♤ Studying ♤

♤ Vincent ♤ 日本語 ♤ 한국어 ♤ Linguistics ♤ Masters Student ♤ 22 ♤ Engaged ♤

[burgeoning-ambition]

♤ Studyblr Introduction Post ♤

Hello! I've considered making a studyblr several times, but now I finally want to try and commit to one. This blog's content will probably include both academic college/university stuff and non-academic college/university stuff.

♠ About Me ♠

➼ Name: Vincent

➼ Pronouns: He/him

➼ I'm going into a Japanese masters program this coming fall with a teaching position; I graduated undergrad with a Japanese major, Linguistics major, and Korean minor

➼ I was tutor and first-year mentor throughout undergrad

♠ Academic Background / Interests ♠

➼ Languages and Linguistics

➼ My post-grad goal is to be a translator as well as stay in academia, I'll likely go into either research or a PhD program after my MA

➼ I graduated summa cum laude with distinction + I'm a part of the Japanese national honor society college chapter

➼ I do a lot of research on LGBT+ media, fandom, and both ancient/pre-modern and modern queer literature. My focus is mainly on Japan and Japanese works, but I also do research on Korean works on occasion!

➼ I also do a lot of research on sociolinguistics, conversation analysis/interactional linguistics, broadcasting of identity in language (+ how that shows up in translation), and use of orthography in storytelling

➼ I play a lot of video games

➼ I love writing (I posted a lot of fanfiction before school officially took over my priorities)

➼ I love music (I took formal lessons for singing for a long time and did community theater w/ classes throughout high school so whenever I watch live performances I always make so many comments about little things I notice sdhfgsh)

♠ Studyblr Goals ♠

➼ I want to use this account to help motivate myself to have a more consistent schedule

➼ I also want to commit to only using photos I've taken myself in original posts! I enjoy taking photos and this will give me a reason to do so

➼ Advice!!!! I applied to be a tutor/mentor at my university because I really value giving and receiving advice and support, so I want to use this account as another outlet for doing that

♠ Studyblr Inspirations ♠

I've scrolled studyblr tags on and off for a while, so I think some of the blogs that inspired me are inactive now but regardless:

@thetinypsychologist @myhoneststudyblr @tokidokitokyo @aro-langblr @makoto-mirror @studyquill @inkcipher

Thanks for reading! My ask box and messages are open ^-^

[burgeoning-ambition]

Starting Another Semester

I can’t believe I’m already in my second semester of my MA! It has definitely been difficult, and I’ve definitely had a decent amount of struggles adjusting to being in the graduate environment, feeling imposter syndrome, etc., but overall I’ve been really enjoying being part of the program and getting to dedicate myself to going even deeper into my academic interests. This semester is already…

Starting Another Semester

[honestlyhardmilkshake]

Every "new language learning technique that will change your life" just boils down to "Did you know that if you learn/practice the language you're learning you will get better at it?"

[corvid-language-library]

食わず嫌い（くわずぎらい）

I learned this word in today's italki lesson:

食う（くう）= to eat (informal)

〜ず = without doing

嫌い（きらい）= dislike

食わず嫌い = dislike something without eating it

日本の伝統的な料理はイギリス人時々食わず嫌い。 When it comes to traditional Japanese food, British people sometimes say they don't like it without trying it.

(Based entirely on personal experience whenever I tell people about anko and matcha chocolate 😒)

[thepeacefulgarden]

Meet yourself where you are. And, again, I cannot stress this enough: if your only goal for the new year is to get through it, that is 100% valid. If all you can manage right now is the bare minimum, then it's absolutely okay to do the bare minimum.

[alenagerashchenko]

FUJIYOSHIDA, JAPAN

[lovely-v]

It’s crazy and fucked up that being yourself is actually the solution.

[lovely-v]

It’s like. When I was told to “just be yourself” as a kid I thought it was a passive thing. Like oh easy I just have to sit here and be myself. but the reason so many people think that “being yourself” is bullshit advice is because you actually have to make active choices to do this and it WILL make your life way more fun. You have to wear t-shirts of bands that were popular ten years ago because you like them. You have to do your hair in a way that you find cute or comfortable even if it’s “so nineties”. If your friend says a food you enjoy is gross to them, you can’t be afraid to admit you casually disagree. You have to do hobbies that you’re interested in even if you’re bad at them and you cant feel like you have to get good at something before you tell people it’s an activity you do. You have to read manga and comic books in public and get piercings your relatives think are unattractive. You don’t have to tell people you dislike that you dislike them, but you don’t have to give them your time and attention either. You have to rewatch that kids show you’re nostalgic for even if you’re in your 30s. You have to change your name if you hate it, even if only a few close friends can know. You have to get fun girly drinks at the bar. You have to order hot chocolate when you don’t like coffee and black coffee when you don’t like sweet things. I am still bad at practicing this but it is the only way to make it all tolerable.

[burgeoning-ambition]

Words of the Week (1/5)

Happy new year! I know I’ve already posted since the new year arrived, but this is my first proper language post so I think it’s fair to say. I hope all of you had a good 2025 and have something good, big or small, to look forward to in 2026. Today’s words are going to be new year celebration vocabulary! 新年 (しんねん) – New year (literally) – 새해, 신년お正月 (おしょうがつ) – New Year’s (the holiday period) –…

Words of the Week (1/5)

[nihongoseito]

【細かい日本語コーナー】 debuccalization in 関西弁 (kansai japanese)

contrary to how the title sounds, this is actually going to be a comparatively short phonology post! let's get right into it!

n.b.: i use an adapted form of the ipa in this post to make it as legible as possible to non-linguists.

what is debuccalization?

"debuccalization" is the term phonologists use to describe the evolution of any oral (in the mouth) consonant into any glottal (back of the throat) consonant. in other words, debuccalization has occurred if an [h] or a glottal stop (written [ʔ]) used to be* any other consonant. the term literally means "unmouthing", because a consonant that used to be pronounced in the mouth is now being pronounced in the throat.

let's see some examples! in many englishes, we get debuccalization into glottal stops:

get ready: ge/t/ ready > ge[ʔ] ready

mitten: mi/t/en > mi[ʔ]n

many latin american spanishes debuccalize (or even entirely drop) /s/:

nosotros: no/s/otro/s/ > no[h]otro[h]

tuscan, an italic language related to italian, debuccalizes /k/:

identificare: identifi/k/are > indentifi[h]are

famously, polynesian languages can be reconstructed into proto-polynesian (their ancestor language) by reversing modern debuccalization. i won't get into that here, but it's super cool! linguistics is full of such fun puzzles!!

*this can mean at an earlier stage of the language or just during careful pronunciation.

where is there debuccalization in japanesee?

there has been some historical debuccalization in japanese in the は行 line of kana (i.e., はひふへほ). we can tell this because ふ is still pronounced with an oral consonant, /f/; so, we can guess that は, ひ, へ, and ほ were once pronounced with /f/, too.

は: /fa/ > [ha]

ひ: /fi/ > [hi]*

ふ: /fu/ > [fu]

へ: /fe/ > [he]

ほ: /fo/ > [ho]

however, that's old news (if you're a linguist). this post is about 関西弁!

*as you probably know, ひ is not quite pronounced with an [h] but something halfway between an [h] and a [sh]. this is probably a secondary process called palatalization and is very common cross-linguistically, so it's ok to assume ひ underwent /f/ > [h] debuccalization first. if this were a real phonology paper, we'd have to prove this with much more rigor (lol).

where is there debuccalization in 関西弁?

if you've read, heard, or spoken any kansai japanese at all, i can basically guarantee you've encountered debuccalization. some instances of 関西弁 debuccalization are more standard than others, but there's lots of it to be found!

to start, debuccalization in 関西弁 means /s/ > [h] debuccalization (like in latin american spanish above). there might be other kinds, but i haven't personally observed them, and most consonant inventories of japanese don't include a glottal stop. so when we talk about this phenomenon in japanese, we usually mean it with respect to [h].

can you think of any notable [h]s in 関西弁? i'll give you a second...

...did you maybe think to yourself, "わからへん" (i don't know)? hey, wait a second--what's that へ doing in there?!

you guessed it! the famous 〜へん negative in 関西弁 is most likely an instance of debuccalization. this へ can even show up in the formal negative or other formal speech. let's map it out:

〜ません: ~ma/s/en > ~ma[h]en

〜さん: ~/s/an > ~[h]an

basically, the /s/ > [h] debuccalization process has been observed in high-frequency words, though it hasn't occurred uniformly for all speakers of 関西弁. in my experience, i hear it a lot in transition phrases that originally included the word それ (which is preserved in tokyo japanese/標準語):

それで: /s/ore de > /s/onde* > [h]onde (ほんで)

それじゃ: /s/ore ja > /s/onja* > [h]onja (ほんじゃ)

so, next time you hear a prominent [h] in 関西弁, it could be interesting to take a minute and wonder whether it might have been an /s/ once upon a time!

*this second step includes the process of /rV/ > [ん] that is common in casual japanese across the country; for example, "a/ru/ no?" > "a[n]no?" or "waka/ra/nai" > "waka[n]nai".

what did we learn?

i think we learned two main things: first, that there's a very common cross-linguistic process of mouth consonants becoming throat consonants; and second, that japanese has undergone this process in the past and continues to undergo it today.

if you want to learn more about why phonological processes like debuccalization happen, i recommend you do a quick search and look at sources on child language development in your native language (like this one for english!), which usually have great explanations for non-linguists.

anyway, congrats on finishing another phonology 101 class! as always, feel free to message me with comments or questions. お疲れ様です and see you next time!!

sources (all linked above; click for subsections)

Spanish dialects and varieties - Wikipedia

Kansai dialect - Wikipedia

Japanese language - Wikipedia

[175photograph]

よその街の雪景色。 いつもはこんなに積もらないだろう場所で出会う雪は 自分の街の雪景色とはまた少し違って。

[rageprufrock]

okay, so my question is to do with what i've observed in fandom vs what I see in shows

my impression, from having briefly learnt Mandarin as a child and watching a fair amount of Chinese media in Mandarin, is that it's not really done to refer to someone by a one-syllable name? Like, for Chi Cheng, no one would call him just 'Chi' or just 'Cheng'. You might add a suffix or double a syllable (like he does with Weiwei for Suowei), but you wouldn't use one syllable to refer to someone.

however, this is not what I see reflected in fanfic/fandom, and I'm wondering if i'm mistaken? (if you feel comfortable answering publically, i'd love to be able to reblog, but obviously no pressure!)

You are absolutely correct! Calling someone with a two character Chinese name, like Chi Cheng from Revenged Love for example, just Cheng feels...insane to the Chinese ear. Like I'm not saying there's absolutely zero precedent for in the entire span of Chinese-speaking history, but it makes my balls itch and my brain confused.

To your point, you'd double the actual name character, not family name. So it'd be Cheng-Cheng (only if you are trying to get stabbed I guess), or Cheng'er (if you're his mom or grandmother), xiao-Cheng (if you're a male family member or close family friend who is older than he is), Cheng-ge (if you're a male friend, or sometimes with an older/more senior work friend if you're already close), Cheng-gege (if you are Wu Suowei and you've done something Bad and you're trying to head off the fight by acting like a slutty dancing girl at a brothel), or like whatever -- there are a million suffixes and prefixes etc.

For people who are calling someone just a single character in text on the Chinese-speaking internet, if they're calling them by the family name, we're getting into the murky waters of netspeak. The same way that newspaper Chinese is dramatically different than spoken or normally written Chinese, netspeak is a whole other kettle of fish and designed for speed over grammar or traditional construction, so they might be just referring to a character as Chi, for example. Even then, this is relatively infrequent, since calling him something like Chi-shao, which would mean "Young Master Chi" in short form, is only one additional character. Similar to the above example, people would not be referring to them with their given name, no family name, as a single character without doing some other transformation.

As for why this is showing up in English speaking spaces or fandom spaces, my best guess is that non-Chinese speakers don't know any better. It might sound like a way to introduce a pet name or something more casual, but Chinese is not a casual language, and it's immediately jarring when you see it in use.

In English, five people can reasonably call someone by their given name and all do it the same way. If you're speaking in Chinese, realistically, five different people are going to call a person by their given name in different ways, and those five ways are going to be revealing of their relationship, relative social status, hierarchy, age, all sorts of things!

[is-this-taken-too-questionmark]

I think that the best part about learning a new language is that it effectively doubles your ability to Just Do Whatever. You can buy a book that looks interesting but isn't available in your native language. You can research your favourite topics and have twice the amount of resources as before. You can make new friends. You can laugh at puns that are impossible to translate into any other language. You can ask for help, negotiate, bargain for stuff, stay informed. You can listen to new music and read new poems and be in awe of not just the sound, but the meaning of the words as well. So many new opportunities for you to find joy and be free to do whatever you want!!!

[sleepytrain]

Convenience

Kawaguchiko, Japan 2024

[tokidokitokyo]

口が重い

くちがおもい

incommunicative; taciturn

他人のことはよく話すのに自分のことになると口が重い。 たにん の こと は よく はなす のに じぶん の こと に なる と くち が おもい。 He talks a lot about other people, but is taciturn when it comes to himself.

[nihongoseito]

i collect words that mean "taciturn", partially because i just love the word in english and partially because i always love book characters who are taciturn.

口（くち）が重い（おもい） =

無口（むくち）な =

寡黙（かもく）な =

口数（くちかず）が少ない（すくない）

these words/phrases are all defined in the dictionary using each other, so it's safe to say they're pretty similar. the last one is the most literal, so it can definitely define the first three. there might be some nuances i'm not aware of, but for what it's worth, i feel like i see 無口 the most!

[tokidokitokyo]

妄想にとらわれている

もうそうにとらわれている

to be caught up in delusions

真実ではないことを信じ込み、妄想にとらわれている状態だ。 しんじつ では ない こと を しんじこむ、もうそう に とらわれて いる じょうたい だ。 It is a state of believing something that is not true and being caught up in delusions.

[minimalist-language-learning]

Watching Netflix series in Japanese

The last couple of weeks, I watched Netflix series in Japanese almost every day. To make building the habit easier, I turned the Japanese subtitles on (usually the rough ones, not the precise CC.). This way I can follow the story better which is more fun. After watching quite a number of episodes from different series, I noticed a few things.

I used to watch mainly anime like Detective Conan, Demon Slayer, and Golden Kamuy. Now I’ve been watching mainly detective-style live-action series aimed at adults. I was surprised to find the dialogues easier to understand. Some scenes were still tough, of course, but overall my comprehension was better than when I watch anime. I think it’s because the actors speak more naturally (not as fast or exaggerated as in anime) and they use less slang. That really helps with understanding.

I think it's an false conclusion to think that just because many anime are for a young audience that they are easier to understand. It depends on the show, but the ones I like tend to have difficult vocabulary, and the exaggerated speaking style adds another challenge. So struggling with anime doesn’t necessarily mean your overall listening skills are bad. It can be helpful to try a variety of series, not just anime.

I also noticed that I prefer the rough subtitles over the CC ones. With CC, I end up reading along too closely and paying more attention to the text than the audio. With the rough subtitles, I can process the audio and text more or less at the same time: I mainly listen and just glance at the subtitles only for the gist. Since they’re not precise there's no need to read along.

I did this for a couple of weeks now and I noticed, that I don’t need to look at the subtitles as closely as in the beginning. I trust my ears more now and only check the rough subtitles when I miss something important.

The goal is to understand a show without subtitles, of course. But subtitles in your target language can help to gain confidence until you get there.

(These are just my thoughts on the experiences I made so far. I'll keep trying different things.)

[depsidase]

[headdunk]

great image, helpful infographic. that being said this is the most useful reaction image ive seen in my life

[edenfenixblogs]

I love 100% of this