Tweet of the Week #149: Japanese Cat is The Most Viewed Cat on YouTube

Meet Japan’s number one pet influencer, Mochimaru, a cute Scottish fold cat. Since this summer, Mochi-sama holds the Guinness Record for “most viewed cat on YouTube,” after the furry star’s channel Mochimaru Diary (もちまる日記（にっき）) reached  619,586,290 views on August 12th.

The channel launched less than two years ago and is dedicated to the daily life of Mochimaru. The channel gained a lot of popularity during the pandemic. His audience—primarily adults—has been following the lovable ball of fur almost daily. They’ve watched him arrive at his new home, his first trip to the vet and even his first taste of salmon sashimi. It’s like The Truman Show of cats!

The videos offer slice-of-life videos to kitty fans, and the subtitles give Japanese language learners an excellent opportunity to relax while studying!

A purrfect record

https://twitter.com/catmotimaru/status/1434471790789607433?s=20

もち様（さま）がギネス世界（せかい）記録（きろく）™に認定（にんてい）されました

• 記録（きろく） YouTubeで最（もっと）も視聴（しちょう）された猫（ねこ）
• 認定（にんてい）日（び） 2021（にせんにじゅういち）年（ねん）8月（はちがつ）12日（じゅうににち）

“Mochi-sama has been certified as a Guinness World Record!

• Record: Most Viewed Cat on YouTube
• Date of certification: August 12, 2021″

The Japanese passive voice

Photo: iStock: Franckreporter

It’s back-to-school season and what best than to take a closer look at the passive voice (受身形). Where English discourages the usage of the passive voice, the Japanese language prefers passive constructions whenever the action (“what is done”) or the consequences (“what is done to…”) are more important than the subject (“who does”).

In the following example, the second sentence sounds more natural to Japanese people. What matters is less the subject who did the action (the boss) but what was done—giving praise or scolding.

• 上司（じょうし）は私（わたし）を褒（ほ）めました: My boss praised me.
• 私は上司に褒められました: I was praised by my boss.
• 上司は彼（かれ）を叱（しか）りました: The boss scolded him.
• 彼は上司に叱られました: He was scolded by the boss.

In the following example, the second sentence sounds more natural to Japanese people. What matters is less the subject who did the action (the boss) but what was done—giving praise or scolding.

In a passive construction, the subject is marked with に.

In a passive construction, the subject is marked with the particle に. The topic of the sentence, 私は and 彼は, are often omitted. Here’s a quick reminder of the construction of the passive voice:

• U ending verbs: 買（か）う → 買われる
• Ru ending verbs: 建（た）てる → 建てられる
• する → される
• くる → こられる

Vocabulary

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