My Nihongo Journey

[phoebe-ness]

Japan in the Philippines

Otaku culture?

Otakuzine is a Philippine-published anime magazine. My elder sister used to collect so many of these magazines, and they’d be all over the house. I think that was the peak of my anime phase. We’d read them in bed, in the bathroom, at the dinner table, and we’d actually check out the anime recommendations published there. We also filled the walls of our shared room with the free posters included in the magazine.

[phoebe-ness]

Oct. 5, 2018

Today we had our final exam for Hapon 10, as well as the oral exam. It was okay, I think—it really wasn’t as hard as I was afraid it would be. There were still some parts/items that I didn’t get right because of either carelessness or confusion. I was also very nervous about the oral exam, but it actually wasn’t that bad. I didn’t get a perfect score on it, because I made a mistake in the part on demonstrative pronouns (I used あれ instead of それ), and I think I was also a bit slow on the reading part.

It hasn’t sunk in to me yet that we’re finished with Hapon 10 (at least with the lessons part; we still have this learning portfolio and the final presentations). I guess I didn’t think it would actually go this fast—at first, I struggled a bit, but as we went on, there was less hardships and a lot more fun.

[phoebe-ness]

Word of the Day

Oct 3, 2018

すごい

expression. /su.goi/ ‘wow’ / ‘amazing’

すごいですね！！！

‘that’s amazing!!!’

This word is often heard in animes and Japanese movies, usually accompanied with wide, sparkly eyes and dropped jaws. I really like this word because whenever people say it they sound really excited, and that also gets me excited! It can be used as a descriptor or a reply in itself, and to remember it I usually think of the facial expression of someone thoroughly amazed and “すごい！！！" immediately pops up in my head.

[phoebe-ness]

Oct 3, 2018

Today we talked about what we’ve learned/reflected on/realized from the last pair activity. There were some comments about carelessness and confusion, as well as spelling mistakes, that our pair experienced as well. I think it’s good that we get to share these realizations to the class because it might help them in their learning process too.

We also had our last listening comprehension activity for Lesson 3. The listening comprehension was still about asking someone out, and it was sort of funny because Mary (the one being invited) kept making excuses but the guy kept trying (some people really can’t take a hint). In this conversation, Mary also said “いいえ” directly and ran away (#same).

We were also taught fifteen Kanji characters today, which is apparently a very miniscule number since there are about ~2,000 characters that are used in daily life. We learned how to follow the stroke orders and what meanings the characters have. We were also taught the two types of reading (“kunyomi” and “onyomi”), which was interesting, because a single character can mean different things and read differently.

Today it sunk in to me how complex the Japanese language really is—it uses four different writing systems (including the alphabet/romaji), and there are a lot of homonyms, which might get confusing. Consequently, I also realized how there is still such a long way to go before I can consider myself fluent. Like, this is only the beginning and there are a lot of points I’m struggling with already, so how much worse would it get further down the line? I know I have to stay positive and stuff like that, but sometimes it can get a bit overwhelming.

[phoebe-ness]

Random Thoughts

Related to today’s word of the day, I remember seeing this video of scenes from the Grave of the Fireflies movie paired with a really sad song by Sufjan Stevens and being blue for the rest of the day.

Link here

[phoebe-ness]

Word of the Day

Sept 29, 2018

ほたる

n. /ho.ta.ru/ ‘firefly’

ほたるはきれいな

‘the fireflies are beautiful’

I encountered this word in Grave of the Fireflies and Hotarubi no mori e, both devastatingly sad movies. It’s also the name of one of the characters from Alice Academy (which also gets a little sad). I don’t think it’s good to associate fireflies with sadness because they’re really pretty, but that would be a way for me to remember the word.

[phoebe-ness]

Random Thoughts

Does anyone else remember “Onegai My Melody” or was it just a dream? I think I remember watching it when I was probably around like seven, or eight years old, so everything’s fuzzy and if I couldn’t have found it on the internet I would have doubted its existence

[phoebe-ness]

Japan in the Philippines

Japanese Music 

Growing up, I was exposed to anime, jpop, and kpop (courtesy of my older sister’s influence) fandoms, and one of the earliest animes I remember watching is Prince of Tennis, which is why when I found the song (pictured above) in my old phone’s files, I was hit with a strong wave of nostalgia. I remember really being into anime during that time (Flame of Recca, Shaman King, Inuyasha, Tsubasa Chronicles, Alice Academy, Ouran High School Host Club, Katekyou Hitman: Reborn, Vampire Knight--everything my sister watched, I would also watch). I don’t really know if I ‘outgrew’ it or I just ventured into other interests, but OSTs bring back so many memories. I remember trying to learn the lyrics to the songs and grossly mispronouncing them.

The same goes with Jpop. I remember watching TVXQ’s music videos and trying so hard to sing along. It’s really interesting how even though they’re foreign and I literally had no clue what they were singing, I still liked them. I guess this is part of the reason why Jpop and Kpop can become global sensations despite the fact that a lot of their listeners don’t actually understand.

[phoebe-ness]

Knowing Japan Better

What’s it like staying in one of those capsule hotels? Would it be recommended for tourists? I’m a little claustrophobic, too, but would it be manageable?

Apparently most capsule hotels are for men only, as they were “traditionally  geared towards businessmen,” but some capsule hotels have ‘women-only’ floors and newer capsule hotels serve both men and women (source).

I’ve also read in an article that some capsule hotels are actually really comfortable and ‘homey’ (but these kinds were closer to a hostel room than a capsule) and some are really simple and straightforward--they give you a place to sleep (with a power plug for your gadgets) and a place to shower. The writer said that it really might get a bit stuffy, since the pods are small, so I guess I’m going to have some trouble with that (if ever).

[phoebe-ness]

Random Thoughts

The animation in Garden of Words is really,,, exceptional. Wow. Everything is so detailed and realistic and beautiful. I want to re-watch it just for the sake of the art.

[phoebe-ness]

Word of the Day

Sept 28, 2018

ねる

verb. /ne.ru/ ‘to sleep’

まいにちなんじにねますか。

‘what time do you go to sleep every day?’

This is my word for the day today because it caused me so much embarrassment in class. ねる is in dictionary form and has to be conjugated to be used in a sentence. In this case, it becomes ねます. I don’t think I’ll have trouble remembering this word after today :/

[phoebe-ness]

Sept 28, 2018

Today we learned how to ask someone out, on a date or just for a friendly activity. We checked our homework from last meeting, and did the self-checking thing again, and at one of the items I answered on the board, I used the wrong particle. My Katakana for コalso looked like ユso I have to keep in mind to be more careful about that.

We learned that when asking someone to hang out with you / making an offer, we have to use -ませんか, and when rejecting an offer we can say “いいえ” outright because it’s too harsh. Like in the previous meetings, we had a listening comprehension activity, but this time we had to write down the day, place, the activity, and whether the person being invited agreed or not. We again compared what we wrote down with our partners to see which parts we didn’t have the same answers to. I was paired with Apa for this session and we had some differences in our work, like in what activity the speaker was inviting the other person for. After we checked the activity, we practiced the conversations we heard.

After the listening comprehension activity, we had to practice making our own conversations with our partners. We did this by asking what the other person is doing for the weekend and we had to think of an activity that’s somewhat related to that. This got a bit awkward for me because when Apa asked me what I usually did during weekends, I answered that I just sleep (which is true) without thinking much about the connotations that might come with that. So I told him I’ll just change what I said, but he was like “nah, ako na bahala mag-isip kung anong activity. Sabihin ko mag-exercise tayo” and obviously he can’t be trusted because when I didn’t change it, he asked me in front of the entire class if I wanted to go to a hotel!!! And I don’t think we actually finished the conversation because it was too embarrassing (at least for me). After that, the rest of the pairs did the same thing, with a significantly less amount of scandal.

We had another listening comprehension activity today about the daily activities of a person. We had to take down notes on what the speaker did daily—what time, where, etc, and we had to re-write the entire text based on our notes. Apa and I had some differences again, especially with some particles (where I thought I heard ごろ and he didn’t). When we checked it at the end (compared it with the original text) we realized that we made some careless mistakes, like forgetting to write a particle or diacritics, which felt like my fault because I was the one who wrote for our pair. This again re-affirms the need for me to be a lot more careful in writing my characters.

[phoebe-ness]

Random Thoughts

The emergence of so many Matcha-flavored drinks / food all over the world is really interesting, because apparently even food can become a trend. I’m really curious about how authentic matcha tastes like, though. I think there are some sellers of matcha powder online but it’s really expensive :(

[phoebe-ness]

Japan in the Philippines

We discussed ひゃくえん shops in class for Lesson 2, and me and my sisters usually like to go around inside them and look for interesting things. Since they’re not with me here in QC, I walked around Daiso in UPTC alone (huhu) and sent them random pictures. Like with the food labels, I tried to practice my reading skills on the plethora of items in the shop. I think some of the meanings of words I’m not familiar with could also be deduced from the context of the item where I saw the word, too, so it was also a learning experience.

[phoebe-ness]

Knowing Japan Better

Japan is one of the world’s largest economies, but is poverty a big issue/problem for them?

I did some reading and found out that even though Japan is wealthy country, that doesn’t mean that poverty doesn’t exist, and that its wealth and economic advancement may be one of the reasons that poverty is often overlooked. (source)

The poverty rate in Japan in 2011 was 15.7% (source) and at least one in every six children struggle with poverty issues that prevent them from getting higher levels of education (source). While these numbers are a lot better than the rates here in the Philippines, it still needs to be addressed. I think every country should work on lowering their poverty rates until it is eradicated worldwide.

[phoebe-ness]

Knowing Japan Better

How does Japan react / treat queerness? I know there are a lot of same-sex anime and manga, but how do they react to that in real life? 

I’ve read in recent news about the adoption of a law against LGBT discrimination in Tokyo (source), and I also read somewhere that Japanese people aren’t necessarily interested in what other people do in private (which is a nice thought--a lot of people anti-LGBT people talk about homosexual sex as ‘sin’ but really, why should they care about what goes on in other people’s private lives?).

While there is no law against homosexuals in Japan, it “doesn't recognize gay marriages. It hasn't been a big issue in Japan (yet) so many Japanese may be unaware there's any such thing as gay marriage.You're unlikely to convince a hotel to give you the honeymoon discount but there will be no problem staying together.” (source)

[phoebe-ness]

Random Thoughts

Japanese horror is so good!!! I wonder where they get all their concepts from like, wow. If I really wanted to get scared, Japanese/Korean horror movies are go-tos.