Kame no No-to

亀のノートにようこそ！私はガービ・バーナードです。シカゴ大学で日本語を勉強しています。日本語が上手じゃありません。だけど、日本語が流暢になりたいです。一緒に習いましょう！ Welcome to Kame no No-to! My name is Gabi Bernard, and I am currently studying Japanese at the University of Chicago. I am not an expert, but I would like to become fluent. Let's learn together! Read more »

[sassy-shark-boy]

[golden-zen]

A little trick to remeber the Katakana シ (shi) and ツ (tsu).

Basically you cancle the ‘head’ of the Hiragana and follow its stroke. While SHI is the one with the curve from bottom to top, TSU's goes from top to bottom. My skills are limited but I hope this helps some people! (´∇ﾉ｀*)ノ

[kamenono-to]

Gah! This is amazing! If only I knew this months ago.

[kamenono-to]

鍵(kagi): key

[kamenono-to]

イカ(ika): squid

[kamenono-to]

They know too much.

[transbaek]

WAIT

IN JAPANESE, WEDNESDAY IS 水曜日

WHICH IS LITERALLY WATER DAY

FREE! COMES OUT ON WEDNESDAY

FREE! COMES OUT ON WATER DAY 

[metal-gayer-deactivated20150308]

is thAT WHY THE END CARDS SAY “SEE YOU NEXT WATER TIME” AS IN “SEE YOU NEXT WEDNESDAY”

[kamenono-to]

If you ever doubted that Japanese is a beautiful language, here's reason #495 why it is.

[kamenono-to]

Confession time: I never really learned my katakana. Terrible, I know! My class just moved at such a fast pace (we were expected to know how to read and write in both hiragana and katakana within the first week) that I had to take a few shortcuts. My professor told us that hiragana is more important to know, so I focused on that. Still, it's no excuse. During the year, I should have gone back and practiced. I was familiar enough with the syllabary to get by, I suppose. But now I'm making up for it. I will never waste five minutes trying to figure out that コーンフレーク means "corn flakes" on an exam again! ...The difference between シ (shi) and ツ (tsu) and ソ(so) and ン(n) will never cease to trip me up, though.

[kamenono-to]

Lessons From Anime: Blood Lad Episode 7

吸血鬼 (kyuuketsuki): vampire

[kamenono-to]

Lessons From Anime: Shingeki no Kyojin Episode 18

馬 (uma): horse

[kamenono-to]

Lessons From Anime: Free! Episode 5

島 (shima): island

[goobenheim]

After nearly two days of nonstop vectoring and coding…

Gabracadabra.com is open!

Well, sorta.

The front page is completely finished, and the portfolio pages are essentially where they need to be. That’s all I really needed to have done for the job application, so every other page has throwaway content (or no content at all). But that’s okay. This is way farther than I thought I’d be at this point. Three cheers for deadlines!

Literally everyone who commented on my post about the style of the redesign said I should do “dark and feminine,” but I asked that question before I knew I had two days to create the design. I ended up going with “bright and cartoonish,” because, well…it’s easy. Ideally, I’ll turn the site into a “Pick Your Adventure”-type dealie where visitors can choose one of the three styles I mentioned before entering the site. I would keep the same concept for each design, but alter the colors and details of the objects to fit the different looks.

Also, I apologize for including a “photography” section in the portfolio. I don’t want to be one of those people, but I keep deleting old artwork without creating anything new. I needed something to fill up a little more space. Hopefully, that will be replaced by a traditional art section someday. But first I have to create some traditional art that does not involve stick figures.

…So yeah this is my portfolio. Enjoy.

[kamenono-to]

こんにちは (konnichiwa)！I know, I haven't been around in awhile. すみません (sumimasen)。

This is why! I had to redesign my portfolio for an important job application. I know it doesn't have anything to do with Japanese, so I apologize for posting about it here. But I wanted to let you know why I've been so inactive. I'll be back to posting semi-regularly soon!

こんにちは (konnichiwa): good afternoon; すみません (sumimasen): I'm sorry

[kamenono-to]

You inspire me so much! I've been trying to learn Japanese, but being fifteen I thought I was too old. Knowing that you are in a college and learning it has really inspired me to keep trying! Thank you so much! ありがとう!!

You’re never too old to learn a language! Since the importance of learning languages isn’t really stressed in the U.S., I think it’s safe to say that most people here don’t begin seriously studying a language until they get to high school. That doesn’t stop them from becoming fluent! I have several friends my age who are fluent in Spanish even though they started “late.”

Of course, mastering Japanese will take longer to master than Spanish for those of us who have been raised on a Germanic or Romance language. But anything is possible!

If you ever have any questions, feel free to ask me. :)

[papercoleena]

Today is Banana Day in Japan, because 8 is “ba” and 7 is “nana”. 

HAPPY BANANA DAY(　 ´’ω’｀)

[kamenono-to]

I had never heard "ba" used when referring to the number eight in Japanese, so naturally I was curious. I found this article on Goroawase in my search.

It's super fascinating. I struggled with reading and remembering phone numbers at the speed expected of me in class, so this could definitely be of good use.

Of course, I highly recommend memorizing the longer On’yomi readings of numbers before studying up on the abbreviations. Maybe I'll make a gif set of those soon.

[kamenono-to]

Your blog is very adorable and helpful. Keep up the good work!

ありがとう！...I need to look up different ways to express gratitude so I don't respond to all these messages the same way.

[kamenono-to]

いい天気ですね (ii tenki desu ne): It's a beautiful day, isn't it?

Once I got to the point in my studies where I would accidentally use Japanese outside of class, this is one of the phrases that would slip out. Why just make small talk when you could make small talk in Japanese?

いい (ii): い-adjective meaning "good" or "great"

天気 (tenki): weather

です (desu): polite sentence ending

ね (ne): sentence-ending particle that indicates that the speaking is looking for agreement or confirmation; implies the "isn't it?" in this case

[kamenono-to]

thanks for help us ^^ great job!

Of course! I hope my posts continue to be useful.

[kamenono-to]

Hiragana Lessons: Part 1

The hiragana syllabary is one of three parts of the Japanese writing system. Learning how to read and write the kana (characters) of the hiragana syllabary is absolutely essential if you ever wish to master the Japanese language.

The first frame shows a typed version of the kana and the following frames show the proper stroke order (forgive my horrendous handwriting). The top line of text at the bottom gives the romaji (latin equivalent) of the kana, and the text in quotations gives the pronunciation.

Tip: The best way to learn how to write these bad boys is to write them over and over and over until you think your hand is going to fall off. Every time you write a character, whisper its sound to yourself and/or write its romaji afterwards. That way you won't start mindlessly making the strokes without really absorbing what you are doing.