Japanese Learning is Tough

[pentacomics]

omg Avi was so great in that movie

“what are you talking about he wasn’t in any movie”

well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me

[pentacomics]

Trend it.

[pentacomics]

PTX as Teen Titans Do it because I loaf you.

…Shanaya.

[tofugu]

Japanese Body Parts Vocabulary and Idioms

Learn how to talk about your body in Japanese, plus some handy idioms that use body parts for communication.

You know what’s more embarrassing than falling on your butt in front of everyone in Japan? Not knowing how to say butt in the first place.

You know what’s more anxiety-inducing than giving a speech in Japanese? Telling the person next to you that you have butterflies in your stomach and then realizing that their horrified reaction means that they took you literally.

One of the first things you learn as a kid is what to call all the parts of your own body—yet for some reason this often gets neglected when you’re learning another language.

Now’s the time to fix that! Especially since Japanese sometimes conceives of the human body a bit differently than English. As a bonus feature, not only can knowledge of anatomy help you complain about the various parts of your body, it can also unlock the door to all sorts of cool idioms to spice up your Japanese – as well as help you avoid awkwardly translating English idioms into Japanese nonsense.

Starting from the head and finishing at the toes, here’s your guide to Japanese anatomy and some of the key idioms associated with its various parts.

Read more!

[tofugu]

How to Use a Kanji Dictionary

There's nothing like a good kanji dictionary at your side. While online resources have become more and more popular, having a good dictionary is still pretty important if you're going to take Japanese classes or plan to work in Japan. There are a lot...

There’s nothing like a good kanji dictionary at your side. While online resources have become more and more popular, having a good dictionary is still pretty important if you’re going to take Japanese classes or plan to work in Japan. There are a lot of different kinds of kanji dictionaries out there and it can be really hard to know which one to buy, let alone trying to figure out how to use the thing. I can’t tell you how many people I saw buying the required kanji dictionary for a class and never once picking it up, let alone using it on a daily basis.

I realized that many people don’t know how to use the things, and unfortunately, not every kanji dictionary is the same. So for all of you out there who have a kanji dictionary sitting on your desk, in a pile of other books, or propping open their door, hopefully this guide can help you get some miles out of it.

We’re going to be looking at three popular kanji dictionaries in depth, the New Nelson, Kodansha’s Kanji Learners Dictionary, and The Kanji Dictionary by Spahn & Hadamitzky.

[japtoughlearning]

Update: the switch to EtoEto

Right now, I’m alpha testing the new Eto Eto site, so the posts will be more sporadic and will be focused on the experience of EtoEto instead of TextFugu. anyway, go look up your favorite baby animal while you wait for new JApanese learning posts!

[japtoughlearning]

Lesson #9: the particle Ha

Summary:

Basically, what we learned this week was the particle HA or は. It is a simple little piece of sound that makes up about 90% of the Japanese language that we’re learning in class. it creates sentences and makes the caveman language into a real conversation (well, toddler conversation, but we’re learning!).

Thoughts: 

I still have a hard time remembering the vocabulary, but the sentences really help a lot.

[nihongogasuki]

Why Quantity, Not Quality, Makes You Fluent In Japanese

I’d like the start this article with a quote from “Art & Fear”, a book written by David Bayles and Ted Orland.

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

These two paragraphs are what inspired Tofugu’s 500 Japanese Sentences (which later became 4500 Japanese Sentences, available now btw), a workbook that gives you a lot of Japanese sentences to translate, based off of words that are ordered by frequency of use. The focus, of course, is all on quantity, not quality. If you don’t know how to translate something and can’t figure it out quickly, move on. If you’re confused, move on. If you’re stuck, move on. Do what’s at your ability level and what’s slightly above it and skip the rest. It’ll be there waiting for you on your second run through.

This goes against what most people are taught in school. In fact, there’s a popular saying you’ve probably heard a lot: “Quality over quantity.” It turns out, though, that quantity creates quality, and this can be applied to pretty much any skill you’re trying to develop, Japanese included.

Click here to read the full article

[japtoughlearning]

Lesson #8: Past Negative Nouns

We learned でした last week, now we learned how to make it negative by adding じゃありません. It’s basically like a game of scrabble; you want it negative, then add the past tense to make じゃありませんでした. It was so easy that they actually added some more study material in the form of kanji radicals. right now we’re studying the one stroke kanji radicals in an interesting way. We learn the shape of it, then we learn the name and the readings one at a time to put a complete image in our heads.

Thoughts: 

I like the way they teach the kanji one bit at a time instead of the stroke order. it makes it easier for me to learn it properly.

[japtoughlearning]

Lesson #7: Past Tense Nouns

Summary:

We learned, positive (です) and negative (じゃありません） nouns. Today, we learned the past form of です: でした. it makes the present tense past. Such as “it is a bicycle” to “it was a bicycle”. To put it in real Japanese, it makes “じてんしゃです” into “じてんしゃでした”. 

Thoughts:

the sentence structure is really easy for me, it's just the pronunciation and studying that's difficult. Also, the memorization of the vocabulary words is hard for me because I have the crap memory.

[japtoughlearning]

Lesson #6: Negative Tense Nouns

Summary:

Last week, we learned how the ask a question in Japanese, like:　りんごですか？ももですか？しゃしんですか? stuff like that. Well, today, we learned about negative nouns. In essence, how to say “that is not______.”  Before, when saying a sentence, or asking a question, you used です and if you asked a question, you added か to the end. now, you have to use a longer “sentence-ender”(what I call them). And what it is, is じゃありません. you use it for anything that is NOT something.

Thoughts:

I am having trouble with the pronunciation, just not saying it fast enough or something. my tongue just gets stuck and a keep adding a “sshhhh” sound in the middle. also, I cannot get the vocabulary down. i can’t look at something and know its a “desk” in Japanese. Hopefully, i can overcome this roadblock and get that vocab in my head quickly.

[clairesapphitz]

[japtoughlearning]

Lesson #5: Asking Questions in Japanese

Summary - 

Today we learned questions in Japanese. Mostly things like “is this a _________?” and to answer with “Yes, it is a ___________.” Or “No, this is a _________.” We also went over a few kanji radicals, like the one and two stroke ones. There was a review and a small reading on how we were going to use that for next week’s lesson.

Thoughts - 

I do really well on the spoken portion of any learning exercise. I assume i have a good ear for accents, so it is really easy for me to pick up and recite questions. I did have a hard time reading the flashcards and pronouncing them, but I got better with practice.

[drjotarokujo]

when you meet someone cool

when that person thinks you’re cool

when you become cool friends with that person

when you do cool stuff together

[sleeps-with-scales]

@severely-tiny-tidal-waves

[japtoughlearning]

Lesson #4: Intro to Kanji

Summary- 

We were introduced to kanji in this chapter. It was rather interesting. Instead of rote memorization, we’re going to be learning how to create them by using radicals. Its like using the pieces of a puzzle to make the entire picture.

Thoughts- 

Its kind of difficult to reconcile that its going to be a lot easier to learn kanji. I had a really hard time trying to learn them by myself. This method, however, seems a lot easier. I even bought a Japanese version of the first “Harry Potter” book in anticipation. I hope I’ll be able to read it!

[letseatanime]

[letseatanime]