Every so often, Nathan Fillion throws a reference to Firefly into current show, Castle. A few weeks ago it was him speaking Chinese and a quip after it. Now, they’ve also released two tie-in books to the show that are supposedly written by the lead character of the show. And yes, I admit it: I’ve read the books. (What, you don’t read tie-ins?) I’m currently working through the latest one, Naked Heat, and was pleasantly amused when I read this line (page 142 in the hardcover):

Heat didn’t like to bigfoot Malcolm and Reynolds, but she wanted to check out the Dragonfly herself.

So unless I’m reading into it, a ghostwritten book that’s credited to one character in a TV show (played by Nathan Fillion) made a reference to a character in a different TV show (also played by Nathan Fillion). I don’t know if that’s super meta or what, but I was amused either way.

Previously I wrote about the stereotypes in my Japanese class. But now I’d like to focus on two rather egregious mistakes that people in my class have made. Hopefully other people who are learning Japanese will gain something from this (and if you’re in my class, perhaps you’d like to stop making these mistakes. Also, how did you find this post?)

The first is the use of daisuki – 大好き. Students are taught that the word means ‘love’, and while that’s true, it’s a rather strong word and really shouldn’t be used for describing how much you like Japanese food or something like that. (Also that makes you sound like a weeaboo.) Suki (好き) is a much better word to use in most situations. It still carries the same feeling of like or love, but with somewhat less emphasis. ‘Enamored’ probably isn’t a good translation for either word listed here, but the difference between suki and daisuki is perhaps the relative difference between ‘like’ and ‘enamored’. Oh, and as a side note, aisuru (愛する)  and its more common weeaboo form aishiteru, is also on the same relative level as daisuki. Unless you’re writing a love song or a J-drama, you probably shouldn’t use it.

Second, let’s talk about the word koibito (恋人). A decent translation of the word would be “lover”, but it carries a fairly strong connotation. As such, when you’re talking to the class about what you did with your boyfriend this weekend, koibito is definitely not the right word to use. You would never say, “My lover and I went to brunch” or something like that, unless you’re a weirdo. Or maybe you’ve watched far too much anime where they use the word, so you thought that was what was natural in conversation. It isn’t. In these circumstances you would use kare (彼) for your boyfriend or kanojo (彼女) for your girlfriend.

Oh, and just as a side note, don’t pronounce the su at the end of verbs. You come off as a huge tool.

I think when we look back on the state of the Internet ten years from now, we’ll remember the summer of 2010 for two reasons: the Bed Intruder and Double Rainbow songs/videos. As of this post, the videos have 38 million and 15 million views respectively, an absolutely staggering number. Now, both of the songs were put together by the Gregory Brothers, a group from Brooklyn who, as we all know, are rather good at using autotune.

But here’s the problem: riding on their previous successes, the group is now trying far too hard. In the past few weeks, they’ve put out at least three songs: one using Christine O’Donnell’s “I’m Not a Witch” ad; one using clips from the Restoring Sanity rally; and one with snippets of Jimmy McMillan from the debate for the governor of New York. There’s actually another video that they made that uses clips from a video about some bros freaking out in Brooklyn during a tornado, but it’s that bad that I won’t link to it here.

Maybe it’s just me, but the songs really aren’t funny. I don’t know if they’re just too topical, or if they’re rushing to get these songs out while the original videos are still popular or what, but it’s plainly obvious that all they’re really trying to do is get more views. And their way of doing that is essentially to just keep making videos and praying that one or more gets big. I guess to that end you’re bound to create a bunch of crap along the way, but I think it comes off as a rather desperate attempt to get noticed.

Anyway, I would hope that they stop trying to force it so hard, and maybe think about what they’re producing before uploading their videos. A little quality control would go a long way, I think.