Chair of Languages & Cultures @Macquarie_Uni @LanguagesMQ. #Japanese sociolinguist & @Brutalinguist co-host. #日本語 の文字や #メタル や翻訳を研究する社会言語学者. He/Him.

Joined October 2019
New 📌: I'm a sociolinguist of Japanese, and I produce Japanese learning materials, slang reviews & a dictionary, and general articles here: wesleycrobertson.wordpress.c… I have a podcast on metal: tinyurl.com/ycxtueyj And you can help keep things ad-free: ko-fi.com/scriptingjapan
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Whenever people claim "AI translation is better than human translation because it's ''''literal'''', I try to explain to them how literal translation does factually NOT exist because being a slave to word causes you to lose TONS of information. Language is not linear.
Oh, you can tell how much effort and care was put into it by the fact this famous bit of wordplay at the start of the game comes across like random nonsense in English.
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It's time for the September #Japanese slang review! Click the link to learn about: ナムジャ病 ドパガキ ドカメロ デカドリンク ワホー 冷笑系 チン騎士 ホワイトキック へんふよ 手のひらドリル wesleycrobertson.wordpress.c…
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Dr Wes Robertson retweeted
It's kind of interesting how in Showa to mid-Heisei the slang for extroverts/normies and introverts were nekura (根暗) and neaka (根明), which then morphed into riajuu (リア充) and hiria (非リア), which then morphed into the current yokya (陽キャ) and inkya (陰キャ)
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New publication out! Check out my article in Gender & Language on how the gender of the speaker effects the translation of their vulgarities into Japanese, analyzing vulgarity translation in between the subs & dubs of The Boys and Russian Doll. utppublishing.com/doi/10.313…
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Another embarrassing day for a popular "Japanese nationalist" account that posts in English. This person claims to be Japanese, but can't even read the basic kanji for "South Korea" (韓国) which is in the video. It is is not complicated Japanese vocabulary. Most foreigners who study Japanese would learn very early on when learning kanji. They also can't even read Hatoyama's name, which is a fairly simple name to read for Japanese native speakers. Former PM Hatoyama is a fringe figure in Japanese politics today, with pro-Putin and pro-China stances that are out of touch with the general public, and would be cringe even by the standards of Japan's tiny Communist Party.
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It's time for the July #Japanese slang review! Click the link below to learn about... おじアタック アニオリ モテ期 シュバる アーウ タゴサク構文 びっくりした、〇〇かと思った おまいつ めじるしチャーム ゴチミヤ wesleycrobertson.wordpress.c…
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Replying to @EndWokeness
Chiitan finds him incredibly beautiful. He hasn’t done anything wrong, and he hasn’t bothered anyone. He simply became his true self. There’s nothing more wonderful than that.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈
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Not fully true! Borrowings from Western languages were common in Meiji, to the extent that the WW2 wartime government and its predecessors tried to crack down on it. This was a failure, as low literacy lead to soldiers unable to read kanji compounds, with the military reverting.
in the early meiji restoration, Japanese scholars can easily create terms that translate western concept literally combining ancient Chinese classics and general borrowed kanji beautifully. After losing the war, every new terms are soullessly romanized. post war stuffs are boring
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A great thread about why you should should be watching videos from Professor Wes Robertson (@ScriptingJapan) if you actually want to learn about the Japanese language.
Replying to @writerofscratch
Dogen translates 国際化 as globalization, so he can pretend it ends up replaced by グローバル化, but... as @ScriptingJapan literally already pointed out in his video last month, 国際化 means "internationalization". That's not the same thing!
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Dr Wes Robertson retweeted
Something Wes (@ScriptingJapan) points out in his video is that in many cases the supposedly "redundant loan words" singled out by people like Dogen aren't 100% interchangeable with existing vocabulary. There is no Japanese 1-on-1 synonym with the *exact* same meaning as LGBT.
Replying to @writerofscratch
Anyway, go watch @ScriptingJapan's video regarding loanwords in Japanese if you want to actually learn a thing or two and listen to a refreshing perspective, informed by Facts, Research and Objective Truth (i.e. I agree with his perspective). youtu.be/v14aWSPDRng?si=oVLL…
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Dr Wes Robertson retweeted
Anyway, go watch @ScriptingJapan's video regarding loanwords in Japanese if you want to actually learn a thing or two and listen to a refreshing perspective, informed by Facts, Research and Objective Truth (i.e. I agree with his perspective). youtu.be/v14aWSPDRng?si=oVLL…
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Dr Wes Robertson retweeted
We cannot consider #AI to be morally neutral. In reality, every technical tool embodies choices and priorities through what it measures, ignores, and optimizes, and how it classifies people and situations. Ethical discernment cannot be limited to asking whether we are using a system for good or bad purposes. It must also examine how that system is designed and what vision of the human person and society is embedded in the data and models that guide it. #MagnificaHumanitas
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The U.S. Ambassador to Japan's AI-generated image doesn't even have the correct year for the World Cup:
Japan’s @jfa_samuraiblue “lion tamers” are more than ready to turn that @OnsOranje roar into a meow, @usambnl Popolo. Here, kitty kitty! 😸
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Japan Forum's special issue on katakana in Japanese is out @ tandfonline.com/toc/rjfo20/3… Check out my (OPEN ACCESS) contribution on anti-katakana discourse @ tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.…
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Dr Wes Robertson retweeted
Also be sure to check out the resources @ScriptingJapan has made! xitter.cf/i/status/1531072624507…
This is true... unless you've checked out the FREE RESOURCES page of my blog! #Japanese textbooks! Japanese slang reviews! Public lectures! All free and true (you can't even pay me if you want to because I'm too lazy to set that up as an option!) wesleycrobertson.wordpress.c…
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