I've finally started to get settled here. I've got my apartment, some furniture, a few dishes and my main appliances (refrigerator, washing machine, and microwave/oven/toaster). I've got running water and gas and electricity. Unfortunately I've yet to get internet, although that should be coming soon (I hope).
For a quick refresher, I'm studying computer science at Keio University's SFC campus; specifically media databases. I've always been very interested in Parallel and Distributed Computing, so any research topic I choose will have elements of that in it.
I am studying quite a bit of Japanese, although its all on my own right now. The Japanese classes at my campus are too low level, and I'd have to commute 90 minutes on my only free weekday to my school's Mita campus in order to get in a higher level class.
Right now I'm studying Japanese through a couple of different methods. I'm still working on memorizing transitive and intransitive verb pairs. I've started using a website called "Quizlet". I tried it out a while ago and thought it had potential, but in these last few months it feels like it's matured enough that I can use it on a frequent basis. It's essentially a free flash card website with some "social networking" built in. People can share their sets with others, as well as compete in games and so forth. The transitive/intransitive set that I've put together and am studying right now is JIM: Transitive - Intransitive. I'll continue to add vocabulary to it and create other sets as well. One annoying problem with using flash cards to memorize words is that some words have very similar or identical meanings. Sometimes there are small nuances in meaning which I can add to the flashcard to help differentiate, but its a very difficult process (especially since I may not know the nuances). For instance, one verb I'm trying to learn is "あらわす" (arawasu) which means "to show". In this case, the meaning is more like "to reveal" or "to express" according to the online dictionaries I've looked at. The problem is that I learned that "みせる" (miseru) means "to show" a long time ago. I keep inputting みせる and getting marked as incorrect on the website :/ (old habits die hard I guess)
Additionally, I'm reading an online Japanese newspaper (AsaGaku) while using the Perapera-kun Firefox plugin. There are probably better newspapers out there (this one seems related to teaching Japanese to Japanese children. I found it while trying to find a Japanese children's newspaper), but this newspaper has plenty of vocabulary for me to study. I have a large vocabulary that isn't linked to kanji in my mind, so I find that as I am trying to read the newspaper by mousing over each word using the Perapera-kun plugin, I find vocabulary which I know in hiragana but not through kanji. I've already started recognizing words in everyday life on signs and posters whose kanji I've learned through the aforementioned online newspaper reading method.
If anyone can point me towards some easier online reading material written in Japanese (maybe some that has been written with children in mind) that would be much appreciated :)
Showing posts with label japanese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label japanese. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Thoughts on Japanese
I'm surprised how well I've been able to communicate with people right off the bat. It's exciting to think where I'll be in just a month or two's time. I'm focusing on studying sentence structures and kanji right now.My most intensive area of study right now is on learning the readings of kanji. Right now the book I'm using is called Essential Kanji by P.G.O`Neill. I've had it for a while but was always a little intimidated by it. Now that I've had a lot more experience with the Japanese language, it's making for a great resource. I still don't feel confident in my kanji at all, so I'm starting from the beginning. Of course I know a few of them pretty well by now, and I'm already 35 kanji into the book. I'm sure I'll hit the ceiling of my pretty-well-known-kanji soon and the speed at which I pick up new ones will fall drastically. As I mentioned before, I'm memorizing the readings of each kanji as well as writing each about 20 times.
At the same time I'm working on using transitive and intransitive verbs correctly, as well as some of the sentence constructs surrounding them. I'm also brushing up on older sentence structures that I haven't used for a while and therefore am rusty in their proper usage. I've brought the Japanese in Mangaland books with me, and packed some other ones to be shipped to me once I have a permanent address.
At the same time I'm working on using transitive and intransitive verbs correctly, as well as some of the sentence constructs surrounding them. I'm also brushing up on older sentence structures that I haven't used for a while and therefore am rusty in their proper usage. I've brought the Japanese in Mangaland books with me, and packed some other ones to be shipped to me once I have a permanent address.
First week in Japan
On September 16th I finally arrived in Japan. I flew on Northwest Airlines direct from Seattle to the Tokyo-Narita Airport (10.75 hours). It was the first time I've ever been on an airplane that had a power plug under my seat (for which I was very grateful). The fare was very reasonable as well, only costing about $700 for the one-way ticket.
My plan was to take a taxi from the airport to Keio's SFC (Shonan Fujisawa Campus), however my sense of scale based on looking at maps was way off. I had completely underestimated the distances involved. I ended up taking a bus to the Fujisawa station, and then taking a taxi from there to the SFC. The bus ride lasted about 2 hours, and the taxi was another 20 minutes. It cost about 4000 yen for the bus ride and another 3000 yen for the taxi drive. I touched down at about 2pm in Japan, and finally made it to the campus around 5:30pm.
I arrived at the campus and finally met with the two people with whom I'd been communicating the most. One was a woman who worked in the school's administration office, and the other was the secretary of my research lab. After getting my luggage situated in the campus's Guest House where I would be staying until finding an apartment of my own (for $35/night), I went to the research lab that I'd be spending a lot of my time in (and am currently writing this entry now). None of the students or professors were there because of a conference, so it was just the two of us at that point.
From then we began discussing apartments, and we made several calls to go see them on Friday. We ended up seeing four apartments together on Friday, and then my professor and I looked at a fifth one. Three of them were very conveniently located, but extremely old (20+ years). One of them was pretty nice, but less convenient. They ranged from about 45,000 yen to 65,000 yen a month. Each one had different amounts of initial payments, insurance, and furniture rental costs. None of them offered a bed/futon in the rental packages, so that's another hurdle I'll have to overcome down the road.
I'm trying to find a place to live near Shonandai Station. There are many buses that go from there to the SFC, and back again. There is another station called Tsujido Station near which there was another apartment we looked at. That station also has buses that travel to and from SFC. Unfortunately it took about 40 minutes to travel to that apartment (25 of which was spent on bus), which is just too long of a commute for me (The commute to Shonandai Station takes 10-15 minutes).
My plan was to take a taxi from the airport to Keio's SFC (Shonan Fujisawa Campus), however my sense of scale based on looking at maps was way off. I had completely underestimated the distances involved. I ended up taking a bus to the Fujisawa station, and then taking a taxi from there to the SFC. The bus ride lasted about 2 hours, and the taxi was another 20 minutes. It cost about 4000 yen for the bus ride and another 3000 yen for the taxi drive. I touched down at about 2pm in Japan, and finally made it to the campus around 5:30pm.
I arrived at the campus and finally met with the two people with whom I'd been communicating the most. One was a woman who worked in the school's administration office, and the other was the secretary of my research lab. After getting my luggage situated in the campus's Guest House where I would be staying until finding an apartment of my own (for $35/night), I went to the research lab that I'd be spending a lot of my time in (and am currently writing this entry now). None of the students or professors were there because of a conference, so it was just the two of us at that point.
From then we began discussing apartments, and we made several calls to go see them on Friday. We ended up seeing four apartments together on Friday, and then my professor and I looked at a fifth one. Three of them were very conveniently located, but extremely old (20+ years). One of them was pretty nice, but less convenient. They ranged from about 45,000 yen to 65,000 yen a month. Each one had different amounts of initial payments, insurance, and furniture rental costs. None of them offered a bed/futon in the rental packages, so that's another hurdle I'll have to overcome down the road.
I'm trying to find a place to live near Shonandai Station. There are many buses that go from there to the SFC, and back again. There is another station called Tsujido Station near which there was another apartment we looked at. That station also has buses that travel to and from SFC. Unfortunately it took about 40 minutes to travel to that apartment (25 of which was spent on bus), which is just too long of a commute for me (The commute to Shonandai Station takes 10-15 minutes).
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Where did I study?
This has happened to me a couple times, but it was only this most recent time that I actually remembered the word. I was at a teppanyaki restaurant yesterday, and my chef was a Japanese man in his mid twenties. It was fun practicing my Japanese with him, but the conversation started out a little rough. He asked me where I studied Japanese, but did so using the word まなぶ (manabu) which I was unfamiliar with (and whose subtleties I'm still unsure of). According to my handy online dictionaries, the meaning is to study (in depth); to learn; to take lessons in. I've been taught benkyousuru (to study), and narau (to learn) both in class and through reading textbooks. I don't ever remember running across this word before in those contexts.
I'm not positive, but from the context it sounded like the verb implied where did I first learn Japanese. It might just be the case though that I was focusing so much on an unfamiliar verb, that I didn't hear some of the rest of the sentence. When I replied that I was studying with a private tutor, it seemed to be an incorrect response :) I guess I'll ask my teacher this week about manabu. I can't believe that in 2.5 years I've never learned that word before.
I'm not positive, but from the context it sounded like the verb implied where did I first learn Japanese. It might just be the case though that I was focusing so much on an unfamiliar verb, that I didn't hear some of the rest of the sentence. When I replied that I was studying with a private tutor, it seemed to be an incorrect response :) I guess I'll ask my teacher this week about manabu. I can't believe that in 2.5 years I've never learned that word before.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Awesome firefox plugin
After getting frustrated running across websites and emails that had lots of Japanese I didn't know, I figured there must be a Firefox addon which could help me out. Enter Perapera-kun ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3343 ) this addon is amazing. As you mouse over Japanese words (no matter if they are written in hiragana/katakana/kanji/mixed) it highlights them and tells you their meanings and readings. It's just so useful, it's hard to explain how impressed I am with it, and it's free!
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Interesting Sentence Construct. Arigatou Origin?
While meeting with my Sensei yesterday, we were discussing how to say "Thank you for x". The teacher explained that the following sentence structure could be used:
This type of structure is a very common one in Japanese, where the N(oun) is a direct object of the last word which is a verb. At that point I had to ask "is arigatou a verb?". This led to some interesting conversation of which I can't say I have a complete understanding, but the basic idea is as follows. There used to be a grammar construct which is very rarely used now, but was much more commonly used in the distant past. It is as follows:
Which meant "difficult to do V(erb)." For instance, difficult to eat would be tabegatai, or difficult to sleep would be negatai. Apparently arigatou used to be arigatai. I'm not sure how "difficult to have" (or any other of the several variations in meaning of arimasu) eventually became "thank you" but it kind of made sense when Sensei explained it :) As a side note, the V-stem + gatai grammar construct has been replaced with V-stem + nikui for meaning "difficult to V".
N wo arigatou
This type of structure is a very common one in Japanese, where the N(oun) is a direct object of the last word which is a verb. At that point I had to ask "is arigatou a verb?". This led to some interesting conversation of which I can't say I have a complete understanding, but the basic idea is as follows. There used to be a grammar construct which is very rarely used now, but was much more commonly used in the distant past. It is as follows:
V-stem + gatai
Which meant "difficult to do V(erb)." For instance, difficult to eat would be tabegatai, or difficult to sleep would be negatai. Apparently arigatou used to be arigatai. I'm not sure how "difficult to have" (or any other of the several variations in meaning of arimasu) eventually became "thank you" but it kind of made sense when Sensei explained it :) As a side note, the V-stem + gatai grammar construct has been replaced with V-stem + nikui for meaning "difficult to V".
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Update
My original tutor has returned to Japan, and I didn't have one for a while which limited my studying. I was just focusing on memorizing vocab and the associated kanji while I was tutorless. I used Craigslist again to find another tutor, and she is really great. I'm studying several things in parallel at the moment:
The JLPT or Japanese Language Proficiency Test seems to be widely known, but somehow I hadn't been exposed to it up until now. There are four levels of proficiency, and people take tests created by the Japanese government to determine what proficiency they are at. I'm not too interested in taking the test, but it's another thing that can help my studying become more structured. For now I'm just learning the kanji that I'd need to take the test at JLPT level 4 (the lowest). Right now I'm studying off of a worksheet that has 120 characters on it. The sheet also includes the readings of the kanji that I have to memorize. Fortunately I already knew most of the first 75. I need to study more regularly so that I can figure out how many kanji per week I can memorize.
I've often wondered how important sentence structures are compared to vocabulary. When I'm at Japanese class, I'll frequently try to use some convoluted sentence to say something, and then I get corrected by just being taught new vocabulary that means what I was trying to say. This leads me to believe that learning vocabulary is more important than sentence structures, but of course you need both if you are to communicate well. A very important benefit of studying sentence structure is that to do so you need to form sentences! This means that the act of actually speaking Japanese is being studied, and not just memorization/recollection.
Because of studying sentence structures, I realize that I need to speak Japanese more often. We were studying "n desu" and "hazu", forming sentences that encompass the entire range of usage scenarios for these sentence structures. There were times when it took me 10 seconds just to parse all of a sentence's information and say the Japanese equivalent of the English sentence I was translating. I could tell that my teacher frequently thought I just didn't know the vocabulary, however it was just me fitting everything together in my head. I'm just not used to speaking Japanese, and that's something that I have to practice outside of class somehow. I feel like if I were to move to Japan, my ability to form Japanese sentences from English thoughts would quickly catch up with the rest of my Japanese language ability at least.
- Kanji vocabulary from the book Kanji in Mangaland
- JLPT kanji worksheets
- Weekly sentence structures
The JLPT or Japanese Language Proficiency Test seems to be widely known, but somehow I hadn't been exposed to it up until now. There are four levels of proficiency, and people take tests created by the Japanese government to determine what proficiency they are at. I'm not too interested in taking the test, but it's another thing that can help my studying become more structured. For now I'm just learning the kanji that I'd need to take the test at JLPT level 4 (the lowest). Right now I'm studying off of a worksheet that has 120 characters on it. The sheet also includes the readings of the kanji that I have to memorize. Fortunately I already knew most of the first 75. I need to study more regularly so that I can figure out how many kanji per week I can memorize.
I've often wondered how important sentence structures are compared to vocabulary. When I'm at Japanese class, I'll frequently try to use some convoluted sentence to say something, and then I get corrected by just being taught new vocabulary that means what I was trying to say. This leads me to believe that learning vocabulary is more important than sentence structures, but of course you need both if you are to communicate well. A very important benefit of studying sentence structure is that to do so you need to form sentences! This means that the act of actually speaking Japanese is being studied, and not just memorization/recollection.
Because of studying sentence structures, I realize that I need to speak Japanese more often. We were studying "n desu" and "hazu", forming sentences that encompass the entire range of usage scenarios for these sentence structures. There were times when it took me 10 seconds just to parse all of a sentence's information and say the Japanese equivalent of the English sentence I was translating. I could tell that my teacher frequently thought I just didn't know the vocabulary, however it was just me fitting everything together in my head. I'm just not used to speaking Japanese, and that's something that I have to practice outside of class somehow. I feel like if I were to move to Japan, my ability to form Japanese sentences from English thoughts would quickly catch up with the rest of my Japanese language ability at least.
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