that foreign music blog🌎

Although we’ll mostly focus on the J-rock band, Frederic, their lyrics are so interesting that I thought it was a perfect opportunity to also introduce some N2 grammar as well. I’ll show how to use contrasting adjectives and the target ‘ともかく’ to express opposition. Then, I’ll talk more about the band.

高い安い、いい悪い

Today’s topic was sparked by my Japanese lesson, in which we encountered the phrase 高い安い, or たかいやすい (tah-kah-ee yah-soo-ee) in the reading. This means ‘expensive or cheap’. When pairing two opposite adjectives like ‘cheap’ and ‘expensive’, or ‘good’ and ‘bad’, we can express how either side doesn’t change the outcome, or show the complexity of a situation.

For example, using the grammar ’ともかく’ (toh-moh-kah-ku) or ‘regardless of’, we can easily imagine the situation.

男がカッコい醜いともかく、性格は第一にした方がいいと思います。
おとこがかっこいみにくいともかく、せいかくはだいいちにしたほうがいいとおもいます
oh-toh-koh gah kah-koh-ee-mee-nee-koo-ee toh-moh-kah-koo, sei-kah-koo wa dah-ee-chi nee shi-tah hou gah ee toh oh-moh-ee-mah-soo.
Regardless of how handsome or ugly a man is, I think you should put his personality first.

~は ともかく: Regardless

ともかく (toh-moh-kah-ku) is N2 grammar used to introduce a contrasting point. This comes in hand when you start growing weary of using ‘でも、でも、けど、けど’ all the time. If you know the grammar ～かどうか(whether or not), the meaning is identical. It’s just as easy to apply, too.

Basically, just add a noun in front to make: ｎ+は ともかく
And with an adjective you simply drop to the ‘は’

Here are some examples below:

【With a noun】

Regardless of the rain, we played soccer.
雨はともかく、サッカーをしました。
あめはともかく、さっかーをしました。
ah-meh wa toh-moh-kah-koo, sah-kah- wo she-mah-she-ta

【With an adjective】

(No matter/Regardless of how) big or small, all living things are important.
大きい小さいいともかく、すべての生物は大切でしょう。
おおきちいさいいともかく、すべてのせいぶつはたいせつでしょう。
oh-kee-chee-sah-ee toh-moh-kah-koo, soo-beh-teh noh seh-ee-boo-tsu wa tah-ee-seh-tsoo deh-show

【With a verb】
★ I’m not a native, but this sounds a bit unnatural. I think ’かどうか’is better suited for verbs, or the ても/でもform. I’ll show you what I mean.

Regardless of where you go, I’ll always follow.
どこに行くかはともかく、私がいつも追ってくる。
どこにいくかはともかく、わたしがいつもおってくる。
doh-koh-nee-ee-koo-kah wa toh-moh-kah-koo, wah-tah-shee gah it-soo-moh oh-tteh, koo-roo

-VERSUS-

Wherever you go, I’ll always follow
どこに行っても、私はいつも追ってくる。
どこにいっても、わたしはいつもおってくる。
doh-koh-nee-ee-tte-moh, wah-tah-shee gah it-soo-moh oh-tteh, koo-roo

I think both probably sound okay, but the example of ‘ 行くかはともかく’ seems redundant. I think because it’s very easy to change verbs to say things like ‘although’ with ‘ても/でも’

Frederic (フレデリック) and their clever use of opposition

A band who seems to use these kinds of double meanings a lot is フレデリック, or Frederic, an indie band gone major after dropping their hit single ‘オドループ‘, or “Oddloop”. That song in itself seems to be playing on the English “Odd loop” and Japanese 踊る (おどる/oh-doh-roo), which means ‘dance’. Hence the strange dancing in the video, although I have trouble understanding a lot of their lyrics, so I don’t know if that was intentional.

Two songs I’ll talk about are from their 2019 album “フレデリズム2”, or “Frederism 2”. I mean, even the title of this album could be a pun. In English, we use ‘ism‘ to describe behaviors or social movements, whereas in Japanese ‘rism’ is actually the katakana pronunciation for RHYTHM. As far as I’ve heard, Frederic doesn’t sing in English, but they seem to have quite a bit of knowledge on these Japanese-English consistencies.

Anyway, the first song is ‘かなしいうれしい’ (kah-nah-shi oo-reh-shii) or “Sad (and) Happy”. The song was used in the anime ‘恋と嘘’ or “Love and Lies”, and is thus well-revered among international fans. It’s easy to understand the general meaning of the song, as the lyrics seem to illuminate on perhaps a relationship gone sour? In the chorus, the speaker sounds unsure about the future of the relationship, so perhaps he’s happy to be with someone, but sad about where the relationship has led??

かなしい　かなしい
かなしい　かなしい
(sad, sad, sad, sad)
うれしい　うれしい
うれしい　うれしい
(happy, happy, happy, happy)
二つの感情に揺さぶられては
まだ見らぬ行き先を
照らし出してくだけ
(shaken by those two emotions,
just shines a light ahead into the unknown)

These aren’t translated directly, but the line ‘見らぬ行き先’ (みらぬいきさき/me-noo-ee-kee-sah-kee）is like an unseen destination, whereas the last line 照るらしい (てるらしい/teh-roo-rah-reh-shi)、means ‘shining’, and 出してく (だしてく/dah-shi-teh-koo）turns it into a verb like ‘will illuminate’. So, tried to make that mean something in English. If you have a better translation, please comment!

EDIT: ACTUALLY THERE ARE ENGLISH SUBTITLES ON THE VIDEO. I’m so used to there not being subtitles I didn’t even check. However, because I wrote that translation based on my own knowledge, I’ll leave it as is. Even though they aren’t totally correct, I’m proud of how I tried to figure them out.

The second song is スキライズム or ‘Sukiraism’. This, again, is pretty easy to conceptualize once you know that ‘suki’ means ‘like’ and ‘kirai’ means ‘hate’. THIS, however, seems to be more of a word the band made up, as the actual word for ‘love and hate’ is: 愛憎 , or あいぞう (ah-ee-zoh-oh). Funny enough, I ALSO learned this word from music. It’s the title of a song by Chiba band, This is LAST.

Anyway, back to Frederic. I thought the title was extremely clever, and there’s a chance that they’ll make such a phrase popular among Japanese youth. That, or it’s a more stylish way of saying ‘愛憎’ which people started using?? As far as the song itself, I don’t think it needs much of an explanation, but we can look a bit closer at the chorus to better appreciate the meaning.

純情、感情、論争
(じゅんじょう、かんじょう、ろんそう)
Purity, emotions, controversy
あなたのそういうところが嫌いです
I hate that about you
嫌いです
I hate it
でも素直になれない
But it’s not true
嫌い嫌いと言ってないで
I wouldn’t say ‘hate’ ‘hate’ (???)

The last part directly translates to something like ‘Don’t say hate’, but in English, that sounds a bit weird, and looking at the context of the song, I’m not sure it’s supposed to mean that? I THINK the speaker is saying they hate a lot of things about their lover, but they don’t ‘hate’ them. So, again, if you have a better translation, please comment. There’s a translation somewhere in the video comments that can help you with the lyrics as a whole, but I figured I could try my own, too.

So, now that we’ve learned how to use contrasting adjectives to express opposition, as well as the application of ともかく, I hope you can also enjoy Frederic as much as I do. Happy learning~