Do Japanese have a problem with us?

On Bismarck we say, "tsugi" for "next". It gets the point across just fine.

"tsugi mo ii desu ka." "Is the next one okay?"

Edit: I am aware that 'tsugi' is in its improper form. It would probably be more proper to say 'tsuide'. But, I'm not professional, nowhere near, so please forgive me. They forgive me in game... if they take the time to read the romaji I've given them. ;)

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Originally Posted by Romanova

The correct phrase for taking turns is kōtai de suru or: 交代でする

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Translates to "Rotate" right?

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Originally Posted by Romanova

So if you want to be polite you can say something like,

Sumimasen, NM [or ??? or w/e you want for taking turns, for the most part they know what NM means, and if they don't they can easily tell by the rest of the sentence] ga koutai de surimasuka?

Or more proper: Sumimasen, watashitachi wa NM o koutai de surimasuka?

Though you can probably drop the implied "we" (watashitachi) bit as that feels a little "booky".

[edit] just for future reference if you see the lines across a vowel that just means an extension of that vowel sound (as in the "o" in "kōtai") if you can't type that however you can ad a "u" after the vowel to meant the same thing. so koutai = kōtai

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Awesome! ^^ Thanks /salute

And it's hilarious that you mentioned the Macron symbol as I was searching all over the place as how to put this into FFXI using a console USB keyboard lol. Very cool to know :)

Now the biggest question after your proper example would be, would Japanese players understand--:

Can we take turns? --> Wareware ga kōtai suru koto wa dekimasu ka?

--enough to catch my drift? Or would they be like, ‹huh?!› and /ignorpet me and keep on doing whatever they were doing? lol

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Originally Posted by kingfury

Now the biggest question after your proper example would be, would Japanese players understand--:

Can we take turns? --> Wareware ga kōtai suru koto wa dekimasu ka?

--enough to catch my drift? Or would they be like, ‹huh?!› and /ignorpet me and keep on doing whatever they were doing? lol

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They would understand that. Well, if they can/want to read that much romaji. Sometimes they ignore romaji as it can easily be mistakened for English/French/German/Spanish/etc. Another reason why the language barrier is so frustrating.

(I don't think I'll ever let that go. MMOs are about interacting with other players, and we can't do that if we cannot speak properly to each other. I love playing on a multinational server because I'm exposed to so many different cultures and thought processes, but I hate not being able to at least attempt communication.)

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Originally Posted by Meyi

They would understand that. Well, if they can/want to read that much romaji. Sometimes they ignore romaji as it can easily be mistakened for English/French/German/Spanish/etc. Another reason why the language barrier is so frustrating.

(I don't think I'll ever let that go. MMOs are about interacting with other players, and we can't do that if we cannot speak properly to each other. I love playing on a multinational server because I'm exposed to so many different cultures and thought processes, but I hate not being able to at least attempt communication.)

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Cool, thanks! ^^ At the very least, if I can loosely convey what I'm trying to say in a semi-proper way (though I'd be stuck like Chuck trying to understand any responses since I'm stuck on a Console atm ><; ), I will feel much better when attempting to communicate with Japanese players.

In any case I'm glad at least to have found Google Translate for the time being. It's really satisfying to actually "hear" the dialog that's being translated as well as get the Japanese characters when translating. Here's to hoping for such technology being placed inside FFXI one day eh.

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Originally Posted by kingfury

Now the biggest question after your proper example would be, would Japanese players understand--:

Can we take turns? --> Wareware ga kōtai suru koto wa dekimasu ka?

--enough to catch my drift? Or would they be like, ‹huh?!› and /ignorpet me and keep on doing whatever they were doing? lol

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they'd understand it, but even in my version as I said it's ok to put in implications. Japanese is the same as any other language in that there is slang, and a million different ways to say the same thing.

However, as meyi said, I would strongly recommend keeping it as simple as possible because you are using romanji. Think of how slow you maybe to read something written in kanji or hiragana, then remember they are essentially doing the same thing.

However, I do recommend throwing sumimasen at the beginning when you ask something like this. It means "excuse me", in the sense of how you would tap someone on the shoulder and say, "excuse me, is this your wallet?"

It's usually polite to use it when you come out to ask a question without you guys already being in the middle of a conversation. So if it's something where you happen upon a group and want to take turns, it's definitely a nice touch.

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Originally Posted by kingfury

In any case I'm glad at least to have found Google Translate for the time being. It's really satisfying to actually "hear" the dialog that's being translated as well as get the Japanese characters when translating. Here's to hoping for such technology being placed inside FFXI one day eh.

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If you are willing to, there have been tools over on windower's website that do just that for years.

Do you feel uncomfortable when you are surrounded by people you have a very hard time understanding? I am sure many Japanese players feel that same way. Back when I used to play a different MMO the Japanese always stuck on a different Universe/Server to avoid those hard Language Barriers and those who understood it came to ours and played with the North Americans.

Don't assume, try and find different Understandings, thoughts like that is why many people have conflict with each other. Never look for a black and white, look for Gray areas too. lol.

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Originally Posted by Romanova

However, I do recommend throwing sumimasen at the beginning when you ask something like this. It means "excuse me", in the sense of how you would tap someone on the shoulder and say, "excuse me, is this your wallet?"

It's usually polite to use it when you come out to ask a question without you guys already being in the middle of a conversation. So if it's something where you happen upon a group and want to take turns, it's definitely a nice touch.

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I agree, but perhaps instead of typing 'sumimasen', one could use the auto-translate of {Excuse me.} At least then it will write it in hiragana for them, making it a bit easier. Although, using auto-translator might be a big flag to ignore. I'm not sure which is best. But, best of luck with communications all the same.

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Originally Posted by noodles355

As someone currently living in Japan I think that the Japanese are only greatly _insulted_ by idiots like you.

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This, but also its because if you're Japanese and speak english well, we're expected to be personal translators. so generally we dont bother.

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Originally Posted by Meyi

I agree, but perhaps instead of typing 'sumimasen', one could use the auto-translate of {Excuse me.} At least then it will write it in hiragana for them, making it a bit easier. Although, using auto-translator might be a big flag to ignore. I'm not sure which is best. But, best of luck with communications all the same.

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ya, again the idea behind it is to avoid the translator as much as possible but at the same time keeping things simple. I guess it could depend on the server.

As I said back when I was on hades it seemed a good majority of the playerbase knew to use certain words like sumimasen, omedetou, yoroshiku, etc. So I'd imagine them seeing it over and over again in romanji, probably made it easy words for them to read.

But ya they seem to love it when you make the effort instead of just falling back on the translate function, even if it ends up being "baby japanese"