00:00
Welcome to Kevin's English Room Podcast!
*coughs*
You okay man?
Yeah, sorry.
You were trying to do something?
No, no, no, no.
I was so surprised of your great opening.
Oh, well thank you.
Well, because you were kind of getting close to the mic, I thought you were going to do something.
Sorry, no, no, no.
Okay.
Sorry guys.
As usual, we've got a message from listeners.
Thank you!
Well, this time we've got a...
Mordus Shingo?
Yeah.
*laughs*
You got a Mordus Shingo?
Yeah, yesterday, last night.
I've got a Mordus Shingo message.
Really?
Yeah.
Okay.
Why do you... you don't believe me?
Like, can you read?
I think it's Mordus signal in English?
Yeah, maybe.
You can read Mordus signal?
I do.
When did you learn that?
At a school.
I mean, junior high.
Junior high?
Yeah.
Junior high, they teach you Mordus signal?
Yeah.
Right!
You were in the United States, so you don't know...
Yeah, I was in the US, so I don't know the Japanese junior high.
Oh, wow!
But yeah, in Japanese junior high, we do Mordus class.
Damn.
Like, every...
Well, I didn't know that.
Oh, really?
No.
So every Japanese... like, all Japanese people can read and write.
Communicate through the Mordus signal.
Yeah.
Well, that's amazing.
Well, thank you.
Okay.
It's not that special talent for...
Okay.
Okay.
It's just me.
I was just a little surprised, you know.
There was a class dedicated on Mordus signal.
Okay.
Okay.
So, this is from...
Oh, you're doing the Mordus signal.
You're doing the Mordus signal.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm sorry, you don't...
Yeah, I don't understand Mordus signal.
Sorry, sorry.
I have to pronounce this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sorry about that.
I'll be better.
Sorry.
This is from Fujiko...
Fujiko...
Oh, Fujiko Y0128-san.
Fujiko Y0128-san.
Yeah.
Thank you.
This should be like...
Is that even...
Like...
Is that the proper...
Like, is there even a verbal version of the Mordus signal?
Yeah.
Oh, actually, we use machines like to...
Yeah, like this machine.
Right?
But I do this.
You did it like...
Yeah.
Yeah.
You have to use the little long sound.
So, you breathe in.
Yeah.
So, you breathe in when you do that.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
So, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
I'm the host of YouTube TikTok podcast.
Thank you.
Congratulations on the release of your book.
Thank you.
I made a reservation right away.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I contacted you because I had a question.
Question.
If it's the first time a native person sees a word, can they somehow predict its meaning?
03:06
I think you can somehow tell the meaning by the kanji and the way you read it, but I was wondering if it was possible in English.
I'd be happy to hear about your French.
I'm sorry to ask you a question in a formal way, but I'll be rooting for you from now on.
Take care of your health.
Thank you.
Thank you.
About the book thing.
Our publisher is fucking attacking us, saying that we have to advertise on our social media platform.
So, we're going to do it now.
We have a book out that's English.
Right.
Right.
You can make a reservation now.
On Amazon, right?
On Amazon, right.
I'm going to put the link on this episode, and I'd be happy if you'd make a reservation.
I'd be so happy for that.
So, there you go, Kadokawa-san.
We advertised.
We advertised.
I hope you're happy.
But our book is really like, we did, we...
Of course, we are happy that you can, like, you will read our book.
We hope everybody, like, so many people will take that book.
Right.
We dedicated a tremendous amount of time in putting out the best content that we could.
We got, like, you know, we teach slangs in the book.
We do, like, everyday conversations that could be mistaken in the text versus the kind of, like, native culture.
We talk about the differences.
So, like, I think we put out a book that's really interesting.
So, there you go.
Back to this topic, okay?
So, it's over, right?
Yeah, it's over.
Commercial's over.
Okay.
So...
Okay, I'll read again.
Oh, no, no, I remember.
So, is there a word that native speakers come across that we have no idea what it is, and do we have a kind of gist of what the...
Do we have an idea of what the meaning is?
Yeah.
That's a great question.
Okay.
Was that a great question?
That was a very great question.
Like, no one's ever asked me that, and I feel like that's a good contrast between Japanese language and other languages.
Okay, all right.
[Speaking Spanish]
[Speaking Spanish]
So, we're back.
Yeah, to that.
We're back.
06:00
We're back.
Yeah.
Sorry about that.
I think the audience is like...
I think, like, the majority of the...the vast majority of the listeners forget that word.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that some people stopped listening.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Our voices got really loud, so they'd be like, "Oh, my God."
Sorry about that.
Quality, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway.
All right.
We're back.
Yeah, we're back.
Yeah, so in Japanese, if you don't know the word, you'd be like, "Oh, this kanji means this.
This kanji means this," right?
Right.
English, no idea.
No idea.
No idea what it means.
At all.
At all.
The only clue is the context.
The context.
You have to...you can understand the...what's written before and after and kind of assume
that this word would mean this maybe.
But, like, if you just look at the word, no idea what it means.
Yeah.
Maybe if it was like a...you can speculate it from the Latin background.
Like, for example, like anti...antidis...at the dis-tublishment.
Anti...yeah.
Yeah, anti...whatever.
Yeah.
Or like, how about like disbelief?
You can...the word dis- means not.
So maybe you can speculate from that.
But, like, you can't really understand the core meaning of it just by...
Right.
Yeah.
There could be hints, but, like, mostly no.
You can't really understand what it means.
Yeah.
That's a big difference between the kanji and English.
Yeah.
Yes, yes, yes.
Japanese kanji has own meaning with it.
Yes.
Each kanji has its own meaning, so you can guess from there.
How about French?
Oh, that's...it's a little same to English.
We can actually guess from...well, sometimes we can guess from, like,
"pre" something or...it's the same thing, like "présenter."
For example, "présenter."
"Présenter."
Yeah.
"Présenter."
"Présenter."
Yeah.
"Ou anti-constitutionnellement, par exemple."
Oh, anti-constitutional.
Yeah.
That's what you said.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
"Anti-constitutional."
Is that what you said?
Yeah, that's the same thing.
Did I pronounce that right?
"Anti-constitution."
Okay.
"Anti-" What was the English?
No.
"Anti-constitution," right?
"Anti-constitutional."
No.
That's "anti-constitutionnellement."
09:01
"Anti-constitutionnellement."
Right.
Ah, so there's no "k" sound.
No.
Okay.
"Anti-constitutionnellement."
Yeah.
You get the "elmo" at the end.
What?
You put the "elmo" at the end.
"Elmo."
No.
"Constitutionnellement."
"Mont."
"Mont."
Yeah.
Ah, okay, okay.
That's a smart...
"Li."
"Li."
Ah, okay.
There's a "li" in English.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Got it, got it.
"Mont" in French.
So you can kind of guess what it means.
Yeah.
"Anti-" means "not," "the opposite of," "against," right?
"Constitutionnellement."
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right, right.
Oh, that's the same situation.
It's weird for a Mont.
Yeah.
It's the same situation, because we're from all one Latin language.
Right, right.
Yeah, but if we was kind of some name of things, like, we'd never know what it's like.
Yeah, there's no...
There is no hint.
Yeah.
We can't find any hint from that.
Like, verbs and adjectives can be guessed, but...
Adjectives.
Adjectives.
Right, adjectives.
Can be, you know, guessed, but...
Right, right.
I see.
Yeah.
Right.
Oh, yeah, same.
It's the same.
Mm-hmm.
So it's really the same with English.
Yeah.
Right?
It's really the same.
Right.
So, yeah, it's the same with English.
Yeah.
It's the same with English.
Yeah.
It's the same with English.
Yeah.
It's the same with English.
Yeah.
It's the same with English.
Yeah.
It's the same with English.
Yeah.
It's the same with English.
Yeah.
It's the same with English.
Yeah.
It's the same with English.
Yeah.
