語彙の暗記

As I mentioned a few posts ago, because I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere with my Japanese, I decided to focus on Japanese vocabulary building rather than focussing on learning new grammar structures. I had thought this little strategy would help me out in all other areas of learning Japanese - listening, reading etc - however recently I have found it so hard to remember the vocabulary I am studying.

To do this, I made some flash cards and some vocabulary lists of words that I found interesting or applicable to myself and to today's world. For a few days, I felt inspired to study, but gradually I lost my enthusiasm and could no longer concentrate.

I did manage to absorbe one or two words - like 蛇口 and キモい and 怠け者, but the frustration of not advancing as fast as I want has been getting me down a lot. I have also become a little nervous about moving to Japan for a year and I think the fear of losing my normal, stable life here has caused me to deny my up and coming journey into the unknown. This denial has in turn caused me to avoid studying Japanese and given me an interest in other languages that I have been meaning to revise.

I remember the last time I was going to Japan, I spent a good month before my trip revising everything I could from my old Japanese textbooks to prepare myself. Once again, in the months leading up to my trip to Thailand, I focussed on learning as much Thai as I could. Those were quite short trips, and for this up-and-coming trip to Japan, I will be there for an entire year! It must be the fear of losing my current lifestyle that is preventing me from studying Japanese.

Deva has been shouting in my ear, telling me that I should just stop studying all together. After all, soon enough I'll be in Japan and will be practicing my Japanese every day! Despite Deva and his evil attempts to hinder my learning, I must force myself to study. Every word I gain will mean I will understand one more word when I'm either reading, listening or having to express myself in Japanese.

After an entire week of procrastination and filling my study time with gardening and cleaning the house, I will sit down tonight and study, study, study! I can do it! 

If you are experiencing the same troubles with your Japanese learning, please feel free to contact me and share your woes - and your advice if you have conquered this difficult stage of learning a foreign language. A friend of mine recently explained to me he felt he was completely stuck and couldn't make any more progress. Consequently he decided to stop studying and put his energy into practicing watercolour. I don't want this to happen to me! Let's all try hard and study as best we can!

Listening to natural Japanese conversations...

I just watched an interview on Youtube with Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and couldn't understand much at all. I know I need more listening practice when it comes to Japanese, but I think my biggest problem is determining what the little sounds are which seem to tag on to the end of words and phrases in conversational Japanese.

Words like ええとね, なんか or the ____と、_____か、____って all really confuse me. I get the gist of one part of the sentence, but then one of these words puts me off and distracts me that I miss the phrase which follows it.

I know this will come eventually after lots of listening practice, but my heavens it is SO FRUSTRATING right now. I have decided to look up more Japanese TV interviews because even though they are hard to understand, they're so bright and fun to watch. Little by little I will hopefully get over this listening rut. 

Here's the video I was watching. The interview is at the end. By the way, Mayuyu is so cute.... 

I listened to the interview (and the song ^^ ) a few times to try and decode it. Hopefully along with my intense vocab workout this month, listening will get easier!

AWESOME BLOG for learners of Japanese!

すごい！I just discovered an awesome blog called チョコチョコ written to encourage other Japanese language learners out there to gang together and study as hard as they can! 

The blogger originally started the blog to write about his journey learning Japanese, but after he realised there were lots of people out there learning just like he was, he began writing to help others learn more effectively. 

Screenshot of the チョコチョコ site.

On his blog you will find study tips, book reviews of Japanese (and Korean) textbooks, kanji study tips, posts about Japanese culture, as well as some other learning resources and grammar notes. You may also be lucky enough to discover a new creature called a チョコチョコ (which may in fact be the encouraging, friendly form of Deva). I am eager to find out exactly what they are and how they can help me learn Japanese!

The main reason why I am mentioning this blog is in fact because of the reading resources offered on the "Great Library" page! I know this may seem simple, but I am going to start reading from the very first story. I need to practice my reading so bad...

In the Great Library, you can select your level of Japanese and then you are presented with some stories  for you to read. I am really impressed, and hope one day to be able to read the stories from the advanced level. (OMG, 漢字がたくさん！）

Well, I'm gonna go and have an even closer look at that blog! 

Happy studying, guys!

今晩の映画

(For the English version, go down)

昨日は、トフグのサイトの日本映画のおすすめを読んだ後で、「SurviveStyle+5」をネットで探す事にした。今晩、パンプキンスープを食べながら、映画を見た。昨日少しスニークプレビューをして、映画の色がとてもつよいので、良い映画だろうと思ったね！　あ、映画はすっごく良かった！

「SurviveStyle+5」は関口現に監督した。それはとても面白くて、すばらしい映画だ。物語は奇妙で、でもとてもおかしい。ミザンセーヌは色がたくさん！　次のビデオを見てください。

ところで、すみませんね。今晩、僕の日本語はちょっと。。。


単語を勉強してみて、でも疲れてるので、本当に出来ない。：（　

I won't translate all of what I wrote above, but I will say that I recommend this film to all those who love colour, love quirky stories, and love Japanese films!

I was wandering around on the internet and stumbled across a blog entry on Tofugu called the "Top 10 Strange Japanese Films You Need TO Watch". I couldn't resist having a look and there, under No.7 was Survive Style +5.

This film, directed by Sekiguchi Gen and starring Asano Tadanobu, Hashimoto Reika and Vinnie Jones, tells five different, distantly entwined stories, each with its own quirks and touching message.

The editing is sharp and does well to enhance the comic feel of certain scenes, and the mise-en-scène is choc-a-block with vivid colours and textures. The scene above is what got me in in the first place. I was blown away by the colour!

I didn't like the hitman's character so much. I thought his scenes were a little awkward and didn't quite work. Apart from his character, I loved all the other characters so much. They were all very well developed and I felt for each and every one of them. Especially one in particular, but I must not mention it in case you go and watch it! You'll know which one I mean. (ポっ、ポっ、ポっ）

Well, I really recommend you see this film. It is on par with タんポポ (Tampopo), and I will be re-watching it very soon!  Oh hell, here's a clip from Tampopo. (I have watched this film numerous times and never ever get bored with it!

☆ENGLISH UPDATE☆

This week I decided to take a different approach in regards to the way I study Japanese. 


I was reading a few blogs about study techniques, and one of the blogs asked me to question what is hindering my studies. I came to the conclusion that my lack of vocabulary is my biggest issue and it is really interfering with my Japanese language study. In fact, I am a little upset I didn't come to this realisation much earlier. I had thought about my lack of vocabulary and tried to build it up a little, but I didn't realise how serious an issue it really was, and therefore I tended to move on to other areas of study.


So, how exactly does a lack of vocabulary hinder ones learning? Well, a lack of vocabulary means:

• when you are trying to write, you have to look up lots of words,
• when you are trying to read, you have to look up lots of words,
• when you are trying to speak, you stumble and can't express yourself,
• and when you are listening, you are absolutely LOST. (oh, and depressed...)

You get the picture. 

Well, I kinda knew this ages ago, but you tend to forget the seriousness of having a weak vocabulary. It has now clicked just how important it is, and also how vital it is in order to actually be able to practice listening, reading, writing and speaking. To practice these, you need to know as many words as possible, because otherwise you feel like you don't know anything, and then the whole process of study becomes incredibly boring, daunting and depressing. (Hey, Deva! You mightn't be around for much longer! Muoahahaha!)

All the times I felt depressed about study was really due to my lack of vocabulary. All the times I opened my reading practice book, tried to read a passage and then closed it in frustration was ALL because I didn't have enough vocabulary to keep me going. 

Now, of course, for those who are learning Japanese out there, I'm not saying that you should stop focussing on reading, writing, listening or speaking practice. Not at all! After all, it is through this that you learn new vocabulary and set into concrete the words you have studied that you happen to come across while practicing your reading etc. By practicing your reading, writing and listening, you are seeing the words you have studied in use and in their correct environment (ie. with a certain verb combination etc).

So, what I plan to focus on is expanding my vocabulary as much as I can, so that when I do try and read or listen to Japanese, I don't get so overwhelmed by the words I don't know. By doing this, perhaps the 4 or 5 words of the sentence that I don't understand will turn into a 2 or 3. That could mean a big difference from having no idea whatsoever about the meaning of the sentence, to having an idea of the context and being able to fill in the blanks! 

Ah I feel much better now, so on that note, I will leave and study vocab! 皆、がんばってね！

To vlog or not to vlog, that is the question!

I've recently been wondering if I should start up my own vlog. Like, everybody's doing it, hello?? The trouble is, I have several concerns regarding vlogging. It was hard enough starting up this blog last year!

So, here are my concerns:

1) I don't want people I know (of the flesh and bones kind) to see me on Youtube.


I would HATE it if my friends found out I was vlogging. I would feel embarrassed - no matter how unsuccessful or successful it was. I am quite private about my interests in some respects and to think they could be watching me would put me off completely and I wouldn't feel so free. I don't know if that makes sense, but this little "koalaleo" cyber profile I have created here is a much more confident version of myself. If people know I blogged or vlogged, I would become paranoid about what they would be thinking. Dahh... damn world. I did think about vlogging in costume. I could do that! It wouldn't be so nice in summer, but it might attract a lot of viewers! 

2) I don't know what I would vlog about.

I really can't think of what I would actually say. I could vlog exactly the same way that I blog on this site (I sometimes wonder if it's too unspecific to be interesting).



3) I don't think I am ready to try speaking Japanese on camera.

I could do as Mikaera and others have been doing, but I really think my Japanese needs more work. I can just imagine trying to talk about something and then having an hour of footage to edit with an end result that only goes for like 2 minutes. I do wonder if it would do my Japanese some good. Perhaps chatting away on camera might fight off my nerves about speaking foreign languages in front of others. I might gain some confidence! 


Well, there you have it. What is your opinion! Should Ryou vlog or not? :)

☆ENGLISH UPDATE☆

In order to practice my katakana, I decided to look up some Japanese fast food websites. Naturally all of the menus were chockablock with katakana words! If you need some practice, I strongly recommend checking some out, and I'll post some Japanese fast food websites at the bottom of this post. 

My reason for this post is to do with Japanese sound symbolism / onomatopoeia words. Several of the menu items had a sound word in either its title or description, and I suddenly realised I simply must study some before I (if I... fingers crossed) go to Japan this year.

Thinking about it, I only know sound words related to food - and even then, they don't seem to appear in the dictionary or on any of the lists I have found.

- コロコロ (which one of my friends taught me when I ordered takoyaki for the first time in my life, and WHAT a day that was. A day that changed my life and my after-uni / after-cityday snack for the next 8 years!)

- しゃぶしゃぶ (the sound of the meat being swished around and cooked in the hot pot).

So, as I said a second ago I have found a list of words and I have also found a whole side of Japanese linguistics that I hadn't really come across before. (Thank you wikipedia). I have just discovered the following:


Giseigo 擬声語 / Giongo 擬音語 - words mimicking sounds made by living things (giseigo), and words mimicking sounds made by non-living things (giongo). 

Gitaigo 擬態語 - words mimicking non-auditory senses.

Gijougo 議場後 - words describing physical or psychological states. 


On the fast food sites, I came across フワフワ for to express 'light / fluffy'. I also found さくさ, meaning 'crispy / crunchy'. After looking them up, I realised the value of knowing these words, whereas before I had disregarded them somewhat. 

If anyone has any advice on a good way of studying sound words, please let me know! XD

Ok, here's a list of fast food sites for those wanting to practice their katakana. 

1) ロッテリア (Lotteria)
2) ビアードパパ (Beard Papa)
3) ここフランス (CocoFrans)
4) モスバーガー (MosBurger)

☆ENGLISH UPDATE☆

I just found these two really cool blogs - one by a girl who did an exchange program to Germany and Japan another vlog about Korean culture etc. 

Firstly the one about korean culture is called Sweet and Tasty. It is really well done and all by one person taking on different comical characters. My favourite is the aegyo girl and 'Taekwondo'. It talks about various aspects of Korean culture, as well as giving a few lessons on the Korean language and about particular words often mentioned in the Kpop scene. If you haven't heard of them yet, you should check out Simon & Martina from Eat Your Kimchi. They also vlog about Korean culture and Kpop, and I absolutely love their stuff.

The second blog I found yesterday is by Vy and called I think in comics. I was particularly interested in the one from Vy's travels in Germany and Japan. I am not so into comics and manga, but found Vy's comics very entertaining and fun to read. My, it must have taken her so much time to draw all those up!

Finally, I had a proper look at tofugu - a Japanese language and culture blog in English. If you're interested in learning Japanese, I had a brief look at their language course intro and it looked really good. One thing that really got me interested was their kanji learning strategy which involves learning kanji from the radicals rather than learning kanji the way most textbooks deliver them which is comparable to the way Japanese students learn kanji at schools. It also encourages the student to focus not so much on being able to write the kanji, but rather being able to recognise them. When I was learning at university, I spent hours and hours writing and re-writing kanji in order to memorise them. I was able to memorise the beginner and intermediate kanji lists, but it only took one year for me to forget about 50% of what I had learned. All that time re-writing them could have been put to better use. ACTUALLY, come to think of it, I DID need to know how to write it as we had dictation tests! Ergh, so if you aren't studying Japanese at university, perhaps try focusing on recognising the kanji rather than being able to write them. After all, everyone uses Japanese text input. The time you save can be put towards flashcards! So, if you are in need of a japanese learning resource, try textfugu. 

Oh, and in case you want to study hiragana and katakana, here is a good resource I found from the textfugu site: realkana.

My heavens, that makes two english updates in two days! How awful. I must write in Japanese next time!

☆ENGLISH UPDATE☆

Well, it has been about a week or two since I've posted anything on the blog. Deva has really been on my mind and I haven't been to inspired to study. In case you are new to this and don't know who Deva is, you should click on his name. Perhaps Deva visits you from time to time as well! 

I have been doing some study, however. I was watching My Boss My Hero and came across some words that I thought were quite useful so I wrote them down. A moment later, my mind was coming up with tonnes of useful words that I could add to the list. So, I have this wonderful list of words that I have been trying to learn. It isn't too lengthy a list, but I think I might be able to learn them quite easily as they are words that I find really interesting. (My heavens, Deva is making me doubt my sentences in English... no wonder I get down about studying Japanese!)

So, I've almost finished my bag of marshmallows (WHITE ones only), and feel slightly ill. Why do I do this to myself......

Anyway, I will study my list, and with help from Anki! I have had Anki on my computer for a while but haven't got on with it so well. I find the interface a little bland and uninspiring. Nevertheless, I will try to use Anki with my list. 

Ohhh I feel ill. Note to self: try NOT to eat 125g of marshmallows in the space of 10 minutes. 


I don't really know what else to say. I'll report back when I've learnt the list of words. I might even try to use them in a post! 

Speaking of posts, I have disappointed myself. I had planned a few months ago to research something from Japanese culture and then write about it here. Unfortunately I haven't been focused enough, nor had enough time, so I might come back to that project in a month or so. :) 

☆ENGLISH UPDATE☆

I have just created a new page on my blog showing the learning resources that I have been using to study Japanese ever since my days at university. The page also directs you to places where you can purchase the books. I will update it from time to time with the other books I have used to help me study.

VISIT THE LEARNING RESOURCES PAGE

If you are looking for online resources, they can be found on my links page.

☆ENGLISH UPDATE☆

It's been a few weeks since my JET program interview, and I have finally put it out of my mind. That first week was taken up by worry that I'd stuffed it up completely. Now, I'm leaving the decision up to the gods. 

So, I have neglected my Japanese a little over the last few weeks. Deva has taken over a little, and despite having told him to go away and bug someone else, he keeps telling me that I'm making no progress whatsoever. Apparently there is just too much to learn that there's no point in trying anymore! My heavens, he can get nasty.

So, I have decided to focus on my other languages for a time. I have neglected them and with all this cold, rainy weather we're having here at the mo, I feel much more motivated to study cold, coniferous European languages.

I am having a crisis. I have always wanted to study Swedish and after listening to all my old Kent CDs, I really, really want to learn it! It is not fair. I didn't ask for this obsessive desire to learn every language in the world. It's really hard to manage. Not only does it frustrate me to know that it is impossible to learn every language, it makes me neglect languages I have been learning and of course as we all know, in the end I will never develop fluency and be able to speak a little of many languages instead of a lot of one language. Jack of all trades, master of NONE. This is quite unrelated to my Japanese studies, but I have this list (several lists that change depending on my mood) which I try and stick to. It is there to limit me and my desire to conquer every language under the sun. If I stick to my list, I may end up able to converse in maybe three languages. If I stray from it, I will be overwhelmed. I keep straying... it's not good. 

So, I will "eurofy" my language studies a little and then hopefully Deva will find another fellow to hang with, giving me back my enthusiasm and study powers to focus on Japanese.

I will head off soon for yet another holiday and with all this rain hopefully I wont become stranded and unable to return! I might take Deva with me and try and convince him to stay there for some time! 

Ok, ciao for now!

New blogs I've found!

Hi all,

Just a little post for all those learning Japanese or into Japan and Japanese culture!


You should visit the Japan Visitor Blog! I've only just briefly checked it out, and it looks really interesting. Lots of beautiful pictures of Japan, some information about festivals etc too!

I also found a blog called Wired in Japan and has information about how to study Japanese!

Oh, and if you want some kanji and vocabulary help, try Japanetics!

Ok, gotta go check those sites out a little more!

:P

☆ENGLISH UPDATE☆

I just received my letter from the consulate telling me I got through to the next round of the JET Program application process! YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY! I won't get too excited yet though. :P The next step... THE INTERVIEW! Wish me luck, guys! 一生懸命頑張りますよ！

So, how have my studies been going so far this year? Mm, not so good. All throughout the Christmas / New Year season, I've felt really apathetic and exhausted. I decided it was my brain demanding a break from my constant language study. Then off I went to Thailand for two weeks with friends. We had a wonderful time and I will try to write a little about my trip later.

So, now I am back, life is slowly returning to normal. I'm back at work on Friday, and even that mightn't happen as the business I work for isn't doing terribly well at the moment. I will be hunting for a new job - hopefully, HOPEFULLY in the media industry. If not, I will find a little cafe and hone in on my coffee making skills. 

Despite life returning to normal, I still feel a complete lack of motivation. I try to get up early, but my sleepy mind keeps convincing me that there's no point in getting up. I need to change my life somehow.  Maybe I'm still in holiday mode and just need a little time to settle back in to my world. 

In regards to my Japanese studies, I tried to do a little revision while relaxing by the pool in Thailand, but I don't think I absorbed much. Again on the plane, I tried to revise my grammar, but I don't feel like it helped. I feel as though my last post in Japanese must be really badly written... or maybe Deva is feeding me negativity pills again... grrrrr!

I'll have to study lots of Japanese in prep for my JET interview! :D

またね！

☆ENGLISH UPDATE☆

Hi everyone! 

It's been such a while since I've written here in English, so today I will write a brief entry about how I think my Japanese studies are going.

LANGUAGE:

Lang8 is one of my most favourite websites. I have been using it since the beginning of last year and it has helped me improve my Japanese so much! Well, I think it has helped.

In case you do not know about Lang8, it is a wonderful website where you can register for free, select the language you are learning (or languages if you upgrade to premium), and write diary entries in that language for native speakers to correct. In exchange, you correct their diary entries, so as well as hopefully improving your skills, you become part of a wonderful little community of language learners, making friends and perhaps even connections for when you go travelling! 

I believe it has helped me a lot and recommend it to anyone who doesn't have many opportunities to practice the languages they're learning. I have always found it hard to write in Japanese (I still do of course...), but after writing compositions in Japanese on Lang8 I feel more confident, because I can see that what I am writing is being understood (even if it may be quite vague sometimes haha), and I am getting lots of feedback about how I am going.

JLPT Somatome, the textbook series I have been studying is helping me, but I find it very difficult to remember things from the grammar book. Kanji-wise, I am getting through that slowly, as it is something one really cannot rush! The vocabulary book has so far been the most valuable. I find it really well structured and it has lots of useful vocabulary for everyday life! The reading and listening books have been sitting on my desk untouched since I bought them as I want to improve my kanji, grammar and vocabulary before I get into them. Hopefully I will be studying them by July next year haha.

JAPANESE CULTURE:

Well! I don't know what's got into me, but it seems I have gone back to university to continue my Japanese studies! That is, a little imaginary university in my mind! I have written myself a learning contract with a list of everything I want to learn about before 2015.

I am compiling information on the topics I am interested in, from wikipedia and other sources, which I will print out (it's already at 200p...) and study over the next few years. I have chosen a lot of topics that interest me: Japanese history, Japanese pop culture (anime, jpop etc), shintoism, tea ceremony etc. Hopefully I can use this blog to write about some of them, and if you know about the topics yourself, please feel free to join in via the comments section!

Well, that is my overview of my progress over the last few months and my study intentions for the future! I'll try and write a few more posts in English every so often. :)

Thank you for reading!