#Nihongo restart

[maerossi]

hello i am learning japanese and i am absolutely disgusted by this 😾

候, meaning season/weather

侯, meaning daimyo, lord, marquis

im so mad this is so rude

[rigelmejo]

Okay my perfectionist tendencies suck ToT.

My new study plan, Chinese: attempting to counteract the perfectiomist urges: listen to Poyun audiobook, do not replay or restart any sections. If I lose the plot then I fucking lose it. As far as I can tell, it has at least as many unique words (roughly) as MoDu, and probably more words I don't know (since I studied from Priest novels so I know more words in them generally). So I figure, I can get practice from Poyun understanding the parts with words I know, practice understanding faster, and maybe pick up some new words. And then when I go back to easier stuff for me, like the Saye audiobook, I will understand more words and more easily/quickly. I got through 2 hours of Poyun so far. How much am I comprehending? HA. Well... tons of words, but for actual sentences I'll follow 90%-98% of a dialogue portion then it switches to description and Ill understand a sentence or phrase, then just isolated words I caught, then a sentence or phrase again, etc. But we'll see if it still results in progress.

Side note, they use a song in this that I remember from Guardian...

I was listening to Saye, but because I knew almost all the words, I kept replaying each chapter, trying to clearly understand Everything, and so I didn't get farther than 1 hour 20 minutes into the audiobook. Since I kept replaying sections. I probably would improve, just extensively listening to Saye. But I couldnt get myself to stop intensively wanting to replay each line, look up the words I didn't know, and so I wasn't getting through very much of the audiobook. I have also been listening to MoDu and Guardian, and having similar issues: i know ENOUGH that i kept replaying sections and chapters and looking up words, to clarify the details i was missing. So i wasnt getting past the first 5 chapters in either audiobook.

My plan with chinese is just... FINISH AN AUDIOBOOK MEJO PLEASE. Stop repeating the same fucking 10 minutes over and over I'm begging...

Japanese: through 5000 sentences in glossika! My plan is to continue in glossika until I'm done with new sentences, then do review for a month. Afterward, listen to Nihongo Con Teppei podcast, and then Yuyu no nihongo podcast. I should know enough words at the end of glossika to get through those podcasts. I imagine they'll reinforce words I learned, fill in some common word gaps that glossika may have, and improve my comprehension speed. After that, I'd like to move to jdrama watching and video games (or at least lets plays). I love the Comprehensible Japanese youtube channel, but I find it so much EASIER to squeeze audio only study into my days. So I'd like to try with podcasts. And, this part of the plan is the same, whenever I feel like improving reading I plan to just use Satori Reader app for 1-4 months and challenge myself to read as much as possible.

[sambart93]

Touken Ranbu The Movie [Review]

It’s finally here! It’s finally arrived! We waited so long and it’s finally here! I’m hoping I can see it at least one more time before it stops at the cinema because it is so good!

NON-SPOILER REVIEW Overall: This was amazing! I absolutely adored and loved so many parts of this movie!! I loved the story, I loved the reinterpretation of history, I loved the twists and surprises (there are so many that you don’t expect!), I loved the action, I loved the colouring, I loved the cinematography and the camera shots, I loved seeing their pretty make up and their pretty faces on a big giant screen! They all looked amazing!! My honest to god only complaint is that (1) there is a very obvious voice dub within the first 15 minutes of the movie; (2) some of the editing and transitions between scenes were just not smooth at all. The editing was really rough compared to how amazingly produced everything else is in this movie. A few cuts really pissed me off and some transitions were so jarring. I do have one more complaint but it’s spoilery so I’ll list that below. But everything else was amazing! Cannot wait for the DVD! Rating: 8/10 if only the editing had been better.

SPOILER REVIEW

Story

We are back at Honnouji no Hen trying to stop the Jikansokougun from interfering with it. You know the story if you’ve read the history and/or watched the first stage.

Now to the spoilers...

The TouDan think they’ve finished off the Jikansokougun and go back to the Honmaru, but in fact there was still one left who grabs Oda and takes him to a safe place. When Oda wakes up he has the whole Jikansokougun army within his grasp and one of the commanders ‘Mume’ can talk to him and stays by Oda’s side. The TouDan realise what’s happened and goes back. While there Jiji actually saves and rans away with Oda. Everyone feels betrayed but they continue their mission of keeping and eye on Hideyoshi. Jiji takes Oda to Azuchi where Hideyoshi raids and tries to burn down (as per the correct history) but again the Jikansokougun interfere.

I’ll stop there so you’re not too spoiled if you did carry on to read more.

*

Using the star format as usual so it’s easier and quicker for me to get through reviews. 

General Comments

☆ This was so BEAUTIFULLY SHOT! Some of the shots are so well done and they all looked so damn pretty! They must’ve had a very nice budget for this movie because it’s visually beautiful, the colouring used is beautiful, so many shots are just PERFECT!

☆ I loved the close ups of all the swords! Being able to see their pretty faces  (which had a lot lighter make up than what they wear on stage so their natural beauty shined out more!) so close up was just wonderful ^_^

☆ Also their makeup! I absolutely adored their make up in this!! All of the swords except Nihongo have eyeliner half way across their bottom lashes (yeah this is how good the quality is and how well you can see the makeup and how goddamn observant I am xD). And they all looked SO NICE! 

☆ NIHONGO’S ONSIE for uchiba/Internal Affairs is freaking ADORABLE!!!! It’s a freaking Onsie! A ONSIE! I was losing it!! And he looked so good in it too!! It was this freaking adorable great onsie!! I can’t get over this... I can’t! xD

☆ Jiji has plot armour in this movie too as expected because he’s always givemn bloody plot armour. He REALLY should’ve died in this one. Scientifically and by Touken Game standards he SHOULD have died. But alas ‘we can’t hurt the fan favourite precious Jiji’ oh fuck off, hurry up and kill him already! Fuck sake.

☆ I really liked Fuma’s Honebami. Just like the stages, we didn’t get enough time with him. We didn’t really get to know him. But I think something between His and Mitsuya’s Hone is what I expect Hone to be so I like Movie Hone. BUT, Hone should’ve died too by the way. Just from the dire situation he ends up in, he really should’ve been killed and died. It’s not like we can’t bring these swords back!

☆ I died a little when Uguisumaru said his famous line!

☆ Tomoki as Uguisumaru was perfect JUST as I had predicted! He was great! I loved the looks between Jiji and him where they completely understood each other without having to speak! I absolutely adored how soft his voice was, very nicely matching Ugui’s image. 

☆ Also I did start laughing at one point when I remembered Suzuki and Tomoki had been in YowaPeda together. I just imagined Suzuki’s Arakita and Tomoki’s Makishima dressing up in their sword outfits. Them looking like TouDan but with their Peda character’s personalities just cracked me up SO MUCH!

☆ You can definitely appreciate the amount of LEG shown by Yagen and Fudou in this movie! The camera itself really loved focusing on Yagen’s legs! Many times there are obvious shots that are there JUST for his legs xD and there’s a scene at the honmaru where Fudou goes to sleep and you can see all the muscles in his legs and it’s beautiful ^_^ highly appreciated and thankful for these shots!

☆ I do like movie version of Hasebe. I liked him somewhat in this one. There wasn’t so much forehead acting from Wada in this (thank god) so I liked Hasebe this time around. 

☆ And I guess movie version of Jiji wasn’t as much of a dick as he is in the stage too. I do like Jiji quite a bit in this one too, but he still got that god damn plot armour.

☆ In some shots you can see the knee support around Maki’s right leg - he was still receiving rehabilitation on his knee after his surgery when he stupidly went off to film this.

☆ I am here for the utter and complete tag team of Yagen and Manba! I absolutely adored all their scenes together! I was SO down for this pair up! They were great together!

☆ If you’ve never seen the Eiga Dorobo video, I highly recommend you see it! It’s often shown in movie theatre before the movie starts and it’s gold! (see here) so for Touken Ranbu they made special ones with the cast joining in! They even had the Jikansokougun too! So far there have only been 2 episodes out and a third one should be coming. So for the two different episodes we had the appearance of:

Eiga Dorobo 1: Uguisumaru, Fudou, Hasebe

Eiga Dorobo 2: Honebami, Nihongo, Yagen

☆ Watching the movie, I had this huge moment of ‘fuck, I love Touken Ranbu’, because there are so many versions of it and anyone can make any version they want because the creators of the game gave so much leeway as to how to interpret the swords, the personalities, how they defend history, the lore of the Jikan, there is just so much god damn potential in this series and there’s so many ways and stories you can write with these boys! I just got so happy and proud while watch the movie. We can literally make up whatever shit we want so long as history goes back to normal at the end! It’s GREAT!

☆ However, as already stated above, there were some super dodgy editing in this! I really need to find out who the editor is and send them an email because some of the editing was cringe worthy. We literally had one shot where Jiji walks out but the shot is focused on Jiji’s feet for about 5 seconds while Jiji talks. No shot of Jiji actually talking, no shot of Jiji’s face, just his FEET! HIS FEET! What the hell was that shot of Jiji’s feet at the beginning of the movie?! I’ve watched this movie TWICE and I have absolutely NO idea what the point of that shot was! That was the worst one. 

☆ Other things like in the very first opening scene we are have a VERY OBVIOUS audio dub over one of the guys. Why they dubbed over the man with different lines to what his mouth creates, I don’t know why, but it does not sync up at all and it is very obvious.

☆ And the transition between scenes/days and the cut backs to older stuff in the movie was just very poorly edited too. If a scene ended, it would fade to black and for like 2 seconds there would be nothing, no music, just a black scene and then suddenly a new song would start, it felt VERY stage-y and not like a movie at all! It was cringe worthy and really wasted precious seconds we could’ve spent on the movie. Also we had some ‘flashback’ scenes and the music and sound immediately cut off from Cut 1 -> Cut 2 would be the flashback and be absolutely silent, no music -> go back to Cut 1 and suddenly the music has restarted again. I REALLY didn’t like it! It REALLY pissed me. LET ME FUCKING REEDIT THIS GOD DAMN MOVIE! The post production for most of this movie SUCKED. The editing and the sound mixing SUCKED. Ugh... that person needs firing.

☆ Also, this movie was WAY too short! We get 3 hour long stages from Marv, so why is the movie less than 2 god damn hours?! It’s barely 1 hour 45! Give me more gungi! Give me some comedy! (There is NO comedy in this besides ONE line from Hasebe!) Give me them enjoying time at the god damn honmaru! 

☆ Upon looking back, I realised that they did not show one of the bigger fights at all that happens towards the end of the movie. I really wish they had shown that fight scene rather than having it happen off screen. There was so much potential and so much you could’ve done with that fight scene. You could’ve easily had swords pop up here, there, everywhere and they could’ve done it in a real stylistic way if they didn’t have the time or money to get actual actors. They could’ve just done close up shots of swords’ costumes, or their feet landing next to the Jikan, or show two swords clashing, or a danshi jumping into the fight etc. You could’ve easily ‘brought in’ many swords into that fight scene without actual hiring any actors (especially if certain actors did not have time) and it could’ve been very creative, stylistic and interesting and it would’ve been a big flail for the fans.

☆ Also MAJOR SPOILERS HERE: the ending part with the new sword? Don’t just IGNORE that for fuck sake! Give him and the audience an explanation! Let him speak! Let him have his moment as to what happened to him and where he’s been and what he went through shit! God damn don’t just NOT explain that! Don’t just have him pop up, save the day, say his name and FINISH! What the fuck.

Wow the more I think about this movie, the more dissatisfied I get... okay, last one!

☆ Also Nishii Yukito had SUCH a small role!!! I was hoping he’d have so much more screen time than what he actually got. He has about 1 minute max *so sad*

I DO pin a lot of my complaints and nitpicks on the fact I have a cinematography background; I studied film, I’ve made films, I’ve always watched BTS of making films, I love the process of film making. And I think because of that, that’s why I’m being so particular on HOW it was made and on post-production and how I would’ve made the movie. So if you’re not into the whole film making side of movies then none of these are gunna bother you. If you’re not into this stuff then I really think you’ll enjoy this movie a lot! You will definitely have a good time and be satisfied and enjoy it so much!

Okay now onto:

MAJOR SPOILER TERRITORY COMMENTS

☆ I loved this version of Saru and how he isn’t just a nice guy and isn’t just the idiot that history leads us to believe. In this he’s cold, and mean, and turned against so many people! I loved Saru suddenly going against Hasebe too! It was such a plot twist! He invited Hasebe and Nihongo into his clan but as soon as our swords let down their guard, Saru’s men attacked them and they had to run! It was such a shocking twist! And Hasebe getting shot because of this ambush too was insane!! I know it’s spoiled in the trailer but seeing it happen in that moment! I was not expecting it at all!

☆ Also I am glad I got to see Hasebe actually almost physically harming Jiji, and Manba straight up being like ‘yo I don’t trust you Mika,’ and Yagen siding with Manba! Oh my! It was such a great scene! I loved all the suspicion going on around them and them not exactly wanting to agree or listen to Jiji. Argh! SO GOOD! I was like ‘HIT HIM HASEBE! DO IT!’ and I guess this is another reason why I like Movie Hasebe much more than Stage Hasebe.

 ☆ Seriously! I absolutely loved the teaming up of Yagen and Manba!! And now I want them forever on my team in the game now too! xD

☆ My heart hurt a little when Oda called Jiji ‘Munechika’, I was like ‘YOU HAVE NO RIGHT CALLING HIM BY HIS GIVEN NAME!!’ because clearly Jiji deserves more respect than Oda xD but I think it’s purposely put in so we do feel this way.

☆ I absolutely loved the twist for Oda’s story: he didn’t die at Honnouji, he actually died at Azuchi Castle and only Jiji knows the true hsitory because he was the only one there at the time! Such a great twist! And how Jiji tricked Oda into going to Azuchi, making Oda think he’ll be fine there and making Oda think that they are changing history together! Such a good plot twist! I loved it!

☆ Even though I was spoiled for the new sword, it’s very heavily implied throughout the entire movie. Especially when Akechi uses him in defense again the Jikan, and suddenly the danshi’s (who is clothed in Jikan armour and wear)  eyes turn bright yellow (Jikan’s eyes are all a glowing red). It’s a really good and random reveal!

☆ As Jiji tries to leave Azuchi castle, Honebami meets up with him. But fucking Oda pullings his sword on Hone and pins it at his neck! He tells Jiji to work with him or he’ll kill Hone and Jiji is like ‘I can’t help you, this is how it’s supposed to be’, just, I was like YESSSSSSSSSS!!!! But in the end Oda let’s Hone and Jiji go -__- I’m sorry but Hone SHOULD HAVE been killed there!

☆ One of my favourite lines from the movie is from Jiji (surprisingly) where he says: 守りたいことが増えばっかり。 // Things I want to protect just keep increasing. Which shows just how different of a Jiji we have in this version! He actually fucking emotionally cares in this one!

☆  The very last scene has ALL the Stage swords who have appeared in TouStage up to now were ALL at the Honmaru in this final scene. Except Daihannya & Ookanehira. Those two swords were NOT in this final scene. As for the actors; every one of the TouStage actors, except Hirose Daisuke and Kento, were as their Swords, in their costumes in this final scene. Ichigo and Tsurumaru ARE in this seen but are clearly NOT the actors. They clearly had body doubles / standins in this scene and their faces were out of focus. Also in the final ending credits, these two actors' names were not listed. I was flailing so hard!!! This was a HUGE shocker and I am so happy how many of them were able to come back for this one scene! So this is the scene where the new Saniwa is revealed and we finally got a female Saniwa!!!! I was like ‘YES JUSTICE!!!’ I spent most of the movie like ‘why the fuck is it always a Male Saniwa?!?! Why not hire someone ambiguous like Yuzuki or Toman as the Saniwa?!’. But alas we got our girl at the end!! The very very very last scene is absolutely ADORABLE! The saniwa (she’s like 3 years old) grabs onto the back of Jiji (he’s sitting down and drinking tea) and holds him for a piggyback, he smiles, picks her up and piggybacks her around the honmaru! It’s ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE!! I was in absolutely tears at this scene! Ughhh someone give Suzuki babies!!! I was in a MESS of tears. And the very very very last line is him where he says ‘ Aruji.... the stuff I want to protect just keeps increasing’ arghhhh my heart!! *dead* IT’S SUCH A GOOD ENDING!!!

*

And that’s all! I hope you enjoyed this review and I hope you watch, buy and enjoy the movie!

As stated, I feel like a lot of my complaints come from my cinematic background so general people who just want a good movie are really going to enjoy this!! ^_^  Also if you ever see spelling mistakes, don’t ever hesitate to yell at me! xD

[ra7v-self-learning-nihongo]

日本語: Why did I quit and why am I restarting?

At the age of 13, inspired by the great work of Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball, I became obsessed with everything Japanese, the language, the culture, the anime, the arts, the music, the dramas, the movies, the country, the people......

I taught myself to read and write Hiragana & Katakana back in high school.

I always dreamed of wanting to learn the language properly, in a class room environment, with a proper teacher.

In 2015, at age 32, I happily started Japanese Language night classes, being able to afford it after 10 years of holding a stable job.

2 years later, right before the 6th level exam, I quit.

The official reason: lack of time to study, busy work schedule, business travels.

The actual reason: I didn’t want to fail in the exam.

I aced every level’s exam, even did JLPT N5 (the easiest one) and passed it with flying colours.

But the 6th level lessons were suddenly super-hard, way too many vocabulary to memorize, and the grammar rules were brutal.

So I quit the class, fearing failure.

Unfortunately, I stopped learning Japanese too.

Recently, I was listening to my favourite podcast (Abroad in Japan), Chris and Pete were discussing on how to learn the Japanese language and memorise Kanji.

So I started thinking, why did I quit learning Japanese when I was so passionate about it before?

I had so much fun at the beginning. Where did it all go wrong?

I believe that the problem was not because of my inability to learn, but more due to the way I was learning the language.

The study material (which were mostly from Minna no Nihongo textbooks) was bogging me down with endless details and grammar rules.

I was literally getting turned off by the clinical sterility of the lessons.

It was boring as hell.

We were taught what the rules are, but never the why behind the rules.

The kind teachers in my school, who were all native Japanese speakers, had difficulty explaining concepts in English.

So when the grammar lessons got a bit more complicated, I was learning them for the sake of only passing the exams, instead of understanding and appreciating them.

Exams are the worst, though sometimes necessary, they almost always spoil the joy of learning.

Also, it was becoming a tedious routine, week after week, attend classes, do homework, memorize vocabulary and sentences.

I started learning the language NOT to earn a certificate, but to understand the language, to be able to carry a conversation in the language, and to watch J-dorama/anime without the subtitles.

It was supposed to be a casual & fun thing, instead it became serious & boring chore.

So me quitting the Japanese classes was the right thing to do, but me quitting learning Japanese entirely was not right at all.

Now, 2 years later, I am restarting this journey, this time back to the self-learning method.

Thanks to Chris’s suggestion on his podcast, I will start learning the Kanji using the Heisig method (more explained below), and use the “Human Japanese” apps.

I will set some time every day to self-learn, and also set some loose goals to keep me motivated.

Hopefully, I will be able to maintain this enthusiasm and successfully restart my Japanese language self-learning journey.

I will document some of my learning experiences here, more for record than for sharing.

However, I would appreciate any help, feedback, suggestions, to help me learn Japanese.

On the Heisig method:

I always knew that my Chinese classmates had an advantage over me in learning Kanji

They already knew how to write the Kanji and what the meaning, they just had to learn the Japanese pronunciation.

The Heisig method emulates this, except instead of Mandarin I will learn the Kanji in English.

[ieindigoeast]

ー @kikikokonihongo 🔊January Japanese Word of the Weekday w//QUIZBO™ | 【お疲れ様】 ✨ https://wp.me/p9kdOE-28T ✨

[【′ര▿ര‵】]🎉お疲れ様でした！！🎉 Hear some appreciation from your friends at Kiki+Koko: Let's NihonGO!! for your hard work during this special!

Do not worry if you missed this go of our one-month challenge! You can complete this challenge any month, any week, any day! Don't put off your Japanese language learning dreams!

⸜( ´ ꒳ ` )⸝♡︎

Even if you miss a day or two, no worries! Just restart on any day! Learn at your own pace or try your best to form a positive habit. Just remember:

Learning one thing today is one more thing than you knew yesterday!

https://ieindigoeast.com

#kikikokoNihonGO!!

[kikikokonihongo]

🔊January Japanese Word of the Weekday w//QUIZBO™ | 【お疲れ様】 ✨ https://wp.me/p9kdOE-28T ✨

[【′ര▿ര‵】]🎉お疲れ様でした！！🎉 Hear some appreciation from your friends at Kiki+Koko: Let's NihonGO!! for your hard work during this special!

Do not worry if you missed this go of our one-month challenge! You can complete this challenge any month, any week, any day! Don't put off your Japanese language learning dreams!

⸜( ´ ꒳ ` )⸝♡︎

Even if you miss a day or two, no worries! Just restart on any day! Learn at your own pace or try your best to form a positive habit. Just remember:

Learning one thing today is one more thing than you knew yesterday!

https://ieindigoeast.com

#kikikokoNihonGO!!

[porknbenzo]

MAHIRAP PERO KINAKAYA! Ginusto ko to eh. Hahaha. Nag-aaral ako ng Nihongo 1 ngayon. And I thought of a good idea, (for me, it's good) so I restarted Pokémon Ultra Sun and changed the language from えいご (English) to にほんご (Japanese)! Sa ngayon nasa Hiragana pa lang kami kaya yun ang pinili kong language. Sobrang sarap sa feeling na kahit papano nababasa ko na yung hiragana characters. Kahit hindi ko pa man lubos na naiintindihan ang ibig sabihin ng ibang words, okay lang, time will come na maiintindihan ko rin kasi basic pa lang naman kami ngayon. Sobrang sarap sa feeling na naglalaro ka na, at the same time natututo ka pa. Next time Katakana naman kami tapos ayun irerestart ko ulit isa ko pang game tapos katakana naman ang gagamitin ko. I can't wait to learn, and fluently speak Japanese. Well on a side note, today is Pokémon Day. Happy anniversary trainers.

[maerossi]

teaching Japanese is bringing back flashbacks of how HARD it was to learn beginner japanese. I totally forgot how bewildering it was to me at first that there was no simple way of saying "and." Like the word for "and" changes in Japanese depending on (among other things) what part of speech you're combining ("cute and pretty" uses a different 'and' than "desk and chair" or "running and jumping").

Like this is a non-issue for me now. I don't have to stop and think "which 'and' do I use?" But 10 years ago I absolutely made a pact with myself to just never combine 2 or more words in a Japanese sentence because it seemed impossible

[maerossi]

Japanese diary 1

I don't know if I'll keep this up or not, but im trying a new thing and want to note it down so that i can see in hindsight if it works.

I'm JLPT N2-level, but I haven't studied Japanese in 2 years. When I was learning Japanese most actively, I was living in Japan and felt very rushed because I wanted to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could, even if it meant cramming in tons of information without necessarily mastering it all. In addition, I was having some physical difficulties with my hands when I was learning kanji, so I was never able to practice writing.

I'm now a Japanese tutor, and I'm teaching a kid the language right from level 0.

And I'm planning to move back to Japan.

All of this adds up to: I'm thinking now is a good time for me to do a "restart," where I study the language all over again, focusing on deep mastery and on gaining (hand)writing skills.

Right now I'm doing this by:

Reading a bunch of books on Japanese linguistics to better understand how Japanese developed. I was inspired to do this by some folks I know whose Japanese seems to really benefit from their understanding of the history and mechanics of the language

Learning to write 1-2 kanji every day.

Copying down at least a few sentences of Japanese every day to improve my handwriting.

Other miscellaneous stuff.

So....here's what ive done so far:

I'm reading a book called How to Improve Your Memory Week by Week, and it's helping me a lot tbh. Im relearning to treat my memory as a muscle I can strengthen and refine.

Read about 200 pages of Handbook of Japanese Lexicon and Word Formation

50 pages into a reread of Jay Rubin's Making Sense of Japanese. I found this book unhelpful and confusing about 15 years ago, and I find it pretty unhelpful and confusing now, but Jay Rubin is extremely funny so ill 頑張っている

I can now write 貌、氾、and 極, all kanji I definitely couldn't write before 2 days ago.

I copied the first 2 pages of 本屋さんのルビねこ, which is a cute little chapter book about a cat who lives in a bookstore. Ive already read it before, and the reading level is probably appropriate for like 7-9 year-olds. I picked it because a) I like the story, b) easy to understand so I can focus on my handwriting instead of running to my dictionary, and c) uses a sufficient amount of common kanji.

That's all! It feels surprisingly good to be back in the groove again. Hopefully my motivation lasts

[maerossi]

i love japanese. I love thinking about it, reading about it, talking about it, teaching it, thinking about how to teach it. I love reading in japanese. self-help books I'd get no enjoyment out of in English feel fascinating and inspiring in Japanese. I can be delighted just by, like, recognizing a word i learned recently. I love talking about Japanese with Japanese friends; I love watching my non-native friends progress in the language. I love the conceptual connections I can make in Japanese, and how they only grow and interweave more abundantly the more I learn.

Like yesterday I realized that the 丁 in 丁目, used in addresses to refer to a section of blocks in a neighborhood, is conceptually linked to 包丁, a carving knife, and マグロを一丁, one gutted tuna: the 丁 in all of them refer to (I believe) the idea of something being divided into parts. This connection between city blocks and gutted fish doesn't exist in English, but it makes sense in my head because I have access to another language. Many, many such examples.

I remember the first time I looked at a then new-to-me kanji, 銅, copper, and thought that it should have something to do with metal before I even registered why I thought that. The 金 radical had entered my marrow so deeply that this new kanji literally tasted metallic to me, and when I found out it meant copper, I thought, "of course, it looks just like copper."

But it doesn't, obviously. It looks like a bunch of lines. But also it looks and tastes and feels and smells elemental.

I remember the first time I realized that tsuna is rope and tsunagari is connection and tsuku is to stab and tsukamu is to seize and tsuku means to stick, to adhere, and OH! The sounds themselves are imbued with meaning! "Tsu," ahem, *connects* concepts that would, again, otherwise be totally unassociated in my mind: in Japanese, to stab is to connect a knife to a body, just as tsukuru, to build, means to connect materials to create (nail enough shingles together and you have a roof, for example).

This post has no point other than to say im back, baby 😎 back to learning japanese

[maerossi]

Trying to give myself more grace with my non-native language--at least as much grace as I give myself with my native tongue.

My native language is English. Sometimes I don't know English words in newspapers, especially when they're specialty vocabulary or legalese. Sometimes I skim paragraphs in books because they're very boring or hard to read. Sometimes I turn on subtitles for movies because the characters mumble or have accents I'm not used to. I don't expect to understand every English-language dialect equally well. Sometimes someone from my hometown will speak to me clearly at an audible volume, but I was tired and will ask for them to repeat themselves.

But if I do any of that in Japanese? I'm bad at Japanese. I'm bad at Japanese. I'm bad at Japanese and always have been and always will be and no matter how hard I try my brain is broken and---

I learned 56 kanji in February. I tested myself by writing them all out in sequence from memory, then writing their readings and their English meanings. I got 52/56 perfectly correct. I was crushed by this. Today I forgot how to spell 'impoverished' and had to sound it out really slowly, then use spellcheck. I thought nothing of this.

Like, do you see my point.

[maerossi]

Japanese diary 2

Things I've done with Japanese this week:

Watched 5 episodes of BOYFRIEND on Netflix, Japan's first gay/bi reality TV show

Read 50 pages of PENGUIN HIGHWAY by Morimi Tomihiko

Practiced my Japanese handwriting

Read a bunch of inspirational blogs in Japanese where they give you handwriting tips and try to convince you that if you buy their calligraphy correspondence course it will change your life (they might be right)

Im being silly but also it was very encouraging to see that there are native speakers of Japanese who struggle with their handwriting and relate to my same difficulties (e.g., being too embarrassed to write New Year's cards to my friends; struggling with handwritten resumes). It made me reflect on how handwriting is seen quite differently in Japan, so it affects your social and professional life if your handwriting is messy (maybe especially if youre a woman).

acknowledging that helped me clarify my motivation for wanting to write nicely in Japanese after years of online language gurus telling everyone that writing in Japanese is not an important skill cuz it's not tested on the JLPT or whatever. Like ok cool bro but it matters to me

Learned to write these kanji: 氾, 濫, 貌、畔、藍、陪、痘、虞、勃、殴、逓、劾、骸、遵、頓、屯

Im learning to write the kanji by: learning 2 every morning before i get out of bed, and then writing ALL the kanji ive learned this week in the sequence i learned them after breakfast and before i go to sleep (2x/day). Im not doing rote memorization; Im using memory techniques from the book HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY WEEK BY WEEK.

I also write them in sequence and recall their 訓読み and 音読み when im on the bus and during other quiet times (sometimes i just "write" them with my finger or in my head). Honestly it's a nice way to fill up boring moments of the day with something that makes me feel accomplished

In the world of teaching japanese: my student is progressing quickly in learning hiragana; correcting their handwriting helps me think critically about my own; and their mom told me that they said they already feel much more confident in japanese after just a couple of lessons 😭

[maerossi]

Being N2 and learning to write vs read kanji is such a head game for me because I just realized i didnt know the stroke order for 食. Like, i even tried to guess and i was wrong. i dont know any Japanese apparently like for real 😭 how can i not know how to write 食

[maerossi]

random Japanese thing I realized this week: i used to go to the hospital in japan and, when I passed the cancer ward, I always wondered why cancer, がん, was just written with hiragana

Found out: the kanji exists. It's 癌. But that's not a 常用 kanji, hence writing it in kana only