アメトーークは英語の使い方に注意した方が良い。

I was watching this Japanese comedy program called アメトーーク last Thursday. I think it's a pretty funny show. I have to give them some credit for improving my Japanese listening ability. That's because I watch it regularly, and now their quickly moving Japanese is getting easier for me to understand. I still don't catch 100 percent of what they say, but things like this take time.

• give someone credit （人）を正しく評価してやる、（人）に掛け売りをする、（人）に信用で貸す (definition from Eijiro on the Web)

Anyway, they had given gifts to their guests last week, and when they showed the gift (a hip bag) on the screen, I got excited! That's because the gift had this English printed on it:

× I am Japanese traveling comedian.
○ I am a traveling Japanese comedian.

• comedian 【名】コメディアン、お笑い芸能人｛げいのうじん｝(definition from Eijiro on the Web)

There are two problems here. The first is the article "a". "Comedian" is a countable noun, so we need a number or an article. Since they are talking about the kind of thing ("comedian" versus "teacher"), we should choose "a". Like this:

• Ken Kobayashi is a comedian. <- I explain his type.
• He was not one of the comedians on アメトーーク last week. <- I am pointing out the comedians on the show, which you know about since I was talking about it.

The second problem is the order of the adjectives. The adjective that is more essential to the character of the noun goes closer to the noun. The comedian is definitely Japanese, and changing that is difficult. As a result, "Japanese" goes closer to comedian than "traveling". If the comedian stops traveling for a year, he will still be Japanese.

This problem might be tough to understand, so I think I'll talk more about it in my next post. Until then!