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Opening Monologue - Learning Japanese with Ocarina of Time 1


I've found a good video editor at last! But until I release my first quality video, I will just keep breaking down footage from the captures I already have. I will put the time stamp to jump to where you can see what I'm talking about, and maybe you just want to read the text yourself for practice.

Opening Sequence



0:34「ハイラル王国に広がる深き森…その森を守り続けできたワシを、人はデクの樹と呼んでおった…」

Starting slow I'll look at "ハイラル王国に広がる深き森".

  1. ハイラル: ハ ha; イ i; ラ ra; and, ル ru. We have two of the R-group syllables and a vowel in one word. Altogether it should read heiraru to make English "Hyrule". I mention that there is two R-group letters, because I know that I struggled with differentiating the R's from each other so this might be a good in-game reference to help.
  2. 王国 is a common term for kingdom. It's a combination of two kanji: 王 meaning 'king' (おう; ou) and 国 meaning 'country' (こく; koku). King is one of the easiest kanji out there. Be careful not to confuse it with 'ball', 玉 (たま; tama).
  3. に is a particle that indicates direction or distance. へ is a particle with the same function. It's exact meaning varies depending on the noun and any relevant verbs. At this point we can establish whatever comes next has to be in or heading toward/from Hyrule. Let's see.
  4. 広がる (ひろがる; hirogaru) is an i-adjective turned verb. In it's positive present tense describing something it should be 広い (hiroi). The -がる (-garu) suffix is not usually taught to beginners, because it's uncommon. I'll admit, as a beginner myself, I'm still having a hard time grasping this one. Basically, -がる turns adjectives into verbs. Therefore, 広がる means "to spread", "to reach", or "to extend". In the English translation it's translated as "vast", which is an adjective. Maybe it should be 広い? I don't know.
  5. 深き森 translates as "deep forest" (深 deep  + 森 forest 'mori'). I can't find an explanation for the き. Just know that it's not a particle. It's either a prefix of forest 森, or a suffix of deep 深. 深 is a more complex kanji, but 森 is a grade one kanji and a very common one at that. I didn't give the pronunciation for 深 because I don't know (given the mystery き) which of it's readings to apply of  ふか 'fuka', ぶか 'buka', or しん 'shin'.
  6. Altogether ハイラル王国に広がる深き森 more literally translates as "In the spread out, deep forest of Hyrule Kingdom...", but in the English version it's: "In the vast, deep forest of Hyrule." Which is close, more concise, and true to practice. While 'Hyrule Kingdom' is the literal meaning of ハイラル王国, it is common to omit  the 王国. It is common when writing country names to include the 国, i.e. 日本国 (Nihonkoku, Japan), but it's usually implied and so it's safe to omit so long as it's been established as the country that you are talking about.

WILL CONTINUE THIS PHRASE HERE


Individually, most of the characters in the above phrase 「ハイラル王国に広がる深き森…その森を守り続けできたワシを、人はデクの樹と呼んでおった…」are not that difficult. If we tried to translate the entire thing, it would be difficult for beginners. For starters, the topic of the phrase doesn't appear until the last fragment. That's not even mentioning the presence of three objects. Keeping in mind that this is for beginners, and I am one as well. I've been surprised by how oddly overwhelming the insertion of one き can be when translating a simple adjective, but this is how we learn. I knew the meaning of 深き森, but it just fucked with me.

Note:It is a great form of immersion to jump into the language like this, but I have to admit there were chunks I couldn't figure out on my own without the help of Google.
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