One of my favourite blogs about Japan on the net is Japanese Rule of 7. And one of my favourite posts on this blog is where Seeroiさん discusses the difficulties of all languages, but Japanese in particular. Kanji terrify people. I discussed them first on this blog because I both love and fear them, but also because I wanted to get them out of the way. They are a lot of work to master, but they are comparatively easy compared to listening to other humans speaking Japanese, and you responding to them in a grammatical fashion. (Or at least 45% grammatical, which is my goal these days.) No, as is… Read More
Continue ReadingWhy Study? There’s An App For That!
I don’t know how I feel about this. http://eli-talk.com/en/ ELI is a small wearable microphone device worn on the collar. Connected to a smartphone app, it records and analyzes your daily conversation and generates personalized foreign language lessons for you. On the one hand, great! It could probably be a very good study aid! A good self-testing aid! A helper to your learning. On the other hand, you could get a lot of morons like this traveling around the world. (This video does not show the Eli, but the Logbar, but the end result could easily be the same.) (Trigger warning: smug MRA/creeper.) “Respect for culture? Respect for other peoples’… Read More
Continue ReadingSpeaking Japanese
Your typical Japanese class is about 80% listening, and 20% building dialogues off the lesson of the day. At least, in the classes I’ve attended, which have been classes where English was the language used by the teacher. There is one immersion school in Toronto, but I’m not convinced the only difference in the structure is that everyone has to use Japanese. (Of course, this means you speak more Japanese from day 1, which might be a better approach.) Photo via Good Free Photos But there’s a problem, because next week, you start in on a brand new lesson, and some brand new dialogues. Maybe grammar from some of the… Read More
Continue ReadingKanji Wrap-up
Wow, so many posts about kanji. Why do I think they’re important? You can’t do anything with reading or writing in Japanese unless you know them. They will help you in learning vocabulary and grammar. They are thus essential to Japanese studies. Otherwise, nothing much else. When you confront your own cranky dog of kanji, have the positive attitude of the guy below. No, I don’t know what these kanji say. 頑張ってください！！
Continue ReadingWriting the Kanji
Writing? Kanji? おい、おじさん、２０１７年だぞ！みんなはコンピューターを使ていますぜ！ No need to get upset, I know quite well that the IT revolution has made Japanese resources so abundant that even a clod like me can study the language in the comfort of my own home. You just fire up your IME (on computer), or keyboard app (on your smartphone), and start typing in sweet, sweet English letters. These letters form kana. The drop-down list shows you a bunch of kanji that match the kana you are entering. If you know your kanji well enough, just pick it from the list. If not, just leave the kana in and hope anyone reading what you’re writing is excellent… Read More
Continue ReadingPronouncing the Kanji
So, you’re doing pretty well in your Japanese studies. You can now stride confidently into any Japanese restaurant and say 一つとんかつラーメンおねがいします。(Is it totally correct? Well, you won’t starve as a tourist, anyway, as long as you go into tourist-friendly restaurants.) You even proudly know that you used a kanji in 一つ. Wow! Super! And teachers give you kanji that have two or three or four pronunciations, and you’re a bit worried, but hey! You’re a language expert from birth! You can do it! And then comes the mountain. Not the mountain 山, but this: I mean, the first time I saw this, my eyelid started to twitch. If yours didn’t,… Read More
Continue ReadingExamining the Kanji (kanji form and composition)
To learn the kanji, we have to learn the following: kanji form and composition kanji pronunciations (on’yomi/kun’yomi) kanji writing This post will talk about the first one. This article describes everything very well, and was the basis for me wanting to write this post. Basically, every kanji has one and only one radical. Every radical has a meaning, some more clear than others. But acquiring an idea of what each radical means can really help in some cases when trying to figure out what an unknown kanji is referring to. If there’s only one radical in the kanji, then what are the other parts of the kanji made up of?… Read More
Continue ReadingDon’t Fear the Kanji
So, you start off wanting to learn Japanese for any number of reasons. Mine was culture and travel. Yours might be anime or movies. “How hard can it be?” you ask yourself. “It’s now almost all English words in katakana and a few connecting Japanese words, right? I can do this in 10 days, like this book ‘Learn Japanese in 10 Days’ says I can!” Photo via Good Free Photos The thing is, a lot of Japanese schools will not attempt to tell you any different. In fact, they treat kanji carefully around their beginner students, like they will render these 外国人students weak and helpless, like kryptonite. Teachers create the… Read More
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こんにちは。
[affilinet_performance_ad size=300×50] ようこそ！ I created this site to talk about learning Japanese from the viewpoint of a very poor student of it. I am going to talk about my experiences, offer some thoughts, maybe write a joke or two. Eventually, I want to travel in Japan for an extended period (2-3 weeks), and I want my Japanese to be better than survival level.
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