Can't understand what's said

[lonelytraveler8]

Hello again! I've been neglecting my listening practice, so I took a walk with my iPod with Genki's CD to get some listening in. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I generally didn't have any problems understanding something on the first pass. However, I'm currently stuck on something in the listening comprehension section of the chapter I just finished.

They use some words I've never heard before. They're describing music and movies, so I've been able to work out some of it, but there are two in particular I'm stuck on. Actually, as I'm typing this, I figured one out (サスペンス). So now I'm only stuck on one:

先週、ひちこくの映画を見ました。

The bolded part is what it sounds to me like she's saying. Or maybe one of these:

ひっちこく
いちこく
いっちこく

Afterwards, the teachers asks とてもお面白かったですか to which the student responds ぜんぜん古かったでした, which I interpreted as "I've never seen an old movie." So my guess is that the word I can’ｔ figure out has something to do with being old.

One more thing. At one point, a student says (ロックが)あまり好きじゃありません。　でも、ビートロスはすきです。 I'm not sure that I spelled Beetles correctly, but I'm assuming he's supposed to be saying "I like the beetles." But why does he use -は instead of -が?

Thanks again in advance!

[NocturnalOcean]

For the first one, what about Alfred Hitchcock

Also I believe it is spelled The Beatles.

Also the ぜんぜん古かったでした. Refers to that the movie is so old, as all of Hitchcocks movies are.

The reason to why it is used は and not が is because there is a contrast.

He doesn't like rock so much, but he does like The Beatles.

[lonelytraveler8]

Ah, that's right! Now that you mention it, there was a footnote explaining that でもXは... is used for contrasting.

You're probably correct that I should have said The Beetles, but I was referring to ビートロス. I'm not sure if that would be the correct way to put it into kana..

And thanks for the tip on Hitchcock. That definitely makes sense and I'm glad I at least was hearing it correctly. I've never watched a Hitchcock movie myself, so I never would have thought of that.

[NocturnalOcean]

It is ビートルズ in Japanese, and BeAtles in English. Not double E.

[lonelytraveler8]

Oops. I knew that. Not sure why I made the same mistake twice.

Thanks for the correction on the kana.

[kurisuto]

ぜんぜん古かったでした

Are you sure that's what it said ? The double past is really dubious, it should be 古かったです. Also, the use of ぜんぜん with an affirmative verb is colloquial and considered a mistake, so maybe you misheard (of course it could just be an introduction to casual speech, but just in case).

とてもお面白かったですか

Now, maybe that's just me, but I find asking "was it very interesting ?" a bit strange (well, it could be my "Indo-European brain" 's fault though). BTW, it's spelled 面白い, not お面白い. In keigo you can have お+adjective, but it doesn't look like a keigo situation.

[NocturnalOcean]

ぜんぜん古かったでした

Are you sure that's what it said ? The double past is really dubious, it should be 古かったです. Also, the use of ぜんぜん with an affirmative verb is colloquial and considered a mistake, so maybe you misheard (of course it could just be an introduction to casual speech, but just in case).

I was very concerned about this when I first went to Japan. I had learned that ぜんぜん was only to be used with negative sentences. But, the use together with affirmative sentences is SO widespread in Japan now, that you could hardly call it a mistake anymore. It has been so integrated in the language, and it is so much used over there at the moment.

[Yudan Taiteki]

Despite that, I agree that ぜんぜん古かったでした is unlikely; even ぜんぜん古かったです sounds a little odd to me there. I wonder if it might be ぜんぜんつまらなかったです instead.

(But I agree that things like ぜんぜん大丈夫 are more or less standard at this point, in speech.)

[kurisuto]

Makes me think of (誰か)と会う (except that the emotional value is null on this one, as far as I can tell). But I don't really like this subject, it just isn't good for my schizophrenia (you know, one day I'm like "you language-killer !", and another day it would rather be "fine, if he said it like that, then that must the proper way to say it"). But I tend to think this kind of forum should adopt a prescriptivist approach (even if it's only pointing out these "mistakes").

[lonelytraveler8]

No no, I'm still new to adjective conjugations, so I accidentally typed でした at the end instead of です. It was a type.

it's spelled 面白い, not お面白い

This was also a typo. I accidentally typed totemoo.

I did either hear it wrong, or just remembered incorrectly after I got home. What the student actually says is:

ぜんぜん古くありませんでした。