List of commonly used words on GACKT's Twitter that are specific to Japanese culture or made up by GACKT.


Adi-OS! アディ押忍! (adiosu)
Portmanteau of the Spanish "Adios" and "OSU!", a Japanese cheer.

Apowogies すみまそん (sumimason)
Cutesy/goofy way of apologizing.  I used to spell it "aporogies" till I realized an r/l swap might be seen as mocking Japanese people.  Oops.  I'm now more likely to use "Sorreh" for both this and the other "Sorreh" below.

DoM ドM／努M (doemu)
Having an extremely M-type personality.  See S and M.

DoS ドS／努S (doesu)
Having an extremely S-type personality.  See S and M.

KiAi 気愛 (kiai)
"Kiai" is a martial arts concept meaning roughly "fighting spirit", but GACKT writes it with different kanji meaning "Spirit (energy) and love".

Over 叔母 (oba)
A mistyping of the word "over" as "oba" which means "aunt"

S and M
Taken from the English "Sadism and Masochism", but also used in a non-sexual way as a description of personality. An S person is one who enjoys teasing, bullying or pushing people around, and an M one is someone who likes or tolerates such treatment.

Sorreh ごめんみ (gomen mi)
Cutesy/goofy way of apologizing, "Sorry".

SSSSSSS
GACKT's level of S-ness

Urch ウニ (uni)
A groaning sound made in confusion.  The Japanese word used, uni is also the word for sea urchin.  According to GACKT, it's the sound you make when your brain goes squishy like a sea urchin.

Well then それ蛇 (sore ja)
A mistyping of "sore ja" ("well then").  "Ja" is written with the kanji for "snake".  Probably done unintentionally at first, but is now a standard farewell from GACKT.  

I've been getting a lot of PMs and emails lately, so I thought I'd write a bit of a post to clear up some common questions.  (Also guys I kind of suck at answering messages soooooorrrry T__T).


( How do I contact you? )

( Can I friend you?/ Can we be friends? )

( Can I repost (translation)? )

( Can I use (translation) to make subtitles? )

( Can we meet in real life? )

( Can you upload/share _________? )

( Can you translate/sub (video)? )

( Can you translate (song)? )

( Can you translate (article/interview/text)? )

EDIT:  Feel free to ask any other questions in the comments, if you have them ^^ 


EDIT JAN 2012


( GACKT didn't reply to my tweet/email! Why? How do I get him to reply? )


( I have a question about GACKT that is not related to a translation or event report in your journal (about merchandise, tour dates, personal opinions and information, etc) )

Okay, so I've been meaning to do this since excused_early posted this entry.  I think most of what I'm about to say I've said before in various places, but I guess it doesn't hurt to put it all together in a readable format.

I personally believe that number of years spent studying Japanese can be quite misleading, obviously there are huge differences between, for example "living in Japan for 3 years (possibly fluent)," "having a 3 year degree in Japanese (intermediate, assuming no time actually spent in Japan)" and "self- studying for one hour on Sundays for 3 years (high-beginner)".  Also, my own path to learning Japanese has been rather meandering, including long periods where I learned hardly anything.

Anyway, it has been about 14 years since I learned my first few words of Japanese (late 1998-ish).  However, I tend to describe myself as having the equivalent of 4 years of college study + 1.5 years living in Japan. 



( A detailed description of my current level )



A break down of the time I have spent learning Japanese would be as follows:

( Amaia's Japanese Timeline )



This brings me to another topic- people who ask "How did you learn Japanese?" or even, "Teach me Japanese," seemingly under the assumption that, because I know Japanese, I must know some 'secret' to it, or that my method is particularly effective.  Well, I don't and it isn't.  As you can see above, my 'method' is something like, "Take crappy lessons for years on end, get way too obsessed with a Japanese musician, go to college, have mental breakdown, fail some classes, go on exchange, fail more classes, have another mental breakdown, continue being obsessed with musician, graduate, go on working holiday, stuff around in Japan, finally get serious about passing JLPT to stay in Japan, VOILA, JAPANESE!"

...I don't recommend this :/

But if there is one thing I can recommend, it's good old persistence.  Many people underestimate the time and effort it takes to learn a language by a factor of 100.  It is thought to take approximately 10,000 hours of exposure to a language to learn it fluently, yet many people do a few months of classes or self study (~100 hours) and wonder what they're doing wrong.  Even if you do a three year degree AND do the recommended amount of time of outside class study (=nobody ever), you would still only have about 1,500 hours under your belt.

Anyway, this post is already MONSTROUS, so I won't go into what I would recommend for learning Japanese from scratch.  I'll just leave you with a few links that probably explain it better than I could:
All Japanese All The Time - the god of learning Japanese.  His exact method might be too extreme for some, and his writing style/sense of humor might not be for others, but even picking and choosing bits of this can help, and I find his motivational posts enjoyable.
AntiMoon - Technically for people learning English, this site inspired AJATT, and explains the method in a more serious, straightforward manner.
This Lifehacker article is short, but outlines a very similar method. 

Arghghghghgffahsdgfksh.  This is the most trouble a song has given me in a while.  Obscure words, obscure kanji, run on sentences, missing/implied words, etc, etc.  I'm still not happy with the last line but it has me stumped for now.

Also I couldn't find the lyrics online so I transcribed them from the video itself only to find them already typed as soon as I was done.  fffff-

ANYWAY.  This video has been making the rounds, as a recording by Vocaloid cover artist Pokota attempting to sound like GACKT.  YMMV on how much he does, but it's a pretty cool song anyway.  Sounds kind of GACKT in the verses and Malice Mizer in other parts.  The video can be found here if you have a NicoNico account.  If you don't, here might work, or you'll have to settle for the Vocaloid/Hatsune Miku version here.



( Original + romaji )



( Translation + notes )

Full of silly today!



( Read more... )

Unfortunately the touch pad on my MacBook has died rendering it useless.  I have ordered a mouse which should arrive in a day or two, but until then I only have an iPod touch to work with so I won't be making many posts. I managed to get this one done with some difficulty before the touchpad stopped working completely (though it was a pain in the ass since it kept making random inputs, highlighting chunks of text and closing windows on me). 


( Read more... )

( Stuff! )


Final score:
Done: 3 
In progress: 6 
Failed: 1 
Not Started: 1

Not bad?

So happy to hear from him I don't even care that he posted right when I was about to sleep xD

http://yellowfriedchickenz.com/blog/articles/2466/



( Read more... )

Anyway, I am currently living/working on a ranch in rural Yamanashi thanks to the WWOOF program.  I've only been here 3 days but it's been pretty good so far (though my back muscles might not share that sentiment).  Horses <3

And I also have internet!  Though of course Mr. Demon King himself is nowhere to be seen...