WAKE WEEK! In search of WAKE GA IKANAI

That's right! It's day four of WAKE WEEK!

Okay, I'm going to talk about this using a video I snagged off of Nico Nico Douga, which is sort of the Japanese youtube. It's an easy enough site to join, and if you're registering in America, it conveniently does the process in English for you. Coherent English, mind you! It's sort of baffling...

In any case, the site has this annoying thing where it displays the comments on the actual video, which is why you see so many "w"s. For those who don't know "wwwwwww" is the equivalent to "lolololol". One "w" is just "lol". The reason is because the kanji they use for lol is 笑, which means "laugh". 笑 starts with the letter w, hence the millions of ws.




 So the video is called:

• 死にたいけど、まだ死ぬ訳にはいかない理由
• Shinitai kedo, mada shinu wake niha ikanai riyuu.

WAKE, as a said every post before means reason, more specifically a reason that draws conclusions. The definitions I have for WAKE NIHA IKANAI are as follows:

• Cannot
• Cannot but~
• Can't help ~ing
• Have no (other choice) but to~

My notes say that it's like KOTO GA DEKIRU and NAKAREBANARANAI and NAKAREBANARENAI, which is weird because neither of those really have anything to do with each other. The first is "to be able to" and the second is "have to/must".

So, I think that I meant that it's sort of a mix between the two. I don't know. Sometimes I wish I could ask past me questions....

My example sentences are like this:

• これから運転しなければなりませんから、お酒を飲むわけにはいきません。
• Kore kara unten shinakerebanarimasen kara, osake wo nomu wake ni ha ikimasen.
• Because I have to drive from now on, there is no reason for me to drink.

• この論文が重要だから、読まないわけにはいかない。
• Kono ronbun ga jyuuyou dakara, yomanai wake niha ikanai.
• Since this is a principle thesis, I have no other choice but to read it.

*Please note on the first one, I put it into the more formal form. 

Therefore, the WAKE NIHA IKANAI functions as way of reasoning that there is no other choice than what will be done.

Even though I want to die, these are the reasons I have no other choice but not to die. 

It's a bit convoluted in English, I agree. But whatever. The SHINU doesn't seem to have a negative added on to it, but as you watch the video it's pretty obvious that it's reasons why people won't kill themselves yet, such as "I haven't had sex yet" or "I want to play hentai games every day". Also, MADA usually indicates a negative statement regardless if the verb is negative or not, so I'm relatively sure I got it right.

At first I thought the video was about suicide in Japan, because it is a serious issue there. Trust me, I lived near a place that was famous for suicides, and it had lots of signs hanging around that said "you parents love you" and "it's just a test" or "there is still a future". They are more than a little disturbing, especially when they are strewn about a place that has been abandoned due to a bad earthquake. I am talking about Seikinohana in the Ishikawa prefecture. 

It's weird to me that such a serious issue can be made into a joke. Don't get me wrong, some of them were pretty funny. But the thing is, it's done in the style of the classic Japanese BBS, specifically using 2ch as its platform. I was going to blab on about it a bit more, but it turns out that wikipedia totally talked about everything I wanted to, right down to Densha Otoko! That movie is famous for the love story that comes into being because of BBS (the main character gets encouragement from the people on the BBS).

In any case, the reason why it's sensitive, in my opinion, is that it is common for people who wish to kill themselves to come to these boards either as a cry for help because they can get no one in their life to listen to them, or because they want to find other people who also wish to commit suicide. I'll quote an article from Wired:

Mass suicide: Last December, an anonymous post began a thread with this simple message: "28 years has been enough. I live in Hiroshima. I plan to die within the month. Will somebody come with me? I don't have the courage to go alone."
More than 700 messages follow. "Take a nap," one says. "What's wrong?" another asks.

"My college girlfriend was gang-raped, and she killed herself. Plus I have over 4 million yen in debt," the guy responds before disappearing completely from the forum. What happened to him isn't known, but the conversation continues among other suicidal hopefuls, self-hater-haters and gentle negotiators. The last post, published just a few hours ago, is a goodbye note by a woman who betrayed her lover. The conversation is one of many mass-suicide discussion threads.

So, I'm a bit torn about this video... mostly because I know that I shouldn't find it funny knowing what I know. But I also think that humor is based in the absurd, and this isn't making fun of the seriousness of the issue, but the absurdity.

WAKE WEEK! In search of WAKE DEWA NAI

Hey! We're continuing WAKE Week here with Day 2! WAKE DE HA NAI.

The wacky thing here is that I'm not going to talk about pop culture in any way. Well, probably. Let's just see as we go, shall we?

As I have said, WAKE means "reason", so that can help you figure out what this grammar point means. I'm not really going to lead you through a long confusing mess today, so I'll just say the following translations (though it is not certainly limited to these) are frequently used:

• It doesn't mean that~
• I don't meant that~
• It's not that~
• It's not the case that~
• It's not like~

What I have in my notebook for example sentences are:

• 君の考えに反対するわけではないが,そのやり方でうまくいくだろうか。
• Kimi no kangae ni hantai suru wake de ha nai ga, sono yarikata de umaku iku darou ka.
• I don't mean to oppose your idea, but I wonder if things will go well with that approach.

• 失敗というわけではない。
• Shippai to iu wake de ha nai.
• It doesn't mean it was a failure.

Those should give you the general gist of how WAKE DE HA NAI is used. I should mention that the second form which uses TO IU is a very common way to use WAKE DE HA NAI. It just sort of reinforces the "doesn't mean" with a "really", like "it really doesn't mean that". Imagine that in a sympathetic voice, and we're set!

 The website I'm going to use seems to be a sort place dedicated to things that make people go ふ〜ん (fuuun, pronouned fooooon), which is a hard noise to describe, but I'm pretty sure that disappointment is a large part of it. The post I want to talk about has our grammar form three times, so we're going to go over it! But first, take a look at a screencap!

In case your wondering... yes, I inserted myself in my own very special way of internet tourism with the ubiquitous Japanese peace sign. Love it! I may or may not keep doing that.

Anyway! The three ways the website above use WAKE DE HA NAI are:

1. 飯田橋の「いいだべぇ」はなまっているわけではないらしい.
2. ＪＲ飯田橋駅のガード脇橋脚に「いいだべぇ」の文字が。調べたところ「飯田橋」と「あかんべぇ」を合わせたとのことで、なまっているわけではないそうです.
3. フォントは、壁に描かれているクジラの絵と合わせて、クジラをモチーフにしているそうです。でも、なぜ「あかんべぇ」なのか、海が近いわけではないのに、なぜクジラなのか。

So, here's the deal with this post. By Iidabashi Station (a station I'm sure you've at least transferred at if you have ever been to Tokyo) there is sort of mural of whales with the phrase "Iida Bay". What makes this person say ふ〜ん is the fact Iidabashi is nowhere near the ocean. There is a bit more to it than that, but it would spoil the fun of going through the sentences.

Though they use it three times, I must confess I really don't know how to use this word nameru.  I know that word means to go soft, to get duller, or to decrease in something. I hate admitting it, but I literally don't know how to translate those first two sentences despite that I get the gist of them. I'm not really sure, though, that Iida Bay is supposed to be a mix of akanbee, which is the act of sticking out your tongue and pulling down one eyelid, and Iidabashi like the second sentence suggests. I think it's likely an odd usage of hiragana to say that it's a bay, and that's why the whales are there. That being said, it may have do something to do with this song, Akkanbe Bashi:

I fear I may be out of my depth for once, and I find this too weird of question to ask my Japanese friends! Though... they probably should be used to it.

In any case, the third sentence translates as this:

3.  The font, along with the picture of the whale, seems to have a whale motif. But, why "akanbee"? It's not like the ocean is close, however, why a whale?

So there you go!