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Take a walk in Kyoto in the early morning with a camera.

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Artist: Yoshida Toshi Title: Silver Pavilion, Kyoto Date: 1951.

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Japanese lesson 6

Today's theme is "Words to use when you want to know the meaning".

今日のテーマは「意味を知りたい時に使う言葉」です。

1. What does .... mean?

「....とはどういう意味ですか？」

(とは どういう いみ ですか？)

例: "椅子"とはどういう意味ですか？(いす とは どういう いみですか)

2.Could you explain the word .... ?

「....という言葉を説明していただけますか？」

(という ことばを せつめいして いただけますか？)

例: "明後日"という言葉を説明していただけますか？(あさって という ことばを せつめいして いただけますか)

3.Is there another word for .... ?

「....の代わりになる他の言葉はありますか？」

(かわりになる ほかの ことばは ありますか？)

例: "夕食"の代わりになる他の言葉はありますか？(ゆうしょくの かわりになる ほかの ことばは ありますか)

You should use it!

See you again!

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🌼how to restart learning a language🌼

i’ve recently gone through a language break, taking 5 months out to reassess my future. i really want to get back to learning Japanese, so here are my tips for restarting that language you might have been neglecting!

reassess your goals. its likely that if you’ve taken an extended break, your life has changed a little and there may be some new priorities taking over. reassess what you want to get out of restarting your language journey so it’s easier to plan around your day

make small targets that can be reached easily. for a short while, you’ll have to work hard to get your head back into the swing of learning a language. making small goals can really up your productivity because you wont be discouraged by big expectations at first!

slowly immerse yourself. immersion is widely known as a good supplement to your language learning. while you’re in the early stages of relearning a language, it’s really fun to start rewatching that subbed anime you lost track of, or listen to that spanish band you loved so much. it will help your brain get back ‘into’ the language, and you’ll have fun along the way!

revisit your notebooks. if you’re anything like me, you have a ton of notebooks and stacks of random note paper lying around untouched since you dropped out of your language. do your best to collect them up, sort through the useful stuff and then, get a blank notebook and rewrite all of your notes. your brain wont have forgotten everything but starting a new notebook will give you incentive to learn, as well as solidifying the information you already learnt!

take it slow. your brain is a muscle that needs exercising. if you havent been using your language brain for a while, don’t try and run a marathon without training first! there’s no rush. your journey is yours, and yours alone. take it as slow as you need to to start learning your language again and get back into the studying swing of things

🌼good luck on revisiting your language journey!🌼

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Japanese language is...

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Japanese YouTubers I watch for listening practice

のってん- Unboxing and presentation of toys. She’s very funny and speaks fast, so hearing her is very good listening practice.

Minicuteclub - Also toy unboxing and some tutorials.

ハピバニChannel - Two little, cute girls are the protagonists in the videos. Mostly blogs, sometimes you unboxing. Great to get used to the way a native Japanese child speaks and to very informal, short speech.

中野恵那ちゃんえな - Beauty blogs.

さぁや Saaya - Beauty blogs. She does very cute and useful makeup tutorials.

Miniature room - Love miniature stuff? This channel is awesome! Not speaking though…

なかねんわ-るど - Miscellaneous blogs.

JPCMHD - Japanese TV commercials. You can know the culture of a country by looking at the way they try to sell stuff.

こばしり - More beauty blogs! Great makeup tutorials.

まあたその「ほぼメイキャンネル」- Funny blogs. She speaks very energetic and fast!

はじめしゃちょ-の - Still trying to figure out what this channel objective really is. It’s a bunch of guys yelling in a funny way. I like it, though. Seems very popular, since their videos are almost always on trend.

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Seven years after, I see you again 😚

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Kanjicards.org is a really cool site for all you kanji learners out there! You can learn onyomi, kunyomi and examples along with stoke order. You can learn them by grade lvl, JLPT lvl, frequency-of-use and individualized lists.

Here’s the kanji for the verb to write 書く・かく。 Even though it isn’t listed in the examples, it’s still listed as a reading. It’s a good way to be introduced to kanji, refresh your skills or learn by a specific level. I would suggest this if you need to refresh your skills or set a goal by level.

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Given names in Korean are almost always two syllables, with the first syllable usually being shared with your siblings and cousins (all the children of the same generation of a family, basically). I just grew up with this and didn’t think it was weird until I had cause to explain it to someone yesterday, at which point I stopped and wondered if I was making all of this up, it seemed so weird, how the heck do they coordinate that? Do the parents of the first kid of the new generation decide, or something? That doesn’t sound right. I looked it up, and it turns out that family lines keep a constant character array in a poem:

The sequence of generation is typically prescribed and kept in record by a generation poem (bāncì lián 班次聯 or pàizì gē 派字歌 in Chinese) specific to each lineage. While it may have a mnemonic function, these poems can vary in length from around a dozen characters to hundreds of characters. Each successive character becomes the generation name for successive generations.[1] After the last character of the poem is reached, the poem is usually recycled though occasionally it may be extended.

Generation poems were usually composed by a committee of family elders whenever a new lineage was established through geographical emigration or social elevation. Thus families sharing a common generation poem are considered to also share a common ancestor and have originated from a common geographical location.

Which is mindblowingly cool, I think.

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Filed under : Japanese expressions I need to start slipping into everyday conversation

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Types of Language Learners

The scholar: neat notes, can recite the conjugation to irregular verbs, listens to podcasts, thought about annotating their dictionary, maybe did, knows synonyms for every word, random linguistics facts.

The traveler: "best way to learn a language? Visit the country!", too many journals, makes friends everywhere, can recite swear words and slang, if Facebook had a max friend limit they'd hit it, broad vocabulary.

The Hoarder™: has duolingo memrise rosetta busuu and babbel, reblogs every single vocabulary list, started Korean today and tomorrow they'll start Norwegian, do you want a book in x language? they have it, "I found this cool YouTube channel about Persian!" They don't speak Persian.

Your Friendly Neighbor: shares links to resources, helps you understand their native language, willing to start a new language with you, points out your mistakes because that's how kind they are, will lend you their notes, makes vocabulary lists.

Passive learner: doesn't use a text book, movies are the true teachers, knows the lyrics to Disney songs in their target language, "I just downloaded a whole album of German rock", knows the word for juxtaposition but forgets how to say dog

I wish I were you: Makes flashcards, has notes about every grammar rule, studying for a certification, reads newspaper's articles, foreign novels in their original language, knows IPA, has online friends that speak their target language, finished the duolingo tree.

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Hello! We are a new Discord server for lovers of languages and linguists alike. We offer channels for discussing linguistics, practicing your target languages, finding language exchange partners, sharing resources, and much more. Come and join us! https://discord.gg/VmaqCY3

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(This isn’t really aimed at you, it’s just a general rant.) I hope all those “but a settler learning the language could save it!!!” anons realize that the definition of a dead language is when the last native speaker dies…if you learn the language and the last native speaker dies it will still be a dead language even though some people speak it. People speak Ancient Greek & Latin yet those are both dead languages, because there are no native speakers. :0

This is a really good point, thank you!! 

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こんにちわ!

This is the best Japanese workbook for beginners. I really think the best way to learn a new alphabet is to learn it like you would if you were learning your native language again; these books perfectly captured that.