I'd like less of this...

Person X: "So you live in Japan."

Me: "Yes! :D Yes I do."

Person X: "Can you translate this for me?"

(or)

Person X: "This song/movie/TV show/anything else that is in Japanese and could be translated ... what are they saying?"

(or)

Person X: "What's this word in Japanese?"

Me: ".... :( ...."

C'mon guys. I'm not a dictionary and I'm not a translator. Being in the country for a year does not make me fluent in the language. (Did you understand all the English words when you were a year old? Five years old? Ten, even?)

There are two exceptions to this. Two people that, if they asked, I wouldn't care and I'd happily translate stuff for them (If I can. If I can't, sucks for them ;) ). And I know that one of them reads every one of my blog posts (Because I know how interesting and thought provoking they really are and she's secretly caught onto that - there's really no other explanation) but the other... probably has completely forgotten this blogs' existence.

Don't let this scare you away from asking. I suppose that is what I'm complaining about, the asking part of it all, but if I ask you if you've looked at a dictionary already or if you've searched Google for an answer it's my way of saying I don't wanna do this, do your own research /whine/.

Because I'm not a very straight forward person. So I won't just come out and say it. I'll just hint at it with suggestions to look at dictionaries, online (or offline) translators, or just to Google it.