#and whatever pronunciation your brain makes up is what that character will forever be

[athanmis]

welly belly🤭

[magicrowiswritingstuff]

Batboys: Nicknames

Note: Wow, I’ve got followers now ... Hey, and thanks for reading my fics! :D Sadly, I don’t know how productive I can be for the next month or so because my finals will start next week ... but I definitely have some ideas and pieces planned so stay tuned. But for now only something short and sweet :3

Also, read this headcanon if you want to know what different personalities the s/os have.

_________________________________

Dick Grayson:

You two sometimes use names associated with dance styles and their region or decade of origin: "My Steady" when you two dance Rock n Roll. "Mi Amado/a" or "Cariño/a" for Cha-cha-cha, Jive and many more amazing Latin dances. "Schatz" or "Liebling" while dancing the waltz and so on and so on. But normally Dick uses "Dove" or "Lovebird" for you. Especially after he tells you about his alias because he thinks it is ironic and funny. Other nicknames he likes to use are "Sugar", "Littledancer" or "Ballerina" even though he is the one who can dance ballet like a professional who trained forever. You also often use "Lovebird" as a more serious nickname but also "BigBird" or "Mother Hen" after getting to know he is Nightwing because you also think it's funny. Or you call him by silly nicknames you make up at the moment. It often ends up with you just screwing up his name to annoy him. You like to call him "Richie" or "Dickard" though whenever you really want to tease him. After a while Dick ends up doing the same and it quickly escalates into a not so serious competition between you two about who can use the most bizarre and sickly sweet nickname. _________________________________ Jason Todd:

You don't know when it happened but you were sure Jason was the one who initiated it: Using the names of characters from books and movies for each other. He definitely calls you "Juliet" and you call him "Romeo". Or "Cinderella" and "Prince Charming". "Veronica" or just "Sawyer" and "JD" ... the list is endless. However, these names are often just used in private. More normal nicknames Jason likes to use are "Baby/Babe", "Sweetheart" and "Princess" because you definitely are his little princess and he likes to think about himself as your knight in shining armor. You think it fits, especially after he saved you as Red Hood, so you started calling him "My Knight" after that night whenever he calls you princess. Or you use "Princey". You also call him "Birdie" or "Jaybird" but most of the time you just like to call him "Jay". You also like to use "Softy" but he will glare at you whenever you use it in front of others. But that only eggs you on. When you two are teasing each other you like to call him "Hothead", "Hot Shot" or "Firefly" because he is definitely the fire to your ice. He thinks so too so he uses "Waterlily", "Polar Bear" or simply "(Bear) Cub" for you. _________________________________ Tim Drake:

Similar to Jason, Tim will definitely use characters' names as nicknames for you. Most of the time they're video game characters though. And as long as you know about the character you will respond with the respective counterpart. But you often end up using the wrong one because you sometimes just don't know better ... or you do it intentionally just to tease him. Or you just raise an eyebrow in question because you don't recognize the name of the character. When that happens you can bet that Tim will give you a whole presentation about said character and all the games they feature in. Characters you use are for example "Peach/Mario" though you preferably call him "Super Mario" than just "Mario" or "Luigi/Bowser" just to tease. But normally and especially when out in public you two use more default nicknames. He likes to call you "Angel" or "Cuddles". When you are particularly clingy and in need of hugs and cuddles from him he will call you "Cuddle Monster" and roll his eyes. Tough he would never deny you them. You on the other hand like to call him "Bebe/Babe", "Hun" or "Baby Bird". Names that are always lying on the back of your tongue are "Coffee Boy", "Brainiac/Brains" or "Genius". Sometimes they are used genuinely, other times just to tease. _________________________________ Damian Wayne:

Nothing other than "Beloved" will ever leave his lips. Well, when talking about romantic nicknames at least. Damian will definitely call you "Hothead", "Little Rebel", "Troublemaker" or simply "Trouble" whenever you are acting up or being reckless again. Or just because he wants to because you will look at him with an annoyed glint in your eyes that always makes him smile. You like to tease him with whatever nickname you can come up with or feel like. "Iceman" when he behaves stoic and strict or "Jelly Bean" when he acts tough and unfazed because you know there is a softy slumbering deep inside. Or you use that name when he wants to be taken seriously. "Feathers" or "Beak" are used after you figured out he is Robin but only in private. Romantic nicknames you like to use are "Love", "Charmer" or "Charming". But you also mess up his name with great delight when calling him. Or you just simply call him "Dami", "Dame" or "Dames". Something he thinks is really sweet though is when you research and learn Arabic words and phrases of endearment. The pronunciation is sometimes a little off but he gladly corrects and helps you when you want to learn more about the language.

[omoi-no-hoka]

JLPT Level: N2

This is my favorite word in Japanese. Do you know why?

Because my favorite game in the entire world is this:

Yes, it is Katamari Damacy (塊魂), the greatest game series EVER. 

FIGHT ME

I know you guys come here to learn Japanese, but today you’re gonna learn about this game and it’s gonna CHANGE YOUR LIFE

YOU’RE WELCOME

You are the Prince (the little dude in green), a happy-go-lucky guy who has to beware of narrow doorways. Your father, the King of the Cosmos and hands-down the most fabulous being ever, got drunk and accidentally blew up all of the planets and like everything. Oops. So rather than cleaning up his own mess, he sends his 5 cm tall son to Earth to roll up items using a sticky ball called a katamari, and then the King turns the completed balls into planets and stars.

SO. DANG. FABULOUS.

The levels are all unique and there are different challenges. Sometimes the levels are timed, sometimes they are size-based, and sometimes you have to get the katamari to the proper size within the time limit. And there are a lot more levels with unique conditions that have to be met. 

The controls are also interesting. In most games, the left analog stick is for moving the character and the right analog stick is to adjust the camera. But in Katamari, you have to pretend that you are rolling the katamari with both hands, so you have to move the katamari with both analog sticks in tandem. 

This game breaks the mold in ALL THE RIGHT WAYS

There are so many aspects of this game that I love. There are so many items laying around in the levels that you always manage to find something new no matter how many times you play. When you roll up humans they scream and my morbid sense of humor delights. The absurd challenges and premises are hilarious, and the gameplay requires a finesse that is both challenging and fun.

Also, pretty much every game ever congratulates or rewards you in one way or another when you complete a level. But your father, the King of the Cosmos, will NEVER in a million years praise you. You can get 100% and he will say, “I’ve seen better.” and if that doesn’t reflect real life idk what does

Oh, the memories...

OH AND DID I TELL YOU IT HAS AN AWARD-WINNING SOUNDTRACK?!

The soundtrack is killer. I recommend “DISCO☆PRINCE” and “Everlasting Love.”

The original Katamari Damacy came out for the PS2 in 2004 (writing this I realize that was FIFTEEN years ago omg). Since then there have been several other Katamari games released for different platforms. My personal favorite is Katamari Forever for the PS3. I think it’s the most well-rounded, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Katamari is one of those games that takes a day to learn but a lifetime to master. 

KATAMARI DAMACY IS A WAY OF LIFE

Let’s learn some kanji

塊 katamari  lump, clump, mass, cluster

魂 tamashii (stylistically romanized as “Damacy”) soul, quintessence

Anybody can play Katamari. But to excel at Katamari, your soul must be one with the katamari. 

TO ROLL IS TO BE

This game encapsulates Japan at its finest

Just look at that weird-ass picture. That’s not fan art--that’s from the opening title screen of one of the games. That’s OFFICIAL KATAMARI, YO. And every game is just as extra and zany as this from start to finish. 

I was already watching anime and reading manga when I heard of Katamari and started playing it, so my interest in Japan was already there. But playing Katamari Damacy made me all the more curious about Japan. 

When I rolled up ookonomiyaki, I wondered what it tasted like.

There’s a level where every single thing has a price on it, and you have to create the most expensive katamari. And I rolled up a randoseru (an elementary school student’s backpack) that was $100, and I was like, “HOW IS A BACKPACK THIS EXPENSIVE.”

Even though all of the text is translated into English, there are a few in-game characters that speak in Japanese. When you roll up a camper he yells “Yamete yo,” and there is a level where you have to help a sumo-wrestler fan who wants to become the yokozuna (the strongest sumo wrestler). Instead of rolling around a katamari, you roll around him, and all you do is roll up food and he grows fatter and fatter. Every time he rolls up food he says, “Gottsuan desu!” which is the way a sumo wrestler says “arigatou gozaimasu”

I loved the soundtrack for We Love Katamari so much that I bought it, and I learned the words to the songs and sang along to them as I played.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say with this ridiculous rambling post about a 15-year-old game about rolling random items up because your asshole dad makes you is that you should

Seek Out Learning Materials that Don’t Feel like Learning Materials

A lot of people think that learning a language has to be done by hitting your brain with a grammar book until the stuff sticks and by doing Memrise or Anki or whatever until the words are seared into your mind. And yes, unless you’re a savant or something you are going to have to do your time and study with those traditional materials if you want to use the language with accuracy. 

But unless you’re a bookworm or unless you are absolutely balls-to-the-wall about learning Japanese, you’re going to get tired of that and you’re going to give it up at some point.

That’s why you need to find other materials that don’t feel like studying, and I’m here to tell you that games like Katamari Damacy is one of those materials, even if you play it in English.

When you learn a language, you’re not just learning the words and grammar patterns. As I’ve illustrated in previous posts, a language and a people’s forms of expression are shaped by their culture and history, and I truly do feel that Katamari Damacy provides a fascinating look into Japanese culture. It fueled me to want to learn more about it. 

So next time you get tired of poring over Genki or you get ticked off because you messed up that reading for that word on WaniKani and you gotta do it again (lol), sing along to a Japanese song (pronunciation practice), watch anime with English or Japanese subtitles (listening comp), read manga (kanji, reading comp), or, maybe

give katamari damacy a spin

Passion is a fire and it needs fuel. Feed your love for Japanese by having some fun with it!

[csykora]

i don't know if you know the answer, but if you do, would you mind explaining why some Russian names are always transliterated the same way (like Никита to Nikita), but some very much aren't? i've seen Evgeni, Evgeny, Evgenii, Yevgeni, and Yevgeny - is one 'more right' than the others?

Thanks for asking! You’re right, there’s some whacky variation in the League right now, and it’s something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while.

(I’m going to focus on North American English speakers: if you’re not, sorry! The basics should still apply and make sense.)

The NHL follows the International Ice Hockey Federations 2011 standard for transcription of Russian names. Probably.

The NHL is a loose confederation of franchises. Historically, it’s been up to each team what they wrote on their Russian players’ jerseys. A lot of their creations were more artistic than phonetically accurate, but the surname would stay pretty consistent for PR and jersey purposes. First names were a free for all, with the team and official NHL media or licensed materials like video games all spelling them differently.

It’s still technically up to teams, but since 2011 the League is pushing a little harder to pick one spelling and stick with it across all media, and to have the spelling reflect how the name should be said.

Any Russian player who came over before 2011 is grandfathered in as whatever spelling they were assigned at the time, for PR reasons. (Like Craig MacTavish being the only one on the ice without a helmet, but less horrible.) Anyone who debuts in the League today should, theoretically, be assigned a spelling that follows the new rules.  

The IIHF transcription standard has three basic principles:

Sound-emulating: Yevgeni instead of Evgeny

Simplicity: Yevgeni instead of Yevgeny, Alexander instead of Aleksandr

Consistency: same spelling for same name (and different spelling for different names)

Sound-emulating  

What does Russian sound like?

This is one of my recital pieces, Tchaikovsky’s Moy geni, moy angel. Music is a great snapshot of the sounds that a language likes to use, particularly the vowels. Listening here, you’re going to hear a lot of “eh” and “ooh”, a lot of soft schwa sounds, and no “ae” or “oh”—the only long vowel is “ee”. You might pick up an odd nasal quality to a lot of those sounds, as if the singer is actually say, “yeh” or “yoo”.

Russian has different phonemes than North American English. A phoneme is “any of the speech sounds which are perceived to be a single distinctive sound in the language. An example is the English phoneme /k/, which occurs in words such as cat, kit, scat, skit.” There are a couple Russian consonants that seem to give English-speakers trouble (most obviously Ж in hockey fandom. The (Y)evgeni(i)ys just have to go and confuse North Americans more by also calling each other Женя, “Zhenya”, which fans often try to say with a G or a J sound. It’s pronounced like the S in “pleasure” or “treasure.”) But mostly, it’s all about the vowels, which don’t line up with English spelling or pronunciation very neatly.

In North American schools your teacher probably talked about how English has long and short vowel sounds.

And Y does double duty, as a mystery vowel and a consonant that can jump in before or after other vowels.

You’re not really going to hear any long vowel sounds in Russian, except for ē. Instead, Russian has hard and soft vowels:

The hard vowels are close to English short vowels. The matching soft vowel is pronounced pretty much the same but you glide into them with a “y” sound.

So Э and E are  “ĕ” and “yĕ.”  

O and ё are “ŏ” and “yŏ.” 

(Standard Russian speakers splinch O and A (“ŏ” and “ă”) into a schwa sound, a phenomenon called аканье/akanye.)

And so on.

The exception is Ы and и, who are both shifty characters. Ы drifts between ĕ and ĭ,  and и moves between ĭ and the long e sound.

(“и” also happens to mean “and.” You’ll hear hockey players, especially Kuznetsov, make a sort of horrible high-pitched eeeee sound all the time in interviews. That’s Russian Hockey Player for “…uh….” )

й is the Cyrillic character for the Y-consonant sound after a vowel, as in “Moй/Moy”. The symbols ь and Ъ can also appear on their own, and they palatalize the consonant before (adding a sort of Y twist to the end of it), or explicitly forbid you from doing that. This sound is rendered with a J or a Y after the consonant in different Russian transliteration systems. The IIHF uses Y.

So when we get transliterating, we’re going to have to have Ys all up in everything.

Евгений 

This is where the many Yevgenis come in. 

Every Евгений is best said as “Yev-gen-ee-y.” (I’d say it kind of ends in a little Y twist, but that’s because it’s kind of easier to say and a Cyrillic spelling artifact. You say “Yevgeneeee” or “Yevgenee-y” depending on your natural voice and how quickly you’re speaking.)

You don’t necessarily say the first syllable with a heavy Y like “yeah,” but the glide has to be there. “Eh-vgen-ee” would be an entirely different name, spelled Эвгений. And Э just isn’t a very popular sound in Russian: only 2 male names start with it. Maybe there’re some hipster parents out there naming their son Эвгений right now to annoy people, but otherwise, no.

Simplicity

Since Y is playing an important role in the basic vowels, we don’t really want to use it to represent the long e sound the way it sometimes does in English.

So “Yevgeni” is preferred over “Yevgeny” or “Yevgeniy.” Yevgeniy is the most technically accurate, but let’s be honest, North Americans are going to pronounce them all the same and the second two are just way too much Y.

The one time you will see reliably Ys standing alone is in patronymics. Yevgeni Kuznetsov’s father is also named Yevgeni, so his full, intensely boring name is Евгений Евгеньевич. “Yevgeneey Yevgen-ee-e-vich” is not exactly a delight to have to say. The suffix -евич/-evich means something, so you don’t change the letters in there, but you can drop the last vowel of the first name and palatalize the last consonant, making it into an easier “nyuh” sound. So it becomes “Yevgenyuh-evich,” which we can transliterate as Yevgenyevich. 

With a name like “Aleksandr,” the IIHF standard says go ahead and spell it as the familiar “Alexander,” because you’re gonna pronounce the two the say anyway.

Consistency

So every Евгений whose name is pronounced the same way should be spelled the same way—and players whose names are pronounced differently…should be spelled differently.

Семён и Сёмин

The IIHF standards were introduced after feedback from Russian players, most directly Semyon Varlamov.

By 2011 the NHL had officially spelled Varlamov’s given name, Семён, as:

Simeon

Semyen

Simyan

Simyon

Semin

and of course, Semen.

Ah, cross-cultural respect.

Listen, the fact it’s Varlamov makes that feel just. But it was being done randomly to everyone. 

And it was especially on the nose because Varlamov was on the same team as  Александр Сёмин—Alexander Semin.

Semin’s surname, Сёмин, is pronounced something like “Syaw-min”. (Akanye turns it into an A-sound, which is how his nickname, Сёмa, is pretty much pronounced “Sam,” rather than the way North American fans probably read it when they see “Sema.”) Under IIHF rules, his current KHL jersey is spelled SYOMIN.

But when he entered the NHL someone said, “That sure looks like an e to me,” and wrote down “S-E-M-I-N” Few years later that same spelling wizard looked at Семён (pronounced “Sim-yawn”) and said, “Man, I got this.”

Team officials, media, fans, even their teammates read the Latin spellings, naturally assumed their names were pronounced the same way, and went around calling both of them the same thing. Someone yells something that sounds like “semen” in the locker room, or on the ice in the middle of a game, and both of them have to turn around.

Semyon addressed the pronunciation with media, pointed out the confusion with his own teammate, filed paperwork to officially change the spelling (because he had to do that, the League had functionally taken away his name), and contacted the IIHF to ask them to step in, which they did.

(Semin did…nothing, because he would literally rather turn into a snow leopard and run away to nap in the sunshine and eat flowers and squirrels and live in the forest forever than talk to an official. So his name is still spelled SEMIN.)

More “Right”

Pronunciation isn’t a moral issue. As we grow up, our mouths learn to shape the phonemes we’re using all the time and our brains trim away the nerve connections for making sounds we don’t need. Some of us can learn some of those back, and some of us can’t, and we certainly can’t learn very well if we don’t have examples and help.

And it is strikingly hard to find that for Russian in North America.

Until the ’90s, management and especially announcers had no way to hear names pronounced before they had to try to spell or say them because there was no real cultural exchange between North America and the USSR: no TV, no radio, no way to hear the voices of Russian people except briefly on the ice. Miracle had Al Michaels recreate his goal calls because at the time he’d only had a hasty list of the Soviet line-up that he begged off the officials, and he took a wild swing at Vyacheslav Fetisov. A decade later Fetisov came to America and we were able to hear him speak and learn his name.

It’s unimaginable now, but when Ovechkin was drafted, many broadcasters were calling him “Alexander ov-itch-kin,” not “Oh-veh-chkin.” Because they actually did do their homework: they were trying to listen to Russian-language broadcasters and recreate their pronunciation. If you hear a Russian speaker say it, the middle vowel does sound a lot more like an I than a drawling North American “eh.” But then we all said it a thousand times a day and our mouths settled into sounds that are comfortable for us.

Which is fine, we’re not in any way Wrong for calling him “Oh-veh-chkin.” Just saying a Russian person’s name differently than native speakers say it isn’t a horrible thing. (‘Native speakers’ of every language fight each other all the time, too.) What matters is respect: trying our best to transliterate and pronounce a name shows that we’re listening to that person and we’re valuing them.

I think it says something that it’s still hard to hear any Russian in North America, it’s still hard to learn these names, and so we still say them in a very North American way.  Even if we’re not the ones making it, the Russian voice still mostly exists in our consciousness as a joke.

Sometimes that joke feeds into innocent not-quite-accuracies. And sometimes like with the Se(i)(y)(o)mi(y)(o)ns, it feeds something that feels a little…less of us.

It’s been 16 years* and we’re still turning their names, one of the few personal things they were able to bring with them to the foreign world of North America, into dick jokes. It’s hardly the worst insult in the world or in the NHL: making each others’ names into dick jokes is hockey players’ primary sport. It’s just that the foundation of the joke is, “I actually didn’t take the time to listen to you say your own name,” and that makes it seem small of us. And it seems smaller after they made repeated requests and took legal action to ask for their names back, and we’ve not only kept doing it, most of us don’t know or remember that they asked us to stop.

some very much aren’t

It’s worth remembering Russians still make up a small percentage of the NHL, and most of the active Russian NHLers came over before 2011.The Russian voice in North American hockey is still small. So the spelling of Russian names is still controlled by North Americans NHL officials, and it’s a small and wild pool of possible spellings. Change comes slowly, if it comes at all.

Most of the new prospects’ surnames do seem to have been effectively standardized, but I’m not really sure where future Yevgenis stand at this point in the NHL. Евгений Свечников is the newest I know of: under IIHF rules he’s Yevgeni Svechnikov, but it seems he’s still being spelled “Evgeny” in the NHL. Because it’s such a common name and several Yevgeni-spelled-Evgenys have been high-profile players, we’re all already used to seeing Evgeni and Evgeny, and NHL officials might easily choose to keep using them for PR reasons.

This was fun! somebody ask me about nicknames or patronymics or the Czechs next, please. I need to keep expanding my embarrassing tabloid glitterbomb vocabulary.

[ybyg]

久しぶりでしょうね？ Let's catch up.

I haven't been diligently studying Japanese due to... just life. Some unavoidable things happened and I had to live through the nightmare. It's all right now. I think. I'm here to update you about how miserable it's been trying to catch up with what I've missed and maybe talk about the time I spoke to JO1's Sho who can speak English and I wanted to make an effort to speak to him in Japanese but failed (without sounding like a twat who's showing off).

Continue reading under the cut.

Note: I barely edited it, so if it sounds out of place, or my Japanese sounds awkward... tough luck, I'm probably not going to edit it.

1. Wanikani update

レベル１０に入ってでした。正直は、まだレベル9ですね。This thing levels up as soon as you learn everything there is on the level you formerly in, without taking into account if you have complete at least a round of revision on the last thing that you've learned (they call it 'review' on WK).

The SRS thing is proven to be the best method to recall phrases and kanji. I'm paying for Wanikani (okay, the thing is good. I like it) and have Anki installed and haven't reviewed anything since I created my decks. But it works alright. I may have the worst memory/information-retaining brain and it might've taken me forever to recall what 予 is (it's beforehand, apparently), but I can still remember the ones I've learned the longest; basically from levels 1-4. (I'm learning 予 in the latest level, that is level 9. I'm still suffering turbulence here.)

I haven't seen my stats. Let's have a look, shall we?

I live by the words 'it could've been worse.'

My percentages used to be at least in the 90% across the board, but I just jumped straight into reviewing and clearing over 900 radicals, kanji, and vocabulary without revising, hence why I've done terribly and now it's bringing my stats down.

Radicals I can't believe I fucked up my radicals. They were supposed to be the easiest. I have no words.

If you need a single tip to start learning kanji, you can start by learning its components, and that is the radicals. It'd be easier for you to create stories for mnemonics. Other than that, try Heisig's Remembering the Kanji.

Kanji I am aware I could've done better at this, but kanji itself is just confusing. It's sometimes easy to predict some of the words, like ち that's used for earth or soil (地) and pond (池)--and not to mention the difference is just the radicals soil and tsunami--but I deduced that some aspects of nature fall under the ち umbrella.

And then there are devils like 他 and 地. Ugh. I'm going to leave it here.

Vocabulary

I know what the word 交じる stands for, and then you have 交わる which is thrown into the mix just to confuse me, and that just pisses me off every damn time.

I honestly know the meaning better than the pronunciation... which is dumb because if I were to speak in Japanese, I'm supposed to say the words majiru or majiwaru, not to be mixed or to intersect.

One thing about WK: you might understand the meaning differently. For example, they may offer the word substitution, but I would think of another word, replacement. Unless you input the word 'replacement' into the system, it would still be wrong in your reviews, and you're expected to remember substitution instead. And as an ESL, well, sometimes I'm just expected to drill the word substitution into my brain. I barely use the word daily anyway. So, you're expected to do extra work in order to learn, which is not a bad thing, but it can be annoying sometimes.

To recap, I don't do terribly despite not doing WK for a few months, but I could've done better. It's still in the okay territory, but I'll do my best to improve my reading skills and expand my lexicon.

What's next? I still have to clear up 92 lessons which include the level 9 that I've yet to cover and the entirety of level 10. On top of that, the tens and hundreds of reviews need to be cleared out daily... it's still going to be a rigorous routine when it comes to this one.

2. Grammar (and Reading)

In order not to spend my own money on learning materials, I persuaded my mum to get me みんなの日本語 (MNN); both workbook and notes for Level 1, and I chipped in with my Kinokuniya discount card. Yes, I am 26, but my finances haven't been the greatest as of late, so if anyone needs to hire a writer/social media manager, please send me a DM.

I digressed. Anyway, I've reached the 4th chapter, and it's been great so far! The workbook is completely in Japanese, and as someone who can read hiragana, and to some extent, katakana, it's definitely a great book that helps me improve my reading skills. I wish WK and MNN were at least streamlined because the kanji on WK has the tendency to be more scattered due to the complexity of certain kanji despite them being N5-N4 kanji.

[I edited out a paragraph on Kanji levels and complexities but would like to highlight the inconsistencies in the kanji levels that's shared on the Internet, including in WK. I suppose you will never find the one true answer as to which level does 傘 (umbrella) belongs to: is it N5 per stated in Jisho, or is it N1 as stated in WK? I guess you will never know...)

I prefer MNN over Genki as Genki explains points in English and annotates translation/furigana as bright as day underneath the Japanese texts. As a high-functioning English/romaji reader, my brain isn't doing the hard word; it's just reading the English and romaji. MNN forces me to read in Japanese and makes me translate the sentences on my own, so I am actively learning from the activity. Whilst it has a separate book that explains the chapters in English, I find it very helpful for me to immerse myself in Japanese then flip through the English version of the book just to see how well I understand the lesson. I would suggest Genki for absolute beginners and MNN for those who are in the lower-intermediate level.

I've been reading JO1's mails and articles related to them with varying degree of successes. The shorter ones are simpler and more manageable, but reading longer ones make me quit halfway. I should be reading more so it'd be easier for me to recognise the ones I've yet to learn and strengthening those I've learned.

3. Active learning (Speaking, Listening and Writing)

I've tried to speak in Japanese to myself, and it's mostly え、なんだろう今。。。、ヤッバ、マジ？、いいですね！、ほんまに？ and the latter being 'really?' in Kansai dialect (関西弁), thanks to half of the members of JO1. Since I'm learning 'textbook', formal Japanese, I'm still finding it extremely difficult to communicate in vernacular/colloquial Japanese. Not that I'm familiar with 敬語 (keigo/honorific language) either, just trying to fit the よ, ね, です, します, ません et cetera have racked my brain and I'm at the precipice of trying not to lose my mind. Perhaps, if I tried harder, I'd be able to use it comfortably. But for now, please let me suffer from my stupidity.

Since I wanted to 'try harder', I'm currently going through Making Out in Japanese (it sounds crude, but so far it's been very mild and helpful)

I haven't been writing in Japanese, which is horrible, because what's the use of reading when you can't write. I tried making my own flashcards which ended up taking too much time so I turned to digitalised SRS instead, which can be both annoying and unhelpful sometimes. I'm not a fan of learning through the screen as it takes too much space on the table and plays a part as my focus destroyer. But I can't complain as these devices do make things infinite times easier for me.

For the past couple of weeks, I've interacted with more Japanese JAMs (that's what JO1 decided to christen their fans) and have made the effort to type in Japanese, albeit broken Japanese. I employed my brain, Jisho and the untrusting Papago and Google Translate (the translation sites merely help me check if my sentences make any sense). I bet they're reading my tweets and messages thinking, 'What the fuck is this person on about?' Well, I don't know either.

And here comes the horrible part.

I won yonton (용통 in Korean, basically a video call) and had the chance to speak to the JO1's leader. Which is awesome, yes? I had a week to prepare and that particular week leading up to the event had given me multiple heart attacks. Some dramas happened, an interview happened... and I had only a few days left to prepare. Towards the end of the week, I decided I was going to do 自己紹介 (self-introduction) in Japanese. I know enough to say *キラです。クアラルンプール出身です。マレーシアJAM です, though that sounds super awkward. What I did on the day was the exact opposite.

Well, it's a known fact that the leader speaks English. Heck, it's an open secret that we know he went to a school that had an English department, whatever that means. As the owner of this brain who've spent approximately weeks and hundreds of hours on Japanese, I think know enough to say those words. But what did I do?

I spoke to him in English.

Of course, like everything, it takes a while to set in. That evening, it occurred to me that not only I had spoken to him in English, I also didn't let him speak. I didn't let him finish his sentence.

To be fair, it was only for 30 seconds. I don't need him to speak, and I wanted to, for once, assert my dominance. (The running joke here is that he plays the character of a freaking flirt, and as a lesbian whose compulsory heterosexual crush is him, I have the inclination to get the man to sit down and shut up for once. I guess I did?)

It's not me if there's no faux pas. Anyways...

Today's the 290th day since I started using WK, basically the beginning of my journey to relearn Japanese. Will I be able to communicate at least on a conversational level by the time I'm 30? We will see.

If you're reading this and needs recommendations on resources that are free, hit me up!

またね。