Japan Times Online

A short post from me today…

Some “bilingual” articles can be found on the Japan Times Online website. Many of them can be found here and while they are not entirely bilingual, many of the articles contain useful (and not-so-useful) vocabulary. Here are direct links to some of the articles I enjoyed reading :

• Stomach peko peko? Dig into these Japanese food words
• Fish kanji help you hook the perfect meal
• The character of a culture resides in its language
• Tally your tanuki skins well in the Year of the Ox

Essay Woes

I haven’t dropped off the face of the Earth. I’m just busy writing (and re-writing) an essay which I have to send off by Friday. Expect plenty of updates once I’ve finished piecing together my academic masterpiece.

Since I need to keep this short, I thought I’d forego a proper post and just share a few sites and articles that I bookmarked over the weekend.

• How I Learned Chinese in Only 2 Years – How one language learner was able to learn Mandarin in only two years. His tips for learning Mandarin can easily be applied to other languages so it’s worth a read, even if you have no plans to learn Mandarin.
• Sushi & Sumo - A language learner’s quest to learn Japanese by watching Japanese TV series.
• Laoshu505000’s Youtube Channel - This guy is simply amazing. He seems to have a real gift for languages and has a language learning collection which makes mine pale in comparison (and I thought I was the only person who collected random phrasebooks).

That’s all for now. Back to my essay…

Smart.FMはちょっと。。。

こんにちは、皆さん。今週は仕事でとても忙しかった。疲れた。。。

iKnow のウェブサイトはSmart.FM になりました。でも、Smart.FMの名前とサイトはちょっと。。。

今夜はMySoju で＜よい子の味方＞の番組を二分を見ました。このドラマ番組、面白可笑しいです。

日本語で書きますのこと、とても難しいですよね。。。

Quelle Semaine!

What a week it has been! My mother was in hospital on Monday (discharged on Tuesday, thank God), I spent 3 hours travelling home on Tuesday, work was insanely chaotic on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and yesterday a pleasant evening with some friends was cut short when their cat started hissing and running around their house as if possessed. I do hope their cat is alright as I have two of my own and would be worried sick if they started acting like their’s did…

So needless to say, there was little time left in the day to devote to language study or updating this blog! Hopefully things will be back to normal this coming week.

I’m taking a month’s break from my “One Foreign-Language Book a Month” challenge as I need to work on an essay for the archaeology course I’m taking (the current module focuses on classical archaeology).  Lately, reading time seems to be limited to the two hours I spend commuting to and from work each day so I think it makes sense for me to spend that time doing the necessary background reading for my course and essay. I’ll find other ways to fit in some language practice into my busy work days…

I have a few links to blogs, websites and news articles that might be of interest to fellow language learners :

• Button Gaffe Embarrasses Clinton - An example of how a mistranslation could lead to a potential political catastrophe. I wonder if anyone proofread the gift before it was given to Hillary.
• Les Tribulations d’une Caissière - I stumbled upon this blog via an article on the TimesOnline website. The blog’s author, Anna Sam, is a French university graduate who has recently published a book about her experiences as an undervalued and frustrated supermarket clerk. The blog is written in French but you can read a translation of an extract from her book by clicking on the TimesOnline link above (it can be found towards the end of the article). I’m sure there are many university graduates – in France and elsewhere – who can sympathise with her situation.
• Chinese Cultural Heritage Net - Entirely in Chinese but a great source of reading material for those who are interested in China’s cultural heritage and archaeological sites.
• Kanji Clinic – A fantastic resource for anyone struggling with Japanese kanji and vocabulary. Most of the articles are centred around a particular theme (e.g. colours, animals, medical terms) and include mini quizzes at the end of most articles to test your knowledge of the kanji discussed. Many of the articles explain Japanese cultural and social issues, such as the origins of Japanese festivals and the meanings behind some of the most common Japanese surnames.

That’s all from me for now. I have a few “word-building” posts in the pipeline and may have a few more language learning interviews to share with you all in the very near future.

それでは、じゃまたね！

MySoju.Com

A short post from me today as I’ve had quite a long day at work and spent nearly 3 hours getting home due to problems with the trains. Apparently someone was hit by a train along one of the major routes but I’m having trouble finding any information about it on the local news…

I just wanted to share a link to a great site I discovered over the weekend : MySoju.Com. You can watch many Korean, Japanese and Chinese-language drama series and movies for free and it reminds me of how CrunchyRoll used to be before they removed most of the free content. So far I ‘ve watched a few episodes of Shota no Sushi (based on the manga series of the same name) and Virgin Snow, a story about the love between a young Japanese artist and a Korean exchange student set in Kyoto (one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in my personal opinion).

It’ll probably be a matter of time before the site is closed down or the webmaster is asked to remove the links to the videos so enjoy it while it lasts.

Teppanyaki and the Passé Simple

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’m currently reading Christine Arnothy’s J’ai quinze ans et je ne veux pas mourir as my foreign language book of the month. One of the things I’ve learnt from reading this is the passé simple. This may sound odd but I wasn’t aware of this form until I started reading J’ai quinze ans. I certainly don’t remember learning it at school and this is the first time I’ve come across it in a French-language novel, though having said that, I’ve only read four French-language books in recent memory.

I won’t go into too much detail about the passé simple as my knowledge of French grammar is quite patchy. All I know is that it’s the literary equivalent of the passé composé and it can be identified quite easily (nous and vous forms end in âmes/îmes and âtes/îtes respectively). A quick introduction to this verb form can be found here and here.

My partner and I treated ourselves to an all-you-can-eat teppanyaki (鉄板焼き) buffet this evening, which included a lot of sushi and tempura, even though neither of these are cooked on the teppan (鉄板) itself. I wonder if this would be the correct way to say what we did this evening..

Ce soir, nous allâmes au restaurant japonais et nous mangeâmes des sushi et du tempura.

Well, folks, that’s all for the time being. I’m still feeling very full so I’m going to do what the Dutch do when they’ve eaten way too much : uitbuiken*.

* uitbuiken - the best way to describe this is “unbuttoning or loosening your trousers or jeans to make yourself more comfortable after a heavy meal”. Or more simply, “to let your belly hang out” (buik is the Dutch word for “stomach” or “belly”).

日本語を勉強する

I thought I’d share some links to some Japanese learning resources I discovered recently. I’ve been studying Japanese on and off for the past two years so I’m always on the look-out for new resources.

Here are some of the websites and blogs I’ve stumbled upon :

Surasura : A Text for Intermediate Japanese – An online reader and grammar text for intermediate students. I find the grammar notes particularly useful, though I haven’t been able to get the audio files to work..

Learn Japanese Online : Intermediate Japanese Grammar List – Not a learning resource per se but it’s a good way to see what grammar points I still need to cover.

Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words - A great resource for anyone wishing to read or write haiku. It’s a shame that the site only uses romaji..

U-Biq Online Japanese Study – A fairly good beginners course. A lot of grammar points and sentence structures are covered and hiragana/katakana are used throughout the course. My only complaint is that kanji are not used in the example sentences, though you can find the kanji for most of the new vocabulary along the side of the page.

The Daily Yo-ji - A bit of a misnomer but this blog is a good resource for learning advanced Japanese grammar and expressions. It seems to be aimed mostly at people working towards the JLPT levels 1 and 2 so it might not be of much use to anyone who’s just started learning Japanese.

Japanite - Another blog for advanced learners. The author makes use of articles to teach grammar and vocabulary and you can find some useful posts on conversational Japanese.

The JapanesePod101 Blog - I’m not a big fan of the JapanesePod101 podcast lessons but I think its blog is one of the most useful resources around for learning the Japanese language. I really enjoy the Kanji Curiosity articles as they’re jam-packed with new vocabulary.

Bilingoz

I discovered a site that could be very useful for advanced Japanese learners and people wishing to boost their knowledge of specialist vocabulary : Bilingoz.

Bilingoz allows you to study specialist vocabulary using a flashcard system and allows you to quiz yourself on your knowledge of your chosen field.  Specialist subjects include political science, metallurgy and anatomy and you can choose from six difficulty levels (Basic I – Advanced II). Audio functions are available only for the basic levels but the wide selection of vocabulary more than makes up for this minor drawback.

Japanese Onomatopoeia – Algorithm March

One of the things I like about the Japanese language is its wide variety of onomatopoeic and mimetic words. A lot of these words are used in daily conversation and literature (especially manga) and capture the essence of the sound or image that they’re trying to convey. Some of these words are quite hard to translate into English and are the bane of a translator’s existence. Others have English equivalents but many of these fail to match the beauty and simplicity of the original Japanese words.

It’s important to differentiate between the various types of onomatopoeia and mimetic words as they are not merely words which imitate sounds (such as the English ‘bark’ or ‘bang’). Giseigo (擬声語) are words which mimic human or animal sounds (e.g. laughing, crying, dogs barking, cats miaowing) while another type of onomatopoeia, giongo (擬音語), is used to mimic other sounds (e.g. the sound of thunder, a knock on the door). Mimetic words, gitaigo (擬態語), are different to giseigo and giongo in that they don’t mimic sounds, but rather they are used to convey a certain visual or sensory feeling (e.g. to show one is happy, to describe the way one walks, to convey the golden nature of blonde hair, to convey the softness of a pillow). Knowing how to use these words in everyday conversation or writing is one way to display your mastery of the Japanese language and add some spice to a story you may be telling to your friends or colleagues.

There are hundreds of onomatopoeic and mimetic words in use in modern Japanese. In this first installment of my Japanese Onomatopoeia series, I will look at the giseigo, giongo and gitaigo in the Algorithm March video and do my best to show how these words are used. I do want to add that the video was a song aimed at a very young audience so the onomatopoeiaa used may not be used in standard conversation!

きょろきょろ(kyorokyoro) :

Kyorokyoro (きょろきょろ) is a gitaigo used to convey the action of looking around in a restless manner. It can be used as a suru-verb and can be written in either hiragana (きょろきょろ) or katakana (キョロキョロ).

In the video, there’s the line 横に歩いてきょろきょろ(yoko ni aruite kyorokyoro), which means ‘walk sideways and look around’. Kyorokyoro describes the action that the actor on screen is doing at that point in the song, looking from left to right as if he’s about to cross the street.

Here’s another example of kyorokyoro in use :

部屋の中をきょろきょろと見ている　－ Looking around the inside of a room.

You can also use kyorokyoro to suggest that someone is looking this way and that way by using the expression あちこちをきょろきょろする (achi kochi o kyorokyoro suru).

シュウシュウ(shuu shuu) :

Shuu shuu (シュウシュウ) would fall under the category of giongo as it imitates the sound made by rushing air, almost like a ‘whoosh’ sound. I haven’t been able to find many examples of this giongo in use so I will just use the sentence used in the video.

空気入れますシュウシュウ (kuuki iremasu shuu shuu) which means ‘We’ll put air in (it), whoosh whoosh’ (空気　is air and 入れる means ‘to put in’ or ‘to insert’).

ピュウピュウ (pyuu pyuu) :

Another giongo is pyuu pyuu (ピュウピュウ), which imitates the sound of air whooshing or blowing around. The sentence used in the video is 空気が入ってピュウピュウ which is translated as ‘The air is inside, pyuu pyuu’.

Pyuu pyuu can also be used in these ways :

風がピュウピュウ吹いているよ – The wind is really blowing (howling).

今日は朝から冷たい北風がﾋﾟｭｳﾋﾟｭｳ吹いてます – The cold northern wind has been blowing ever since this morning.

As you can see, there is no good way to translate pyuu pyuu which captures the essence of the original Japanese. Whistling, howling and blowing might be the nearest English equivalents but they still lack the elegance of the Japanese pyuu.

That’s all for this installment. Please note that I’m still learning Japanese and it’s likely that I’ve made translation errors or used the wrong kanji. The example sentences were found via a Google search but the translations are my own. And enjoy the video, if you haven’t already seen it!

Kotowaza – 三日坊主 and 七転び八起き

This is a post from a Japanese language blog I no longer update. Since I’ve marked that blog for deletion, I thought I’d post a copy here to preserve it for future reference.

Japanese has a wide range of proverbs, kotowaza (諺), to describe most situations and emotions. Many Japanese learners give up after months (or even weeks) of struggling with the language. Those who give up at the first sign of difficulty and who lack perseverance can be called 三日坊主 (みっかぼうず), which literally means ‘three day monk’. As with any language, Japanese certainly takes more than three days to master. Determination and motivation are essential to success but sadly many people are not able to put in the time and effort needed to learn this beautiful, yet sometimes frustrating, language.

Another kotowaza which seems relevant to the study of the Japanese language is 七転び八起き (ななころびやおき), which means ‘falling down seven times and standing up eight times’, or ‘always rising after repeated failures’. If one is determined to learn Japanese, he or she must be able to persevere, even when it seems that no progress is being made.

iKnow

A friend of mine recently forwarded a link to iKnow, a site for people who are studying English or Japanese. Registering will give you access to a range of features, including dictation practice and Brainspeed, a fast-paced word game. If you want to keep track of your progress or share your word lists with other users, then it would be best to register for a free account.

Even if you choose not to register, this site still has a lot to offer. There are a number of courses for learning basic and intermediate Japanese : Core 2000 and Core 6000. These courses provide learners with a wide vocabulary base and the audio files are extremely useful for people wishing to perfect their pronunciation. I’m also very impressed with the huge database of example sentences as I find it important to learn new vocabulary in context. Beginners will find the hiragana and katakana courses quite helpful, while intermediate students will be able to build upon their existing language skills as they work through the Core 6000 courses.