忙しい、忙しい。このごろみなさんがいそがしそうですね。ぼくも！ 政界や世界は難しくて少し怖いね？平安は嫌いそう。 小さい人間は何法がいいですか？ 根気、共感、剽悍な気だと思います。
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Why Not Continue?
As the saying goes, “How delicious this strawberry is!” Tigers below us, the branch we’re hanging on to slowly ripping out of the cliff…but why not have a strawberry before you go? So why don’t I continue to write in this blog. Well, why not indeed,
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I’m Back
It’s like I never left. If you were me. Because I’m always here. I took an immersion course recently and, well, let’s just say I stayed quiet through a lot of it. So I got annoyed at myself and my laziness. Which has reaffirmed my desire to learn this language as a long running bucket list item. Of course, I will never be 100% fluent in it. But I can work to get to at least 90% fluent. I’m back, baby! Hail to the まだまだ日本語を話すおやじ！
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Time = Money
So learning Japanese takes a lot of time, or money, or both. では、クラスを始める前に調べなければいけません。 And it’s your time and money, so why not do some research first? If you don’t research, you just waste both of these precious resources. This applies to all Japanese classes and teachers. Sometimes you can’t know until you take the course, unfortunately. I tried doing a traditional classroom-based course for three years and it was good for what it was. A solid explanation of Genki I and II, a grammar foundation, and a lot of vocabulary that you never got to use because conversation was saved for the higher levels. (Just a personal gripe about Genki… Read More
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Life Goes On
So, since late January. I’ve had not only the pandemic to deal with, but other personal issues to deal with. I am one of the lucky ones who experienced pandemic plus. But now my energy is back to normal levels, and with a brand new psychological mindset to boot! Watch out, Japan! Seriously, though, having no energy to do anything extra leaves you time to reflect on how much time one wastes when you have lots of energy and sit around, not doing anything extra. This is overused, but 頑張りましょうか？は！
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Why Aren’t You More Guilty?
I mean, really. Oh, you don’t have time, you say? Well, yes, but… I mean, you can reach enlightenment if your search for it becomes like a hot stone, that you can neither swallow nor spit out. Japanese learning is 100% the same. Right? Anyway, I feel the need to study Japanese. Feeling guilty, for some reason.
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A Stern Regard For Propriety
Every day you have to do what it takes to work your 生き甲斐. What the heck that is, well, you have to figure out what that is. But I’ve come to realise that writing regularly in this blog is part of it for me.
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So Many Choices: What To Do?
The Japanese teaching industry seems pretty strong. People watch some anime, think Japan is a land of mystical ninjas and magic girls in short skirts, and say to themselves, “Boy, I bet Japanese would be great to learn!” Then after your first year of gently being taught hiragana and katakana and a few simple kanji, you look at the road ahead of you and see that it’s long and bumpy and curvy. And there are no ninjas or magic girls, just an occasional bowl of Sapporo Ichiban with green onions. What! Too hard? AJATT and Dogen agree with you, sort of, but by simply being independently wealthy and/or doing nothing… Read More
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お金
日本語の授業を受けりたいと、お金が大切だな？ お金とか時だとかやる気も大切だと思う。 このごろ「Zoom]を使わなければいけない。教室で出席するのよりリモートの授業で出席する時は足りない感じだと思うな。たしかに、見立ては少ない。 どうする？家で授業を練習して、いつも頑張りましょう。
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Grasping This Beautiful Moon
A Zen Master lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, while he was away, a thief sneaked into the hut only to find there was nothing in it to steal. The Zen Master returned and found him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.” The thief was bewildered, but he took the clothes and ran away. The Master sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, ” I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.” — from… Read More
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