bakerstreet | I need to know.

You think so?

What language you wanna learn?

I'm not picky. Any language would help me explore new places.

I’d offer Japanese, but maybe y’should try somethin’ closer to English? You’ll probably pick up French, Spanish, or even German pretty easily!

I already know French, Swahili, as well as a little Spanish and Portuguese. I could stand to know more Spanish, but another language would broaden my horizons even more.

[An impressed whistle!]

That's quite the repertoire! You travel a lot for business or pleasure?

Business, but that's not why I know most of those languages. It's why I picked up as much Spanish and Portuguese as I did, but that's not much.

Oh?

So, what did you learn the others for? And can I ask what kinda business? S'cool if you don't wanna say.

English and Swahili are my native languages, but I had to learn another European language for school.

I'm a park warden, but I used to do a lot of conservation and work as a guide. It brought me all over the world.

A... park warden, huh? That like a ranger...?

[His smile suddenly looked a bit forced. He felt like he was sweating bullets!

He'd better keep it short and get out of dodge!]

Well, the most important thing... is stick to polite and formal Japanese. I don't really speak that, not even with my superiors, but most folks can't get away with that. Strictly hierarchal, y'know?
Y'can't go wrong with polite Japanese, and that's what textbooks usually teach ya. If you speak too casually, or, worse, use the imperative, it's seen as aggressive and equal to cussin' someone out.

So, uh... don't learn from me.

Usin' masu form and keigo all the time probably end up soundin' old-fashioned or kinda like a granny, but it's better than offendin' people or gettin' in fights. That's the most important thing for foreigners, stick t'polite Japanese. ... 'course, dependin' on where you go and how used the people are to foreigners, they'll be more patient and understandin' if you make mistakes, especially in the capital.

Yes, like a ranger. The area I cover is a bit smaller these days, but it's a lot of the same kind of work.

[Muldoon watches the stranger silently with his usual piercing stare. It's just his way, but it can definitely be intense.]

Polite suits me better anyway.

Doesn't everyone start by learning polite Japanese? [This guy is making it sound like he was cursing from the moment he was a kid.]

[That certainly is an unnerving look... but, it didn't seem like he really saw through him yet, right? He could play it cool! Maybe give him just a bit more info, then flee, instead of abruptly stoppping! If it's all cool, then, maybe he won't have to flee at all...]

... depends on where you grew up, actually. City folks, sure, but more rural folks speak rougher early on... it's mostly just, uh, direct an' blunt, but that's not looked on too kindly in the cities, and some'a the words that wouldn't be used around family would be totally fine for kids.

S'also kind of a thing most guys pick up as teenagers, even if they speak politely with family.

Like... for example, since, y'know, in English, you got a lotta curse words, yeah? But in Japanese, there aren't that many and you can't just... attach them to everything, they usually have specific meanings. I mean, I guess you could put "kuso" in anywhere, but it's like callin' stuff crappy and kids say it sometimes, it's not a big deal... maybe shout "kora" to get someone's attention, But if you were really mad and really wanted to insult someone, you'd use the imperative and change up the way you address a person.

... if they really wanna sound tough, it's all of that plus growling words and rolling rs like yakuza, but I don't recommend you try that ever. Either it won't land and you'll just make a fool of yourself or you'll get yourself in hot water. In for a bad time, either way.

There's a lot of different ways to say "I" or "you," some of 'em more respectful or humble, and other ones more arrogant... there's even polite ways to address someone who's your inferior... a lotta guys talk . But there's also ways that make people sound like scum or make you sound completely full'a yourself. ... or stuff that bugs people not because it's insulting, as much as, uh, overly-familiar, so you might weird people out if you use it for 'em? People also switch between them when speaking to people dependin' on the mood or what they're about to say, you know, like... when you use someone's full name because your kid's acting fresh or something.

It's complicated, man! So stick to a textbook and learn the other stuff naturally. TV shows can help, a little, but there's also some full of really weird sutff you'd only hear in fiction or old-fashioned stuff from a period piece that'd get you laughed at, so, uh, careful with those. If y'got the patience for it, stuff aimed at preschoolers is good at teaching basic language that'd actually be used.

[That's a lot about politeness, but not much about how to start talking, huh?]

Where to start, uh... basic greetings, how to say your name, ask questions, where you're from or where you're going, the usual stuff is probably best for you to start with.

[That is a lot about politeness. Muldoon isn't sure whether that's a comment on what this man thinks of him, what the Japanese think of foreigners, or just how much importance is placed on politeness in Japanese society. Probably the latter, given how many rules there seem to be.

The more he listens, the more he starts to think that English is a lazy language in comparison.]

Isn't there an entirely different alphabet as well? Shouldn't I start with that?

You got that right!

[That is a great place to start and something Buson can help with.]

You got three different writing systems...
The Chinese characters, kanji, there' like more than 2000 of them. You don't gotta learn those first, kids don't, and you wanna learn naturally, you gotta learn like kids do. It's easier that way, too.

Even though I'm tellin' ya not to worry about them right now, the Chinese characters are words, not letters, or more like... pictures. Really simplified pictures that can be put together to make new words that read different. Like, for instance... this is tree.

[Using the toe of his boot, he carved out ki 木]

You read that ki. It does kinda look like a tree, don't it? And this is person, hito.

[The same with 人]

If I wanted to write forest, it's actually... three trees! But you don't read that as ki no more, it's mori now.
[森]

I wanna say rest, that's actually person and tree, y'know, since he can take a rest under a tree, it's like he's leaning on it... man gets written a little differently as a radical... and the reading of this new word yasu, not somethin' like hito-ki. Different words have their own readings.

[休]

... see, it makes sense, it even paints a vivid image, but it takes a really long time to learn. The same kanji can have several readings, or have its pronunciation change with what's attached to it, forming a new word... so don't worry about it right now. You wanna know what kids learn first and which'll make a lot more sense to you, since it's more like an alphabet, which you can use to spell out the sounds of all of those kanji and even the sounds of foreign words, and onomatopoeia and anything else?

The kana, hiragana and katakana! That's what kids use and that's what we use for foreign words, too, and also you'll find them helpfully explaining how to read kanji in a lot of places, and in books meant for kids to read...

Maybe you'd learn best with an example, can I have your name, chief? Y'don't gotta use your real one if you don't want to, it's just for example.

[On the plus side, it distracts from any talk of rangers and poachers. On the other, it does mean Muldoon comes right up close to Buson to see what he's writing. He folds his arms and peers down intently at the ground writing, unconcerned by how close he is.

In fact he's so focused on absorbing all this information that he nearly doesn't recognise he's being asked a question. His head snaps up and it takes him a second to register what he's being asked. He offers a hand.]

Muldoon. Robert Muldoon.

[He doesn't see any reason to lie about his name, after all.]

And you?

[That's way closer than he'd ever like to be to a ranger, that's for sure. His muscles tensed at the closeness, but he put his best effort into maintianing the friendly, casual manner.
Keep it together, Buson! You're a professional. Besides, there's nothing visibly giving you away as anyone tied to poaching, right?
Buson absolutely ought to shake him off before he even thinks of going back to his aircraft, though. The cargo hold's... suspicious, despite best efforts to clean it up. Claw marks, residual traces of blood of various sources, that sort of thing.

Introductions in order, huh? He's got to shake hands with a ranger he's giving a Japanese lesson to, what a world...]

Tetsu. Yamano Tetsu.

[Of the mountain, iron. Random, throwaway pseudonym. He was thinking of his Steel types.

He shook his hand and hoped his didn't feel clammy.]

A pleasure!

Japanese surnames go first, then the given name. That's another tip. Your name'll stay in western order, given name first, family name last.

I admire your enthusiasm, pal, but I'm gonna need a little space, okay? Promise I'll write even bigger so you can see just fine. You can see all this stuff clearer when you find a nice textbook, okay?

Right, the thing to remember about Japanese is we don't have consonants on their own. The only exception is nn, that sound can produced on its own, but it never starts a word, it can go in the middle or end of one though. If it's at the start, we use the n sounds with vowels, like the rest.

For every other sound, it's paired with a vowel. We do got vowels on their own. It's easiest listing them like... a chart. Hiragana's easier for most than katakana, but we're gonna spell your name with katakana, since it's a foreign word, so, let's list some katakana.

[He drew two lines as if making a rough table. Vowels on top row, English followed by Japanese katakana, sounding them out "ah, eh, ii, oh, uu..."
Aア Eエ Iイ Oオ Uウ
Then, a column of consonants (in English only), followed by the katakana for consontant-vowel pairs at intersections.]

So, for every consonant, you got it paired up with vowels, like take ba, be, bi, bo, bu...

There's no distinct L-R sounds in Japanese, same with Chinese, as I recall, so you use the same sound for both. Yer gonna hear some Japanese folks pronounce the R sounds as Ls and others pronouncing the Ls as Rs. That's why.

That's why a name like yours is gonna be a little hard on someone who only speaks Japanese fluently, right? Consonants on their own just don't come naturally because of the basic sounds in Japanese are different, but it's fairly consistent and it gets easier to recognize Japanese pronunciations of words, with exposure and practice.

Right, your name... written in Japanese, that'd be Robaato Maruduun.
[ロバートマルドゥーン]
Alright, bit of a toughie, to make names sound a bit more like the English pronunciation, instead of going with somethin' like "Roberuto" it's pretty common to skip the R sound and just go "robaato" especially since the "o" sound in "Robaato" is barely pronounced, so it sounds a lot like "Robaht." It sounds a lot closer an approximation to the correct pronunciation, within the limits of the language.

By the way, the v sound also doesn't exist in Japanese, y'gotta use b sounds because they're the cloest thing. Violet sounds like ba-i-yo-retto, stuff like that.

The other kinda tough one is, uh, du isn't a thing on its own. It just isn't. So, it's a sound that's created by writing a "do"...
[He wrote ド on its own]
With a small u vowel next to it, to show it's changing the sound of the previous character.
[He wrote a small ウ next to it.]
Whenever you see a small vowel like that, it's changing the sound of the character before it.

Oh, if the line confused you, you use that to kind of lengthen sounds... like making a it a long vowel, but, uh, literally. You draw a long line.

Oh... do is the same as to, but with a dakuten, those two small lines, to make the sound harder. Sorry, I guess your name is a little more complex, aha...

If I write my name in katakana, it'll be somethin' like...
ヤマノ　テツ
[While sounding it out "yah-mah-no teh-tsu."]

See? Pretty straight-forward, that one.

Maybe we should use other words...

Edited 2023-06-25 02:47 (UTC)

// sin may have mastered his times tables but now comes the real fun

... May I take a look?

Sure! Still not sure how mom thinks I’m ready for this stuff, but she paid crazy money for private tutoring, so…

// sin you can’t just Say that

You pay for tutoring...?

[ he takes it and scans it over, but... what...

give him a minute.

... after 10 minutes. ]

How does your mother expect you to complete this? This looks like physics to the untrained eye.

Well, I did learn everything through basic algebra within… a year, at most?

[ aaaand he realizes how impossible this probably sounds. ]

I’m a very fast learner!

Within a year...?

[ damn, that's too much information, and he was essentially born with that level of knowledge. ]

If you're such a fast learner, then allow me to try and help you understand.. just be warned that math isn't my strong suit.

I need to know.

Magic would be fun. Like real magic and not the performance stuff.

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I'd like to learn another language. Or archery.

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[oh, irony]

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I’d really like for my geometry homework to not feel like a foreign language

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