her in.

4. This is the restaurant I first met her in.

―綿貫陽『基礎からよく分かる英文法』、p.200

According to the book, the first is still used today but sounds very polite or old fashioned, the second is grammatically correct but not often used, the third, "that … in," is relatively used, and the fourth, without "that", is the most common. However, in the English I have been exposed to, examples using the first "in which" are more frequent, and I do not recall ever seeing a sentence with a preposition like "in" placed at the end of a sentence (In German, sentences with prepositions at the end of sentences are relatively common). Is this because most of the English texts I have been exposed to are taken from papers and articles for the English proficiency test? Or has such language become extinct today?

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. However, that was in the past and since then my knowledge of English has been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to submit some simple questions and comments about English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) to Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may be making elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

Swear Words | English Is Not So Easy 3

"Bite me."

That the phrase could be meant as an insult is something I could imagine from what the three poor girls at Britain's Got Talent said to the booing audience and to Simon. However, the term still makes me think of Mavis from Hotel Transylvania.

English swear words are unique and difficult to translate into other languages. If someone says "Bite me" to me, it does not mean that they want me to bite them, nor does "fu-- you" mean that they want to have s-x with me.

Japanese translators have historically struggled with such words. I was reading The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, translated into Japanese by a translator named Takashi Nozaki, when the strange word "オマンコシヨウ (lit. let's play with pu--y??)" caught my attention. The word was used only in this novel and not in any dictionary, but when I looked up the English original, I found that it was a translation of "F--K YOU".

Until now, the most common translation rule for English-specific swear words has been "do not translate directly and replace it with another swear word," but there are a few exceptions. As I wrote in the first article, there was an American filmmaker, Stanley Kubrick, who did not allow that policy. He consequently created the opportunity for a new vocabulary of swear words in Japan.

・そびえ立つクソ（stacked s--t）

・メス犬の息子（son of a b---h）

…

An unnamed Japanese person who used to provide Japanese subtitles for Angry Video Game Nerd's YouTube videos translated "mother f--ker" as "母犯し野郎," so I think he or she was influenced by "Full Metal Jacket".

Incidentally, in Japan today, more than 90% of words classified as "English-specific swear words" are translated as "くそったれ" meaning "(You) who shit yourself!" or "畜生" meaning "Beast!"

However, it is interesting to note that if it is a gesture rather than a swear word, its origin is a little easier to learn. For example, in the United States, the gesture of raising the middle finger is considered a very offensive sign because it signifies the male genitalia. Also, in England, the two-finger salute is considered an insult. This is because in the old days, brave Robin Hoods who handled bows and arrows appealed to the guards in prison, "Cut off my fingers if you can!"

Finally, I would like to talk about such words and gestures in Japan. Before that, let me tell you that the gesture introduced here is probably not something you need to be aware of if you do not live in the Japanese cultural sphere.

はぁ？ ≒ Huh?:

(from "Usseewa（うっせぇわ）" by Ado)

This is no one's fault, but the pronunciation of the English "huh?" is similar to that of the Japanese "はぁ? (lit. WHAAAAT?!)" and this word, unfortunately, is a very offensive way of asking back. However, most Japanese know the English "huh?" so if you are a native English speaker and a learner of Japanese, there is little chance of being misunderstood.

(from "The Whispering Woman（囁く女）" by Junji Ito（伊藤潤二）)

Instead, a common way for Japanese people to ask back is "え？≒ Eh?" This is rarely used in the U.S., but I have heard that it is commonly used in Canadian English, which is influenced by French. So, please ask back in Canadian English to Japanese people.

clicking your tongue:

(from "Kimi ni aisarete itakatta （君に愛されて痛かった）" by Shiruka bakaudon（知るかバカうどん）)

In the past, there was a time when this gesture was used to express thinking about something or as a way of expressing mild praise, but today it is done only to express strong dissatisfaction or irritation. If you do this in Japan, people around you will think you are extremely angry.

making the hand bones sound:

(from "Hokuto no Ken（北斗の拳）" by Hara Tesuo（原哲夫） and Buronson（武論尊）)

This indicates to others that "I'm going to hit you now." You may have seen this in manga or anime.

making a ring with the thumb and forefinger of one hand and moving the forefinger of the other hand in and out:

No insult meant, but it does imply s-

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. However, that was in the past and since then my knowledge of English has been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to submit some simple questions and comments about English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) to Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may be making elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

Is machine translation dangerous? | English Is Not So Easy 2

The performance of machine translation these days is extremely high. To give you an idea of how high it is, I have translated recipes for dishes written in English and actually cooked them. In the 2000s, there were some Japanese translation software, but I remember that they did never output natural Japanese that made sense. Such software are now already extinct, and the following two systems diligent are currently dominating Japan.

Google Translation: He is a "diligent" translator who returns the most accurate word-for-word translation in the world. While there are almost no mistranslations, he is not so good at translating polysemic words or words that he doesn't know and tends to ignore some words or output unnatural sentences.

DeepL: He is a "passionate" translator and very good at expressing natural and "wet" (at least Japanese) sentences, and he outputs translations that did not come to my mind. However, he sometimes outputs a translation that has the exact opposite meaning due to the omission and misinterpretation of original words. The potential for causing mistranslations is higher than with Google Translate. The function for users to customize the translated text implies that this software should be used by people who are already familiar with the language.

I don't believe that the advent of machine translation eliminates the need to learn the language. It is not only because machine translation could cause mistranslations. This is a mistake I actually made:

Friend: "Do you mind using your art?"

Precip.24: "Yes. Of Course!"

This is totally an excuse, but there is no Japanese equivalent to "Do you mind ...-ing?", so no matter how good translation apps you use, they will probably output "...してもいいですか？ (May I ...?)". Of course, I knew this phrase, but at that time, I read only the Japanese translation and replied, "Yes, of course!"

This is when I came to realize that even when using a translator, I should always check the original text. Google Chrome has the ability to translate sites using Google Translate, and I think this is a great technology, but the display format that masks the original text needs improvement.

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. However, that was in the past and since then my knowledge of English has been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to submit some simple questions and comments about English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) to Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may be making elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

What does "Let me be good to you" mean? | English Is Not So Easy 1

Hey fellas

The time is right

Get ready

Tonight's the night

Boys, what you're hopin' for will come true

Let me be good to you

             ―Let Me Be Good to You by Melissa Manchester from "The Great Mouse Detective"

First, this article is written by one Japanese person. In other words, I always think in terms of "English compared to Japanese." In this article, I would like to write about translation from English to Japanese, and I would like to mention one of the most difficult phrases to translate into Japanese: "Let me be good to you." This is also a song by a singer named Lou Rawls, but my focus is on the romantic line sung by a singer named Miss Kitty Mouse in The Great Mouse Detective.

I understand what she means, but translating is another matter, at least into Japanese. This is what I exactly thought: "'Let me do something,' …and 'something' is 'being good to you,' and that equals 'being nice to you.'..."

Indeed, if I follow this train of thought, I can get a word-for-word translation:

私にあなたにとって良くさせて（lit. 'Let me be good to you'）

but this is too mechanical and awkward. I have to find another solution.

In my opinion, one of the common problems in translation is "how to avoid a mechanical output," and the solution is to imagine what would it be like if the same song were sung in my mother tongue. To do this, sometimes it may be necessary to add or omit some words, or even use completely different words. Then the next question arises: "To what extent can translators be VIOLENT?" This question is still being debated today by many professional translators and writers.

Incidentally, Stanley Kubrick was known as an extreme perfectionist, and whenever he released his films in foreign countries, including Japan, he always had the translations submitted to the translators in those countries. One of his masterpieces "Full Metal Jacket" was translated by a classy female translator named Natsuko Toda, but he rejected the script because Gunnery Sergeant Hartman's words were "not violent enough". For him, it was violent not to translate the words of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in a violent way. Instead, a translation by film director Masato Harada was submitted, and Mr. Kubrick liked it a lot. Generally, in translating Kubrick's works, translators are always faced with the problem of difficulty in translating swear words in English language, and I would like to write about this in another article.

Now, let me back to "Let me be good to you". I was just wondering how the machine translation would respond.

Google Translate:

よろしくお願いします（lit. 'Nice to meet you'）

Comment: ?!?!

DeepL:

いい子にさせてね（lit. 'Let me be a good girl'）

Comment: Good translation.

It is amazing how technology has evolved in recent years. Now let's take a look at translations by humanity.

Japanese sub/dub (by a professional translator):

私に任せて（lit. 'Let me handle it'）

Comment: BOOOO!!

My translation:

Keine Ahnung.

Comment: Sorry.

I think I need to know a little background on what she said. In the film, she sang this song to the men in the show pub with chairs and beer bottles in their hands. This scene reminds me of Jessica from Roger Rabbit, the world's first moe character Betty Boop, and the greatest sex symbol of all time Marilyn Monroe.

I wanna be kissed by you

Just you and nobody else but you

I wanna be kissed by you, alone

             ―"I Wanna Be Loved By You", Marilyn Monroe

If they were the models for Miss Kitty, did her song also imply some sort of "sexual seduction", despite the fact that the film is a Disney production for children? I don't know the answer, but if so, that is the field that I am really good at and can suggest the following translation:

My translation:

お世話してア・ゲ・る♡（lit. 'I'll take care of YOU <3'）

Comment: …This is my conclusion. Very adorable.

As I mentioned the other day about the inability to support Newgrounds due to the internet banking crimes that occurred in Japan, Mr. @WolffSteel has just provided me with financial support. I would like to express my sincere gratitude.

I will continue to actively submit delicious works.

I hope that Japan Post Bank will resume business with PayPal, but if things don't turn around, I have the option of getting a credit card or opening an account with a bank that does business with PayPal. Both of these options require complicated procedures and may not always be successful, but I will try.

I know this is not important to most people, but please let me say this.

Last year in Japan, there was a massive crime related to online banking, which caused many Japanese bank accounts to review their online transactions. As a result of this, my only lifeline, Japan Post Bank, has stopped accepting PayPal transactions. What's wrong is that I can no longer use it to support Newgrounds, which I was supposed to do via PayPal! I am very sad to hear this, as I have been with Newgrounds for a long time, but it looks like they are working on resuming transactions, so I will just have to wait for good news.

Hello. I am Precipitation24. Thank you for playing “Basic Vocabulary 48”, my silly adult game. In this game, I had many important themes and one of them was “improving my animation.” In order to create animation, I had to learn a lot of techniques or create by myself, and at some time, I thought that I would forget all this knowledge a month after its completion. So please let me write them here as a reminder of this knowledge and so that I could share and discuss them with someone else if I could.

Repetitive Animation

When I was a little child, I saw how dear Walt Disney created animation. He draws each frame from scratch, so there are no repetitive or static parts, giving the illusion of a real living being in motion. I do not even know how exactly he made such a beautiful animation.

When I tried to make an animation, I realized that they should have been a repetitive animation to adopt the game. And I set the period of each animation 12 frames. At this point, I found a big problem: If I imitate Mr. Disney's works and draw an animation by shifting the picture little by little, it would not probably be a 12 frame cycle.

Piston Motion ≠ Triangular Motion

The fact that the animation is periodic means that it deals with piston motion. It is convenient to use piston motion in animation, especially in nsfw animation (for obvious reasons). However, I didn't want to use triangular motion as they are, because I thought they would not appear that often in real physical phenomena. So what functions should we use?

At least, piston motion has a minimum and a maximum value. As a specific example, let's think of a girl riding a horse. In this case, the minimum value is when the girl relaxes her legs and puts all her weight on the horse. To move from this state to the maximum, she would accelerate her hips by gradually applying force from zero speed and subconsciously adjust the amount of force to stop the movement of her hips by the time she reached the top to prevent it from slipping away. There for the movement of her hip is going to be like this: f(t) = -cos(t)+A. Yes, I used a triangular function. However, the problem is about how she would go down. When she lowers her hips, she will probably relax her legs and let herself fall freely. This means that the curve of the fall must be described by a parabola, not a trigonometric function. Then the horse absorbs the impact caused by the free-falling girl's butt and that will bring us back to MIN.

Unfortunately, I can only show one example here, but I would like to move on to the next step, knowing that various physical phenomena are hidden in the behavior of one cycle.

Delay

Let's forget about the girl on the horse and get back to the whole piston movement. This so-called "non-triangular piston movement" is only about the movement near the junction, but we have to be aware that these movements are transferred to the whole body with a delay. An example is as follows

Reference movement: the movement of the person who is applying force to his/her muscles and moving them

Delayed movement: partner's movement

If we look at the individual, we can further break it down as follows

Reference movement: movement near the junction

Delayed movement: breasts, hair

Also, this phase shift can always be constant. For example, if a person is moving according to f(t) as a reference, his/her partner will move according to f(t-α), and his/her partner's hair will move according to f(t-α-β). In particular, since hair and breasts move by inertia, it is easier to animate them by considering them to be the same as vector changing gravity that is delayed in phase.

Completion of Human Skeleton Animation

After these calculations, the animation of the human skeleton was completed. In the next article, I will explain the fleshing and coloring techniques.

Thank you very much for your interest.

My song was Frontpaged again! Thank you, Newgrounds! Thank you, everyone!

As some of you may have noticed, I made this song as an impression of the biographical drama film "First Man". I was really moved. The movie clearly shows the contrast between exciting science and Mr. Armstrong's, his friends' and family's struggles against pressure, loss and fear to be the first man in the world.

Unfortunately, I am not going to be an astronaut, but I still feel like I have learned a lot about how mankind can deal with science and technology by watching this movie.

Incidentally, I am now using a website "DeepL" when writing in English. I don't mean to brag, but I have enough English ability to become an English teacher in junior high school in my country (because I really wanted to understand the ZTV series!), and I have been writing all my sentences on my own. However, the words and phrases suggested by DeepL seem to be much better than my translations....

I am very curious about how this text will look to you.

Wow, it is unbelievable! My song is Frontpaged again! Thank you, Newgrounds! Thank you, everyone!

I wrote this song looking back to the 2010s, when some of my most favorite songs appeared. Their songs are just so dramatic! They can also make pure American, goth, and high school music. I have encountered many genres of music by them, but I think their dramaticness, or the cry of the soul, is a common feature.

On the other hand, vocaloids are (at least my singer is) not so good at singing like shouting. The simplest solution is to process the voice like Radio Demon, but it was difficult to adjust the volume in this song because its sound quality varies so much. What saved me when I was at a standstill was to ask myself, "How would they sing this?" I think this is the ultimate trick.

(I imagined the band that Luka formed in high school. Although I drew them, the face is a little scary with strong eyes, so I'll post it below the article)