Manekineko (good luck cat) statues at Gōtoku-ji (豪徳寺), Setagaya
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
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oozey mess
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roma★
taylor price
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❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
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pixel skylines
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if i look back, i am lost
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
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@languageheaven
Manekineko (good luck cat) statues at Gōtoku-ji (豪徳寺), Setagaya
Difference Between ~と言う and ~と言っている
I’ve always read them but never knew understood how to use them. Same with と思います and と思っています, which I will also cover in this post.
~と言う (to iu) is the form you use to directly or indirectly quote what someone has said. と is a quotation marker that can also be used with other verbs like 聞く (to hear)、伝える (to convey)、思う (to think), etc. 言う means to say.
~と言う
places emphasis on the fact the person said something rather than the content of what she said.
present/past tense (someone says something). For 言いました, it would be “someone said something.”
Kanji: 裕子さんはオレンジが好きだと言います。 Kana: ゆうこさんはオレンジがすきだといいます。 Romaji: Yuuko-san wa orenji ga suki da to iimasu. English: Yuuko says she likes oranges.
Yeah, she likes oranges, but the main point is that Yuuko actually said something.
Keep reading
Do you have any advice for Japanese learners who struggle to overcome the intermediate plateau? You are so knowledgeable about Japanese, I'd love to hear your experiences on how you learn and keep improving! Thank you ^_^
Aww man you’re just too sweet. I’m still in the process of learning too. 💗
That intermediate plateau is the hardest thing to overcome. It’s something that was talked a lot about in some of the second language acquisition courses I took back in uni. Let’s delve further into it, because this is something that all language learners will struggle with, regardless of what language you’re learning.
What is the Intermediate Plateau?
👆 a visual representation of the plateau lol
When you first start learning a new language, most learners experience quick and satisfying progress. “Oh man, learning the “te” form was way easier than I thought it’d be!” or “Okay, I got this list of verbs down right away!” “Alright, I got this hiragana down!”
But then you move on to the kanji. The whole kudasaru, yaru, kureru, ageru, sashiageru, morau, itadaku mess, and you start to struggle a bit. But you can still do it! You’re still learning the words and the grammar and it’s challenging, but you can feel your progress and success.
But then you finish your textbooks (Probably Genki I, Genki II, and An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese), and suddenly those bursts of success become less and less, until you can no longer feel any progress.
You read manga and you see lots of words you know, but lots more words that you don’t know. You watch anime and you can catch some sentences, but there are still a lot that you wouldn’t have understood without the English subtitles to help you out.
This feeling of a lack of progress, of a stagnation, is called the “intermediate plateau.”
My Experiences with the Intermediate Plateau
I tackled the Intermediate Plateau twice: with spoken Japanese and written Japanese.
I’ve been lucky to have very good listening comprehension and an ability to “fill in the gaps.” After finishing Genki I, II, and An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese, I could basically follow most spoken conversations. There were words I didn’t know, but through context I was able to make educated guesses at what they meant. However, I was stuck using simpler words when I spoke, and it was so frustrating to be able to understand the words, yet be unable to recall them and use them when I wanted to.
Then I graduated and moved to Japan. Oh man, I thought I was such hot stuff. “I studied Japanese for 5 years, and I even studied Classical Japanese. I’m gonna have such an easy time of it here.”
…It took me about three days of living in Japan to realize that I was absolutely illiterate. I couldn’t understand any of the visa application forms or what they were telling me I needed to provide. Misunderstood the times I had to have the garbage put outside because I had never seen the kanji 迄(まで, “until, by”) before. Couldn’t read most billboards.
Especially with that kanji for “made” 迄. That was what really made me realize that I was at the plateau kanji-wise. You learn the particle まで in your first year. It was something I could use perfectly. But I hadn’t even known that there was a kanji for it until I tried to take out my trash out and found out that I was supposed to have it in the bin BY 9:30, not AFTER 9:30, like I had guessed it meant. :(
To pour salt into the wound, I have been able to read in English since I was 3 years old. I literally cannot remember a time I could not read. It is one of my favorite pastimes and I also do creative writing. This made the fact that I couldn’t read all-the-more frustrating.
How I Overcame the Plateau
I took that frustration and I turned it into fuel. I vowed to learn ALL THE KANJI. I started using the website and app WaniKani obsessively. I’m here to tell you, that app is what made me literate. It is worth every single penny if you already have a good grasp on the language but your kanji is weak, like me.
Basically, it teaches you 2,000 kanji and 6,000 reinforcing vocabulary across 60 levels. It doesn’t group the kanji necessarily by JLPT level. Rather, it groups them by radicals and frequency more or less. Each level will introduce 3-4 radicals, and then 10-15 kanji that use those radicals. It quizzes you on their on-yomi and kun-yomi, gives you mnemonics to remember them, and then once you’ve answered them all correctly enough times, it introduces vocabulary that uses those kanji, further reinforcing the readings and increasing your vocabulary. As a former language teacher and studier of second language acquisition, I am here to tell you that this method works. And it’s fun. It doesn’t feel like studying.
I also started reading Rurouni Kenshin. Even today, it is a challenging read for me. Back then, it would take me days to read just one chapter. But I wrote down every new word in a notebook, and also saved them to my dictionary app, Akebi.
To this day, this dictionary is my lifeline. You can make vocabulary lists in there, so I have a list for each book or series I’m reading, along with a list of words I find just everyday in conversation or news or something. It’s got a simple flashcard quiz feature for each list too! Seriously, if you’re an Android user, I highly recommend this app. It’s free!
Those were my two main study methods. The more kanji I learned how to read, obviously I was able to read better.
The really fascinating thing about kanji is that they’re like Legos. You can stick them together to make any word you want, really. So if you understand each kanji and remember its pronunciation, even if you see/hear a word for the first time, you can put together the meaning piece by piece.
Because I understood more kanji and could recall their readings, I could hear a new word in a conversation and think to myself, “Okay, we’re talking about how Hokkaido doesn’t get as much snow as it used to. This word ‘ondanka’ must be…温 (おん, heat) 暖 (だん, heat) 化 (か, change). Oh! ‘global warming!’”
So when I overcame the kanji plateau, I simultaneously overcame the spoken plateau. Knowing the kanji gave me the power to hear a new word in a certain context and infer what kanji must be used for that word, and therefore what that word meant.
My Advice to You
For me, the key to overcoming the plateau in Japanese was studying more kanji. So I recommend that you keep studying kanji and keep reading. But make sure that they are reading materials that you love!! If you’re not interested in what you’re reading, you’ll run out of steam.
Another really important thing is to be cognizant of the progress you’ve made. For example, maybe you have a Japanese song you’ve been listening to for years, and for the first time today you picked out a new word–one that you just studied the other day. Pat yourself on the back at every victory, no matter how small it may seem! There’s proof of your progress.
Best of luck to you in your studies!
In traditional Irish folktales, the elves only understand/respect Gaelic: the English language revolts them, so don’t expect to be winning any of those famous riddle contests or song tournaments in English. I’ve idly considered making one of those memes where it’s like [THE IRISH] *brofist* [THE JEWS] and the point of agreement is “our language is magic,” but the joke would take too much explaining to be funny. A lot of Irish Gaelic is structured around speech and the power of language. There isn’t, for example, a word for “yes” or “no.” In order to answer a direct yes/no question, you have to use a form of the verb that was used to ask the question. So basically, if the question is–say–”did you murder your wife” then there is no way to simply say “Yes, Your Honor” or “No, Your Honor.” Your minimum required effort involves using the verb that was invoked in the question: “I murdered,” or “I didn’t murder.” Of course you can just as easily, in just as few syllables and maybe fewer, change the verb. “I was framed,” maybe. Which is to say that the most basic speech acts in Irish involve constructing a narrative, assenting to others’ narratives or challenging them, and most crucially elaborating on the narratives that have already been established.
(I chose murder just to be a colorful example, but actually I need to go back to my language reference books and check because I bet this interacts interestingly with the tendency in Irish for the narrator never to be the subject of her own story. You’re always the object, in Irish: you can’t drop a plate, for instance, the plate drops itself at you. You’re not thirsty but a powerful thirst is on you. You didn’t murder that woman but she very well might have gotten murdered in your general vicinity.) You see this lots of other places in the language too. For instance there’s also no word for “hello” or “goodbye.” If you want to greet somebody your required minimum is to cough up a formulaic blessing: Dia duit, God be with you. Here’s the thing. The second person can’t just be like “yup, uh huh. dia duit.” No. The stakes have been raised. The second person’s required minimum answer is now Dia’s muire duit, God and Mary be with you. If a third person joins they have to invoke St. Patrick on top of the two already mentioned. I’m not kidding. At four people you do hit a limit where you’re allowed to just say “God be with all here,” but in the very traditional country pubs it’s an insult to cross the threshold without saying at least that to cover everyone inside. Actually worse than an insult; basically a curse. That’s the burden you bear when you start speaking a magic language.
That puts a lot of conversations I’ve had with rural Irish people into a far better context. Because even when speaking English they will speak in this structure, knowing that context makes so much more sense now.
The way Irish structures the speaker as *positional* is also deeply insightful. Not just because the speaker is the object of a narrative- though that is unique and fascinating too- but also because that narrative happens in a conceptual *space* around speaker and subjects. Tá brón orm, sorrow is on me. If I’m missing my coat it’s apart from me; my accomplishments are beneath me; my careers and skills are in me; if I’m to do something, it’s on me to do that. If I welcome you to my home, I’m putting the welcome in front of you.
We distinguish between temporary and permanent and habitual forms of being, even in English. The only other place I know that does this is AAVE. Marcus be playing the drums; aye lads, he surely does be playing them.
You can’t say please or thank you or I love you; those are powerful ideas, and you must put a little effort into articulating them. Le do thoil, with you will. Go raibh maith agat; very roughly “a good is at you.” (Good on you, mate; good going!) I love you, Christ if there’s not dozens of ways to say it, but none simple. The simplest I know translates most closely to “my heart is at you.”
Ever wondered how to use a Japanese toilet, bathtub or rice cooker? These pictures are the perfect guide for you to know how to!
moomin bag that says “if you dont let me go home at the scheduled time i will kill you”
Squeaky leopard cubs. (via TheBigCatSanct) [press play to here cubs squeak]
love this video of three japanese fisherman seeing a cat and losing their minds
sequel
they adopted her and her name is now marimo-chan!!!
they REALLY love that cat, yall
Very important update to the saga
ah, I'mtrans (he/him pronouns), and was wondering which words I should use for stuff like "I, me, my"? like, boku is my right? I don't know any ohers though.
Hi! Thank you for your ask. First person pronouns (I, me, mine) can get pretty complex in Japanese, but that gives you much more freedom of expression than English. Let me give you a thorough description of each so you can make an informed decision on which one is right for you. :)
First Person Pronouns in Japanese
Who do you want to be?
In English, we only have one pronoun to express ourselves. “I.” It really doesn’t get any more boring than that.
Maybe that’s why personal pronouns are one of the most interesting aspects of Japanese in my opinion. I actually did a research paper on the history of second-person pronouns (you) in Japanese back in uni.
Why does Japanese have so many ways to say “I?” As I’m sure most of you know, social class and politeness is a fundamental aspect of Japanese culture and language. Different personal pronouns for oneself and others clarify the social standing of each person in the conversation.
I’ll introduce the commonly used ones in order of politeness (most polite to least polite), and then cover the rare ones.
私 Watakushi
Gender: neutral
Plural Form: Watakushi-tachi
This is the most formal personal pronoun, and is used in very formal situations, like when you’re speaking to the president of a company or someone very important. In writing, because it has the same kanji as “watashi,” it is commonly written in hiragana.
私 Watashi
Gender: neutral (kind of)
Plural Form: Watashi-tachi, watashira
This is the most common personal pronoun.
Like the above watakushi, it conveys a sense of politeness. When used by men, it carries a note of humility and politeness.
However, it is the standard pronoun for women. Because we’re all supposed to be humble at all times? haha
So this is gender neutral and you can use it when you want to be polite.
あたし Atashi
Gender: Female
Plural form: Atashi-tachi, atashira
This is a bastardization of watashi.
It is casual and used exclusively by women. It sounds very feminine. In Japanese tv shows and anime, most male characters cross-dressing as women use “atashi” and it sounds very hyper-feminine. Like, if drag is hyper-feminine dress, “atashi” is the hyper-feminine way of speaking that would go with it.
うち Uchi
Gender: Female
Plural: Uchira
This comes from the word 家 uchi. The kanji literally means “house,” but it can be used to mean “my family” or “us” in certain contexts. For example:
Japanese: 田中さんは自宅でどんな醤油を使っていますか?うちはやっぱりキッコーマンです。
Romaji: Tanaka-san ha jitaku de donna shouyu wo tsukatte imasu ka? Uchi ha yappari Kikkoman desu.
English: Tanaka-san, what kind of soy sauce do you use at home? We use Kikkoman.
From that use of uchi we get the personal pronoun uchi. This is generally used by young girls, college age and younger. It definitely has a very Valley Girl feel to it and isn’t professional.
僕 Boku
Gender: Mostly male, but female in certain contexts
Plural: Boku-tachi, bokura
If you want to rely on tropes to understand what sort of person would use “boku,” think of those harem anime. The nicest, sweetest guy almost always uses “boku” for himself. Contrasted with “ore,” it sounds softer, humbler, and kinder.
It can also sound very slightly childish. Well, not childish. It sounds young. My boss’s boss, who is in his 60′s, uses boku instead of ore and it always strikes me as peculiar because he’s kinda too old to use boku. It makes him sound very humble and kind and the most approachable person ever.
Boku is a good pronoun to use if you want to give off a soft, friendly, safe aura. While it isn’t as polite as watashi, you can still use it in formal settings.
Occasionally, this pronoun is used by women. Specifically, it is used by female singers. It doesn’t matter the band, it doesn’t matter the song–every single female singer uses “boku” in their songs to refer to themselves.
“Why?” you may ask. This is because singers want to connect to their listeners, and “watashi” is too formal and creates a bit of a barrier. “Atashi” and “uchi” are too feminine/childish, and “ore” is way too harsh. So “boku” became the choice for female singers.
俺 Ore
Gender: Male
Plural: Orera, ore-tachi
Going back to anime tropes, “ore” is used by the “bad boy” or the “I don’t give a shit what you think” boy. Inuyasha, Kurosaki Ichigo (Bleach), and Eren Yeager (Attack on Titan) all use “ore.” This is in contrast to “nicer” characters in the shows that use “boku,” like Miroku (Inuyasha), Ishida Uryuu (Bleach), and Armin Arlert (Attack on Titan).
Ore is considered “rough and tough” because it is very informal. It is used when the people you are talking to are within your inner circle or are beneath you. So you would never use it when talking to, say, your boss’s boss. (You might be able to use it with your boss if you are close with him and you have a friendship though.)
That said, the vast majority of Japanese men I know use ore more than boku. So it wouldn’t be strange if you used ore. Just be aware that it isn’t as polite as you may want to be.
And now for the rare pronouns…
Disclaimer: DON’T USE THESE. Japanese people will think you’re super weird and not in a good way. But you are likely to hear them in anime, dramas, or conversations.
👆 Me outside your door if you use “sessha” to refer to yourself unironically
拙者 Sessha
Literally “Unskilled one,” this is a very humble way to refer to yourself. It was commonly used by samurai, and probably the most famous anime character that uses it is Kenshin from Ruroni Kenshin. DO. NOT. USE. IT. unless you are jokingly pretending to be a samurai for like one sentence.
吾輩 Wagahai
Though no longer in common usage, there isn’t a Japanese person that isn’t aware of this pronoun because of Natsume Soseki’s famous book Wagahai ha Neko de Aru (I Am a Cat). Written in 1905, it’s about a cat who observes its owners and the uneasy mix of Western culture and Japanese traditions and the aping of Western customs.
“Wagahai” is the pronoun a nobleman or someone of very high rank would use to refer to himself, so the fact that a common house cat is using it to refer it self shows that, even a hundred years ago, everyone thought that cats were self-important.
我 Ware
Plural: 我々 Wareware, 我ら Warera
To be honest, I don’t know a lot about this one. You hear it quite a bit in anime, and it’s always said by some stuffy important old guy. So…it’s probably for stuffy, old, important men to use? Just don’t use it.
己 Ora
Used exclusively by men, the only somewhat main character I’ve seen use this pronoun is King from Seven Deadly Sins. In manga, it is usually written in hiragana or katakana. It has a very “country bumpkin” feel to it. A simple country person who doesn’t know the ways of the world (but not in a bad way).
俺様 Oresama
DO NOT USE THIS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. It is the rudest personal pronoun “ore” with the honorific “sama” attached to it.There is nothing ruder, nothing more “you are the dirt I walk upon” than this. If you use this and you’re not joking, the Japanese people around you will instantly dislike you.
儂 Washi
Usually written in hiragana or katakana, “washi” is the way that old people refer to themselves. It’s gender-neutral. Like…idk, 60 and upwards? So don’t use this unless you fall into that age range.
某 Soregashi
I think I’ve only seen this once, used by a character in Rurouni Kenshin who was quickly killed. It was used by samurai. So unless YOU are a samurai from 150 years ago, don’t use it. It’s so low frequency that if you used it as a joke I doubt Japanese people would understand. But hey. You learned a cool new word.
The End!
I hope that this post helps you choose the pronoun that fits you best. ♡
JLPT Level: Unlisted
I stumbled across this in a manga and didn’t realize that it was a set expression until I went to look into the word “morotomo” for this post, so thank you dear readers for giving me the chance to look this word up and learn even more!
Long ago, this expression was one of encouragement and camaraderie. “We’re all going to die, but at least we’ll be together,” or “We’ll fight together until the end.”
But nowadays, it has the negative meaning of “I’m taking you down with me.”
I really wanted to find that line where Indy says “Then we die!” because that quote really carries the 死なば諸共 sentiment, but no one has made a gif of it and I’m at work and can’t be making gifs lol. This will have to do.
Fr? Lemme check this out
Here’s the link to all of the free online classes offered by Harvard:
https://www.edx.org/school/harvardx
But TBH I prefer the MIT Open Coursewear approach. Feel like taking a class on the policy and economics of nuclear engineering? MIT’s got you covered:
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/find-by-topic/#cat=engineering&subcat=nuclearengineering&spec=nuclearsystemspolicyandeconomics
In fact they’ve got you covered with A LOT of their courses, everything from fine arts to immunology.
Have fun :)
WHERE HAS THIS BEEN THE LAST TWO YEARS
For all my friends who want to learn.
yale has your back, too!
先週は仕事から帰ってきて、郵便で送って貰った荷物がありました。そのパッケージはこの手話の本でした。手話サークルのメンバーの一人と最近は手話の方法について話していたので、送ってくれました。読んでみて知らない言葉ばかりだけど、いい勉強になりそうです。知らない言葉を読みながら、下線を引いて、後で調べて、もう一度読んで理解してみます。
今までちょびっとだけを読んでいるけど、新しい単語は下記でありました。
視覚言語 (しかくげんご) = visual language
生じる(しょうじる) = to result from
単なる (たんなる) = simple, meer
語句(ごく) = phrase, word
れっきとした = respectable
独自 (どくじ) = independent, unique
系統(けいとう) = family (i.e. language family, scientific family)
相互(そうご) = mutual
類似(るいじ) = resemblance
試み(こころみ) = trial, experiment
提案(ていあん) = suggestion
普及(ふきゅう) = popularization, spread
想像(そうぞう) = creation
きわめて = exceedingly
営み(いとなみ) = work (in the overarching sense of the word)
反映(はんえい) = reflection (theoretical, as in “the reflection of society and culture on JSL”)
額(ひたい) = forehead
初対面(しょたいめん) = first meeting face-to-face
意識疎通(いしきそつう) = mutual understanding and communication
はかる = to infer
造語(ぞうご) = coined word
おおむね = in general
複合語(ふくごうご) = compound word
記号化(きごうか) = symbolization
概念(がいねん) = general idea
転写(てんしゃ) = transcription
上記(じょうき) = as-written-above, the aforementioned
事例(じれい) = example
神髄(しんずい) = essence
Heyy you probably get this question a lot but do you have any suggestions for improving your listening in your target language? (Besides just listen heh) I know that's the best way but I often have trouble with only recognizing specific speech patterns, but lose track when words I know are said in different or more natural ways (the main ones I'd want to practice are Spanish and Chinese)
Hi! Here are some suggestions:
Listen to anything and everything - radio, music, audio books, television, podcasts, youtube videos, natives’ conversations…
Listen to things directed towards children and beginner language learners, if they’re too easy, look for more advanced listening materials
Listen the same thing again and again until you understand what is being said
Look for audios with matching transcriptions and read along the audio
Listen to music while reading the lyrics
Listen to something and pause whenever you come across a new word, look up the meaning of it, write it down, and continue listening
Converse with native speakers, and don’t hesitate ask them to repeat or to speak more slowly or clearly if you can’t understand
I hope this helps, good luck!
ズル休み
ズルやすみ
skipping school/work without a good reason
しっとり達磨寺
JLPT Level: Unlisted (I’ll say N1 though)
I’m guessing that most people who are studying Japanese have already learned that “nomu” means “to drink,” and that it is written like 飲む.
So what’s the difference between 飲 and 呑?
First, to be technical, “nomu” does not mean “to drink.” It means “to swallow.” While the distinction between proper usage for both kanji gets a bit blurry sometimes, the main distinction is that: 飲 is for swallowing liquids, and 呑 can be for swallowing something whole/solid, or a metaphorical circumstance. Check out these examples.
Liquids: 毎日お茶を飲んでいます。I drink tea everyday. Swallowing something whole: カエルが蚊を呑む。The frog swallows down the mosquito. Metaphorical: 暗闇に呑まれて、何も見えなくなっちゃった。Swallowed up by the darkness, I couldn’t see anything.
JLPT Level: Unlisted
庵 Hermitage, retreat
On-yomi: an
Kun-yomi: iori
To be honest, you’re probably almost never going to come across iori in the wild. I was reading a manga about a hermit on a mountain back in the Edo Era, and they used iori to refer to his dwelling.
I would give just about anything to live in a place like this. Provided there was high speed internet. (This iori is in Niigata.)
The above image is a fancier iori, and I imagine that there were much more rudimentary ones in past eras, but you get a good idea of what an iori was like. Surrounded by wilderness, simple wood construction, and a traditional thatched roof.
So you’re very unlikely to come across 庵 read as iori, but if you come to Japan you are 100% certain to come across its on-yomi “an” in restaurant names. Soba restaurants, to be specific.
A soba restaurant, 長寿庵
Many soba restaurants all around Japan have 庵 at the end of their name. This is because in the middle of the Edo Era, (early to mid-18th century AD) there was a Buddhist temple complex up in the mountains called 道光庵 (Doukouan) and there was a priest there who made wicked good soba.
It must have been life-changingly delicious, because 300 years later people are still putting 庵 at the end of their soba restaurant names haha.