Good morning, good on ya, and welcome to today's StudyOke! Today we're talking about best girl Misora Hibari, who is the best. We'll also be focusing in on the use of "you ni" with one of the most beloved Japanese songs ever, Kawa no Nagare no You ni.
About the Artist
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| THE BEST. |
A movie star at hit singer by the age of 12, Misora continued performing and recording all the way up to her death at 52. She was so legendary at that time that radio stations and television channels still play her classic Kawa no Nagare no You ni on her birthday. In 1997, that same song was voted the single greatest Japanese song of all time.
It's not hard to see why Misora is and was so beloved. Certainly, her early films and music captured the zeitgeist of post-war Japan, Misora was no child-acting flash in the pan. She continued putting out beloved song after beloved song through the sixties, seventies, and eighties. For many people, her work is symbolic of the struggle of Japan up from the ashes of war to the economic boom of the eighties.
Misora passed away in 1989, a year before the stock market collapse of 1990 that Japan has still not truly recovered from. Her death marked for many people the transition from the building and growing Japan of the post-war to the stagnating and declining Japan of the post-bubble economy.
For understanding the mood and culture of that window of Japanese history, there's probably no better entry point than the work of Misora Hibari. But just she escaped the fate of so many child actors, I think her work also avoids the pitfalls of blind nostalgia. The universal themes of songs like Kawa no Nagare no You ni or even Kanashii Sake speak to her power as an artist and performer, and not just a beloved cultural icon.
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| Misora Hibari is best waifu, always. |
Today's Topic: Like No You ni
There are two main ways that you ni is used in Japanese. The first, like the title of today's song, is to make a comparison; to say that one thing is like another. In this case, you include the particle no, as in no you ni.
Let's take an example from Kawa no Nagare no You ni:
Translation
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ああ川の流れのように
おだやかに
この身をまかせていたい |
Aa kawa no nagare no you ni
Odayakani
Kono mi wo makasete itai
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Ah, like the river’s flow Quietly
I want to give this body to you |
What does she want to do? To give this body to you (technically, to entrust her body to a non-specific indirect object, but whatever). How does she want to do it? Like the flowing of a river, ie, quietly.
Note two things here. First, when you want to use you ni in this way, you add the particle no before it. Second, we use this grammar with nouns and/or the noun form of verbs. Nagare of course comes from the verb nagareru (to stream, to flow). Getting rid of the ru leaves us with the nounified nagare.
The second way to use you ni is to leave off the no and to use it with a verb instead of a noun. For example:
Kanji
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Translation
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「川の流れのように」を聞くように、CDを買いました。
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"Kawa no nagare no you ni" wo kiku you ni, CD wo kaimashita.
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In order to listen to Kawa no Nagare no You ni, I bought a CD.
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You ni (without the no at the front) can be used to describe something you do in order to achieve something else. You go to the store in order to get food. You sing karaoke in order to have fun. Before you ni, you say what you want to accomplish; after it you put what you did to accomplish it.
There are a few other uses for you ni, but for now we'll leave it there. Try to think about two things that come from you ni: what amazing people do you want to become like (no you ni) and what are you going to do to get there (you ni)?
美空ひばりのように歌えるように、毎日練習します。
Misora Hibari no you ni utaeru you ni, mainichi renshuu shimasu.
In order to sing like Misora Hibari, I practice every day.
To have a career like Misora Hibari, you're going to need to work hard and love what you do. So keep practicing, and keep StudyOkeing!
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