「どうりで」

( ポケモン語 )

… You probably looked at the title and thought, “WTF?” Lol. But you’d be surprised at all the places you can actually learn a language from. I’ve always been a fan of the Pokemon game series (not so much the anime, lol) and continue to play them to this day. Recently, I got a little more devoted to learning Japanese and decided I would challenge myself: import the new Pokemon game, HeartGold, and play it.

With this goal in mind, I set out to prepare myself for the challenge that awaits. As I mentioned before, I “acquired” a copy of the original Pokemon Gold game and have been playing through it for a few days now. Because I’m not anywhere near fluency, I’ve had to stop after pretty much every word, and have acquired a list of AT LEAST 80+ words and phrases, and I just got through my tour of the second town (‘tour’ as in the old man guided me, not me exploring through all the buildings… I still need to do that, lol). With this massive list and all the example sentences piled into my Anki, I figured why not share? I’ll go over a few of the words/phrases each time, picking ones that I find to be really useful, catchy, surprising, etc.

”It’s no wonder” (Kanji: 道理で)

This is one of the first words I encountered playing Gold, said by Prof. Oak, who, to my surprise, is named オーキド (Orchid). It means something along the lines of “It’s no wonder” or “Indeed”. The example sentence for this in my Anki is as follows:
「道理で、君が喜ぶわけだ」 (どうりで、きみ　が　よろこぶ　わけ　だ)

That sentence basically means “It’s no wonder you’re so happy.” Most of the uses of 「どうりで」 that I see are in the beginning, and whenever it is, 「わけ] almost always seems to be attached to the end of the sentence.

「わけ」

”conclusion from reasoning” (Kanji: 訳)

After some research,「わけ」appears to mean something like “conclusion from reasoning”. With this in mind, the previous sentence now moreso says “It’s no wonder ‘you’re so happy’ is my conclusion”. Yea, translated very literally, but it’s only so the different parts can be understood. From learning that one sentence, we’ve been able to learn another ‘word’. Great, huh?

A “live example” of 「わけ」 can be heard here at 1:03 (or ep 179 of Bleach, at 17:45 for those with the full episode). Bleach actually uses 「わけわかんない」 a lot: in at least two of their songs, in the linked-to episode, and somewhere in the eps where Uryuu was fighting the yo-yo Arrancar (I know I heard it!! I remember thinking “HEY! It’s the line from TsumaSaki!!”.. and now I can’t find it. :() The sentence literally says “I don’t understand the reasoning”.

Anyways, back to Pokemon examples!

「りゃくして」

”a.k.a. / also known as” (Kanji: 略して)

This was presented to me either when the game first says Pocket Monsters/Pokemon, or when I received the PokeGear (I think it was the latter). A simple example sentence, such as 「新しい曲りゃくして新曲」 (あたらしいきょく　りゃくして　しんきょく), is all that is needed by me to understand how to use the word. When first began trying to read the Jero posts over a year ago, I ran across 「新曲」（しんきょく）, and remembered that the meaning was “new song”. I then realized that the first kanji was the one used in 「新しい」(あたらしい）, the word for “new”. “New” + “Song” = New song. From that, I learned that 「新」can be put in front of a lot of other different nouns to form new words. Back to the point: the example sentence utilizes this knowledge of what I just explained. It doesn’t translate correctly in English, as it literally says “‘New song’ is another name for ‘new song’”, but… it’s understandable as long as it stays in Japanese. ^_^;;; A good example sentence of this is kind of hard to find for some reason, so I’ll explain it this way: find an English sentence with the phrase “also known as/better known as/etc”, take that out, and replace it with 「りゃくして」. That’s pretty much what it does. 「りゃくして」 is also the ーて form of the verb 「りゃくす」 which means “to abbreviate; to omit”.

「とこ」

”almost”

When my Mother in Pokemon Gold first said the phrase 「わすれるとこだったわ！」 I got REALLY lost. I did a few searches, but was still confused. Lucky me, I somehow remembered playing Gold waaaaaaaaay back in the day and somehow remembered that she said “I almost forgot!”. I examined the sentence a bit more and found this to be the accurate translation for it. I also managed to find another example sentence which confirmed this: 「 また入院するとこだった」, which means “I was almost hospitalized again”. To use 「とこ」, you just add it after the ‘dictionary form’ of a verb. In the sentences I’ve seen with it, 「だった」 was normally added afterwards (「だった」 is the ‘past tense’ of 「だ」, which is the less formal version of 「です」)

Last word!

「まちがいない」

”I’m sure; No doubt about it” (Kanji: 間違いない)

Our final ‘word’ is actually more of a phrase. The sentence in my Anki deck reads as 「彼ならまちがいない」 (かれなら　まちがいない）, which means “If it’s him, then I’m sure.” 「間違いない」literally means “no mistake” (「間違い」　= mistake, 「ない」 = not). Not too much explanation on this, other than the fact that right after I learned this word, I heard it on Bleach. ^_^

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I think this is it for the first PokemonGo (I couldn’t think of any other interesting title, lol). I’ll post some more interesting finds and other cool stuff next time. :) I would like to point out that any beginner can play the Pokemon games in Japanese, as the ENTIRE game is in kana! This can be a little hard for some, but it’s actually very useful. Reading and learning in kana actually helps my listening, as I know what I’m listening for when I do listen. :) As a result, all of the sentences from Pokemon that are in my Anki has the specific word/phrase in kana instead of kanji (unless it’s just TOO easy, like 「夢中」(むちゅう), which means something like “daze” or “in a trance”. It’s just “dream” and “inside”! Plus, it’s in the ending song for Shinkenger, and it’s just too easy. As a result, I have that in kanji) Try it sometimes!