nihongotime

[nihongotime]

The art used for herbivore men in Bunpo made me laugh

[nihongotime]

I'm at a :.|:; for words.

[nihongotime]

[nihongotime]

i love the strange reality of being a human person with a human brain. one time someone said something to me in a foreign language (japanese, which i do not speak) and i automatically responded in a different foreign language (spanish, which i do not speak well) and then we both said "what?" in english, an experience made more surreal by the fact that everyone around us was speaking loudly in canadian french (as this occurred in Quebec)

[nihongotime]

[nihongotime]

The thought of having to navigate this is very stressful to me

[nihongotime]

I started Hebrew, which is why I’ve been dead on this blog, but I don’t think I can ever properly convey to you guys the sheer cultural whiplash of spending years learning Japanese from Japanese teachers and then trying to learn Hebrew from an Israeli

Japanese: you walk into class already apologizing for being alive Hebrew: you walk into class, the teacher insults you and you are expected to insult her back

Japanese: conjugates every single verb based on degree of intended politeness, nevermind keigo and honorifics Hebrew: Someone asked my teacher how to say “excuse me” and she laughed for several seconds before saying we shouldn’t worry about remembering that since we’ll never need to say it

Japanese: if you get one stroke wrong the entire kanji is incomprehensible Hebrew: cursive? script? fuck it do whatever you want, you don’t even have to write the vowels out unless you feel like it

Japanese: the closest thing there is to ‘bastard’ is an excessively direct ‘you’ pronoun Hebrew: ‘bitch’ translates directly

[nihongotime]

This Twitter thread really spoke to me. I wanted to share it with anyone who hasn’t seen it. 

[nihongotime]

Does Japanese have a phrase similar to "toe beans" for cat toes? J-san has some lovely toe beans :)

にくきゅう！

にほんの 毛のない大きいねこも にくきゅうすき！

It's niku-kyuu(肉球) and Japanese also love them!

[nihongotime]

me doing japanese homework:

wait a minute….

[nihongotime]

This is a post about masterposts about resources and books for studying many languages. I made this since many people do not know about all the resources that have been posted.

Resources for Many Languages: thelanguagecommunity

General

Language Library  

Free Online Language Courses 

Massive Language Resource  

Language and Linguistics  

Language Families/Groups

West African Languages 

Classics Resource Masterpost  

Latin & Greek Masterpost 

Celtic Languages Resources  

Celtic Family Masterpost  

Dutch, Afrikaans, West Frisian, Limburgish  

Finnish, Estonian, Saami, Voro  

Germanic Languages Resources  

Scandinavian Language Resources  

North Germanic Languages  

South Asian Languages Resources  

Alien Languages of Star Trek 

Afrikaans

Learn Afrikaans Masterpost  

Afrikaans Resources

Ainu

Ainu Resources

Albanian

Albanian Resources  

Arabic

Arabic Learning Resources  

Arabic Language Resources  

Arabic Language Apps

Moroccan Masterpost  

Free Arabic Resources

Armenian

Armenian Language Masterpost 

ASL

American Sign Language Masterpost  

ASL Masterpost

Azerbaijani

Azerbaijani Resources 

Belarusian

Belarusian Masterpost

Belarusian Resources

Bengali

Bengali Masterpost

Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian

Resources

Bulgarian

Bulgarian Resources

Catalan

Catalan Masterpost

Resources to Lean Catalan  

Catalan Resources

Cantonese

Cantonese Resources

Mandarin Chinese

Mandarin Chinese Masterpost  

Chinese Language Resources I  

Chinese Language Resources II

Pinyin Masterpost  

Intermediate Chinese Resources  

Crimean Tatar

Crimean Tatar Resources

Czech

Czech Resources for Beginners

Czech Masterpost

Danish

Danish Masterpost  

Dutch

Dutch Resources  

Dutch Masterpost

English

English Online Courses  

English Resource Masterpost

Euskera

Euskera Resources  

Faroese

Faroese Resources

Finnish

Finnish Resources  

Finnish Beginner Resources  

Finnish Resources

French

French Resources

French Resource Masterpost  

French Masterpost  

Intermediate Resources

Galician

Galician Resources

Georgian

Georgian Language Masterpost

German

German Learning Tools  

German Resources  

German Resources  

German Resources  

German Sites   

Gothic

Gothic Language Masterpost

Greek

Greek Masterpost 

Ancient Greek Masterpost  

Ancient Greek Resources

Greenlandic

Greenlandic Resources  

Guarani

Guarani Masterpost

Hawaiian

Learn Hawaiian  

Hebrew

Hebrew Language Masterpost

Hebrew Masterpost

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Hindi Language Masterpost

Hindi Audio & Video

Hungarian

Hungarian Masterpost

Hungarian Learning Resources

Hungarian Resources  

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Icelandic for Everyone  

Icelandic Resources  

Indonesian

Indonesian Resources

Italian

How to Learn Italian 

Italian Resources  

Italian Masterpost  

Italian Resource Masterlist  

Italian Culture Masterpost  

Irish

Irish Resources 

Japanese

Free Japanese Resources  

Japanese Resources  

Studying Japanese  

Japanese Resource Masterpost  

Japanese Language Learning Resources

Kannada

Kannada Resources  

Kazakh

Kazakh Masterpost  

Khmer

Khmer Language Masterpost

Kikongo

Free Kikongo Resources  

Korean

Korean Textbook Masterpost 

Korean Resources 

Korean Resource Masterpost  

Korean Language Masterpost 

Ultimate Korean Masterpost 

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz Resources

Latin

Learning Latin 

Masterpost of Latin Video Resources  

Latin Resources  

Malay

Malay Resources  

Maltese

Maltese Resources  

Mongolian

Mongolian Resources

Nahuatl

Nahuatl Language Masterpost  

Nepali

Nepali Masterpost

Norwegian

Norwegian Masterpost

Norwegian Resources  

Norwegian Sources

Norwegian Masteprost

Occitan

Occitan Resources

Old Church Slavonic

Resources

Pashto

Pashto Masterpost

Persian

Persian Language Masterpost

Polish

Polish Masterpost  

Polish Self-Study Masterpost  

Polish Resources

Portuguese 

Portuguese Resources  

Portuguese Resource Masterpost

Portuguese Starter Pack

Portuguese Resources

Punjabi

Punjabi Masterpost

Punjabi Resources

Romanian

Romanian Resources  

Romanian Resources  

Useful Romanian Resources 

Romanian Masterpost   

Romanian Resources

Russian

Russian Learning Tools  

Russian Textbooks   

Some More Resources  

Russian Masterpost 

Sami

Northern Sami Resources

Scottish Gaelic

Learn Scottish Gaelic Masterpost 

Serbian

Serbian Masterpost  

Language Resources  

Sinhala

Sinhala Resources

Slovak

Slovak Resources

Slovak Masterpost

Slovene

Slovene Resources 

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Somali Language Masterpost

Spanish

Spanish Resources: Oxford  

Spanish Resources  

Learning Spanish 

Spanish Resources Masterpost  

Swahili

Swahili Resources

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Swedish Resources  

Swedish Resources  

Swedish Resources  

Tagalog

Tagalog Masterpost

Tagalog Resources

Tamil

Tamil Resources

Tamil Masterpost

Tatar

Tatar Resources

Thai

Thai resources + books

Tibetan 

Tibetan Resources 

Turkish

Turkish Resources

Turkish Masterpost

Turkish Resource List

Ukrainian

Ukrainian Language Masterpost 

Ukrainian Resources

Urdu

Urdu Masterpost

Vietnamese

Vietnamese Resources

Xhosa

Xhosa Resources

Yiddish

Yiddish Language Masterpost

Yoruba

Yoruba Resources

Zulu

Zulu Resources

**Last Updated: September 30, 2017**

[nihongotime]

fun thing i just remembered

in japanese, there’s a term for a person who dual wields swords called “ryoutoutsukai”, literally meaning something along the lines of “two sword user”. it’s ALSO a euphemism for bisexuality

[nihongotime]

Studying with Manga (my method, anyway)

I only just recently started using manga as a study tool because honestly, it’s intimidating to crack open a book and realize just how little you actually know.  I wish someone had told me earlier that it doesn’t have to be a terrifying jumble of grammar and kanji I haven’t learned yet, because it’s been a great tool!  So I wanted to write a little guide for people who aren’t sure where to start, hopefully this helps someone!

Knowledge you’ll need: Ability to read hiragana & katakana, mid-beginner level grammar and vocab (if you find yourself struggling with every single speech bubble, maybe come back to this method later)

Some benefits to studying with manga:

★ You’ll get exposure to more casual and natural text than what you might find in a textbook

★ You’ll pick up a lot of genre-specific vocab

★ Illustrations make it easier to follow what’s going on based on context if you’re not quite sure about the text

★ It’s fun!  And you absorb information better when you’re enjoying yourself :)

And some cons:

★ Speech might be more colloquial than you really want.  Make sure you understand the context before you go repeating the dialogue

★ Said genre-specific vocab might not actually be useful, depending on the genre (I know SO MANY yu-gi-oh related words that I am NEVER going to need…)

★ Manga doesn’t care where you are in your textbook, so it’s on you to figure out the things you haven’t learned yet

Picking out a series

The main points to look for is that the language is relatively simple, the kanji has furigana attached and the genre is relevant to you (both because it won’t be very interesting otherwise, and because you’ll be picking up vocab as you go and it’s more useful if it’s vocab you can use in life).  Yotsuba&!, Chi’s Sweet Home and Nichijou are some good examples.  They can be purchased pretty easily on Amazon.co.jp for about $6 a volume.  If you’re impatient it’s not particularly hard to find raw scans online, but please support the artist by buying the manga too :)

Let’s study!

I like to take it one chapter at a time and read each chapter 3-4 times, focusing on different things each time

First read: simply read through the chapter straight through- take your time to understand what you can and make notes of the pages where there’s something you’re unfamiliar with as you come across them, but don’t get hung up on them.

Second read: Go back to the trouble pages and look up any vocab and kanji you don’t know.  Write them down along with their translation (if you do flashcards, add them to your deck for later review too!)

Third read: Go through one more time with your newfound vocab knowledge and see how much you can get this time.  Look up any grammar you’re struggling with as you go along.  Also, take any sentences you understand but had trouble with and add them to your flashcards as well (why & how you should study full sentences via flashcards)

Fourth read: if you have access to the English version of the manga, go through and compare your understanding to the official translation, see if you were wildly off anywhere and figure out why.

Go through each chapter like this and by the end of one volume you should have a ton of kanji and vocab to study, as well as a better understanding of how certain phrases are used and possibly some new grammar points!  Neat!  And hopefully you had a good time doing it, too :) this is a great way to make studying feel like less of a slog and break yourself out of you textbook comfort zone.

[nihongotime]

[nihongotime]

Work Smarter, Not Harder: study tips psychology taught me

study in shorter intervals and take breaks (ie, 40 minutes studying and 20 minutes break)

during your break don’t watch tv or surf the internet. get outside if you can and go for a walk. or at least listen to some instrumental music and walk around your hall. or meditate or do some art. anything that doesn’t require super directed attention. this allows your attention to be replenished. it’s like a muscle and you gotta give it time to rest. tv doesn’t allow for that.

relate the information to yourself and your life. creating visual images will improve your memory.

when studying, take notes by hand and put them in your own words. generating material yourself will encode the material better in your brain, and you’ll remember it better

don’t just reread, rehearse! quiz yourself on the materials. if you use a visual image “memory palace” technique, walk yourself through it. you’re likely to remember information you’ve tested yourself on better.

organizing information into groups that make sense create more connections in your brain and allow you to remember things better. the more meaningful connections you make, the better.

make sure the last thing you do before bed is study. no phone, no netflix. your brain will process what you’ve just done while you sleep and this improve recall.

(feel free to add any!)

[nihongotime]

Got to class way too early AGAIN. Going over today’s lesson

[nihongotime]

Culture Shock in Japan Day 3

1. Crowds, crowds, crowds...I was waiting for a friend today but I couldn't find a place to stand still because there was just a constant people-wave. I ended up walking kinda far from the station just to find a place I could stop walking. 2. Huge lines for random things. Usually in America I see a line-out-the-door at a certain time, at certain exclusive places. Here McDonald's or some other such nothing-special takeout window will have a huge line at times I wouldn't expect. 3. Huge obsession with beauty here. We somewhat have it in America but here everywhere I look there's an ad for eye cream or a face mask or something. It makes me slightly uncomfortable. Which leads me to the next thing... 4. Over abundance of competing ads and businesses. In the subway especially, every tiny inch of space seems to have a different ad and then they have TVs on the train showing commercials as well. Ad overload. Also businesses (restaurants and shopping) are stacked and squished in an overwhelming way. I don't know where to look/go! 😱 5. Pachinko parlors are weird, epileptic gambling buildings that are usually blasting music and covered in anime characters for some reason. I might go in one once just out of curiosity 6. The face masks. I'm not weirded out by them, I think they're smart, but I didn't realize how abundant they'd be! It seems like 1/4 of people wear them! Sometimes I look around and think, "THIS many people are sick!?" Also, I saw and ad that was bragging that your lipstick won't rub off on your mask lol that's how commonplace they are. 7.Strange nose stuff. I saw 2 weird nose things: one on TV where they were saying "If you're nose is running and a co-worker comes over, hide it by drinking from your coffee mug!" (Or just blow your nose?) And then I saw an ad on the train where the photo was a girl flushing out her nose with some kind of cleanser. (Water streaming out of one nostril) I just thought "this would never work as an ad in America, unless it was a parody of something..." 8. I heard a loud knocking, looked out my window and saw someone using an old-timey rug beater. (I guess maybe we do that in America? I've never seen it though)