Loco in Yokohama #3: Learn that Japanese!
This should go without saying but I’m gonna say it anyway: #3 Learn that Japanese!
I studied French for 2 years in JHS, 4 years in HS and 2 years in University, and if you asked me right now how to say anything in French except “Would you like to do the nasty with me tonight?” I’d be hardpressed to answer you. Btw, it’s: voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir? Thanks for the French lesson Patti LaBelle (-;
Demo, Go-nen ni Nihon ni sunde ite mada perapera jyanakute mo kekkou syaberemasuyo. (But, I’ve been living in Japan for five years and even though I’m not fluent yet, I’m pretty good.) Listening is still difficult, my vocabulary is still embarrassingly low and the improper pronunciation of certain sounds persists despite my efforts (? and ? are my nemeses,) but I can get by until i can get there.
And, at the risk of overstating the obvious, it’s very useful, not to mention good manners, to at least try to speak the language of the people in the country where you live. Unfortunately, there are some people in the world who don’t agree.
“Why are you studying English?” I always ask potential students when I first meet them. (さらに…)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )10 ways not to go loco in yokohama: #1-don’t be you!
This from Loco in Yokohama: I know it’s difficult to do anything life altering. I didn’t come here planning to alter my life. It just kind of happened and I fought it every step of the way. Which only made it more intense, and more interesting I’d like to believe…the results of which I am filling my blog with. But, for those of you who are planning to come to japan or have come here already and just want to have fun and not upset the status quo- Japan’s or your own- too much in the process I have compiled a list of ways to make the potential life altering experience of living in Japan less…life altering.
Of course, if you’ve been here 3 years or longer, and assuming you aren’t loco already, you’ve put together your own list of ways to survive life in Japan. It’s the rare foreigner, I believe, that hasn’t had to significantly adjust his thinking, behavior, lifestyle, and so on, in order to adapt to life here. And perhaps like I, you feel the better for it.
The following list I’ve been putting together in my heart and mind for several years. I’ve tested each one and they have proven to have a high success rate. They’re not 100% but they range from the high 70s to the low 90s percentile. Whether or not they’ll work for you, I really can’t say. And any feedback you have on my list is of course welcomed.
The reason I specify Yokohama is because I know Yokohama well. I also know Saitama and Tokyo well, but, though Japanese are indeed Japanese, I do believe that people have different experiences depending on their area or region. I’ve met foreigners who live in Kansai and were utterly surprised when I told them about some of my experiences here. And I’ve met Nihon-jin in the countryside whose reaction to foreigners was significantly more dramatic and intense than the usual. (さらに…)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Foreign students to fill the halls
Japanese universities look abroad in hopes of upping their sagging enrollments
Rie Yoshinaga had a wide range of colleges to choose from.
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| Globalization: Of the 6,000 students at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Kyushu, nearly half come from abroad, as does the faculty. Classes are taught both in English and Japanese. TOMOKO OTAKE PHOTOS |
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Having studied at a high school in Canada for 10 months, Yoshinaga, an 18-year-old native of Oita Prefecture in the northeast of Kyushu region, is perhaps more globally minded than many of her peers. She says she seriously considered applying for Australian universities — one of the closest English-speaking countries to Oita — until she realized there was an international university right in her hometown.
Yoshinaga is now a freshman at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), whose 99,000-sq.-meter hilltop campus commands a panoramic view of Beppu Bay, and where nearly half of the 6,000 students come from abroad, representing 87 countries. Half of the faculty are foreigners, and classes are taught both in English and Japanese. Proficiency in Japanese is not required for international students seeking admission, but once they get in, international and domestic students undergo intensive language training in the two languages, so that when they graduate, they should all have perfect bilingual — or trilingual, depending on their native tongue — capabilities.
“I found this university attractive because, while it is located in Japan, it is international,” Yoshinaga said, noting that she had no interest at all in other Japanese universities. “I thought that, if I studied here, I could study Japan and its relations with other countries, including the rest of Asia, whereas if I went to Australia, I would be looking at Asia from an Australian perspective.”
In the eight years since its establishment, APU has built a solid reputation for providing a multicultural and multilingual learning environment for all its students — a rare example among Japanese universities, where foreign students are a tiny minority and often segregated into their own programs separate from local students. APU has also breathed new life into a dying onsen (hot-spring) town, by providing a yearly inflow of 6,000 young students who spend their cash locally, and through joint research projects with local governments and industries. (さらに…)
Four-character Japanese Phrases You Can Use
This in from Harvey at Japan Newbie:
Japanese are always impressed when a foreigner (or even another Japanese for that matter…) can work a four-character phrase into daily conversation.
Here are a few that I have run across while reading stuff that are good to know. Complete definitions and usages of these can be found in your trusty electronic dictionary, and shorter definitions are also available on the popular ALC and BREEN dictionaries.
ikki ichiyuu
Literally, the characters mean one happiness, one “despair”. The phrase basically means that one is alternating experiences happiness and sadness. I picked this one up when a friend emailed me about how things were going with a new baby. Sometimes it’s so fun and exciting, but other times can be really hard, like when the baby is crying for seemingly no reason through all hours of the night. (ugh!)
tanjyun meikai
Literally, the characters mean “simple and clear”. This one I came across in the dialog of a video game… (who says games aren’t educational!) It was used by a villain to insult a hero character who was hard headed and very one-dimensional. Basically the villain could read the hero “like a book”. This phrase basically means “plain and simple”, and can be used in a positive or negative sense. For example, tanjyun meikai dieto would be, a diet that is clear and simple to understand. No complex counting of calorie units there!
boujyaku bujin
This one is used to describe someone who is insolent. They may be a new employee in a company, but always gives their opinion in meetings, even disagreeing with their superiors. This phrase applies even if they are correct. So it’s sort of a combination of someone who is bold, yet naive and doesn’t realize it. It’s a bit difficult to explain, but if you imagine the situation of the fresh employee speaking up and going against the flow in a meeting situation, I think you’ve got it.
That’s enough for now! Does anyone have any four-character phrases they want to share? – Harvey
Here is the link to Japan Newbie.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Nihongo Phonopoeia
Japan Sugoi writes:
“If you live in Japan or are learning Japanese, one thing you’ll pick up very quickly is theJapanese fondness and common usage of onomatopoeia. This is especially true if you are a manga comics reader. In English, as in Japanese, onomatopoetic words are those that imitate natural sounds. In Japanese, however, there are literally hundreds of such words, and they are used much more frequently than in English. Words that represent actual sounds (e.g., animal noises) are called giseigo e.g.
Frog Croaking: English, ribbet ribbet, Japanese, kero kero
Dog Barking: English, woof woof, Japanese, wan wan
Cat Meowing: English, meow, Japanese, nya nyaIn addition, Japanese recognizes two additional types of onomatopoeia: one that basically suggests states of the external world (gitaigo) and another that basically names internal mental conditions and sensations (gijoogo).
Examples include the word “bashi-bashi” (the natural sound of smacking some one across the head), “ton-ton” (knocking on a door) , “guu-guu” (depicts someone in a deep sleep accompanied by snoring),
“gocha-gocha” (a state of disorder common to apartments) and “pika-pika” (which depicts a shiny object)”
I recommend the book, Nihongo Phonopoeia, written by an African-American IT specialist and Japanese linguist, Harry R. Lawrence III. Here is a blurb on Harry’s book:
“Nihongo Phonopoeia” is an entertaining guide to learning, remembering, and using Japanese onomatopoeias. Hilarious illustrations coupled with a phonetic- based memorization system entertain you while allowing you to quickly and easily commit the onomatopoeias to memory. Included are expanded notes and over 150 practical sample sentences to assist you with building usage skills. Nihongo Phonopoeia is the fastest, simplest, and most entertaining way to learn Japanese onomatopoeias.
You can hear some of the Japanese onomatopoeias used in Nihongo Phonopoeia by clicking here. For you visual learners, this may help.
Here is a list of some common Japanese onomatopoeia found in manga.” (さらに…)
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )What’s the first word Japanese babies learn to speak?
Japanese Baby - Funny bloopers R us
SAPPORO — NTT’s Communication Science Laboratories have compiled a list of the top 50 most common first words in Japanese spoken by babies and announced them at a meeting of the Japanese Psychological Association in Sapporo that started on Friday.
Researchers drew their findings from Baby’s Growth Diary, a user-generated community site where new parents can write a journal of their experiences. Data was taken from 398 infants aged 10 months to 3 years, between April 2007 and February this year.
Their results showed that “manma” (gohan [food]) was the first word to be spoken, usually around the age of 15 and a half months, with words like banana [ba-na-na] (19th), tea [ocha] (25th) and milk [mi-ru-ku] (38th) coming in later on.
At number 4 was “mama”, with “papa” coming in 8th, “jiiji” (grandfather) 24th, and “baaba” (grandmother) 37th.
Among the top 50 words, there were five times more nouns than verbs. In English-speaking countries, this ratio is closer to 12:1.
“English-speaking parents teach their children the names of things; in Asia, they tend to stress emotions and feelings,” explained researcher Tetsuo Kobayashi.
BTW, what do you think of the video? Are images more powerful than words?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Fluency Via Four-kanji Phrases
The phrase above in a broad translation is, “a study of the classics is the springboard for new research.” There are many Japanese phrases that use four kanji that students of Japanese will find useful. The article that I provide below gives a pretty good reason to learn four-kanji phrase. Be sure to check out Roger’s series in the Japan Times. Enjoy!
Article begins: You may give yourself heart and soul to something, being focused and determined. Yet, you fail and you have no one to blame but yourself. Well, perhaps it’s no consolation, but you can at least learn how to express what happened to you in Japanese.
The most common phrase to express the fact that you have tried as hard as you can is isshokenmei. Isshokenmei ni yarimashita means, “I gave it everything I had.” But if you brought failure down on your own head, you might say, jigojitoku da. If someone else says this of you, it has the not-so-subtle nuance of “You made your bed, now lie in it!” Not so nice, perhaps, but you’ve no choice but to stew in your own juice.
What we are dealing with in the two expressions above are phrases made up of four kanji. There are hundreds of four-kanji phrases in common use in Japanese. These are by no means easy to learn for the nonnative speaker (and not so easy for the native speaker either!). But if you wish to truly master Japanese, I recommend these to you. They will turn a competent speaker of Japanese into a highly articulate one.
I will be discussing these four-kanji phrases in two articles. This week I bring up phrases of practical use in everyday life. Next week I’ll concentrate on those of a more philosophical or abstract bent.
These phrases cover the entire gamut of emotions; and in fact, the Japanese expression closest to “gamut of emotions” is the four-kanji phrase kidoairaku. If you look at the meaning of the four kanji in this phrase, you will see why this really does run the gamut: ki is happiness;do, anger; ai, misery; and raku, pleasure.
This is an excellent example of how brilliantly concise and expressive these four-kanji phrases are. In a single burst of sound they tell an entire emotional story.
Most people long to have a fulfilling family life, and the Japanese, of course, are no exception in wishing to have ikkadanran, which translates almost literally as “one big happy family,” expressing the state of family bliss that presumably occurs when all members are together.
Sometimes, however, when family members get together, things of a very frank nature are said. If you want to say something point-blank, say it tantochokunyu ni. This is a way of saying something without beating around the bush. This four-kanji phrase literally means something akin to “wielding the sword by yourself and sticking it straight in,” a highly colorful way of expressing frankness. If not flesh, at least words are not being minced here.
The Japanese have quite a number of four-kanji phrases meaning “to be out at sea, totally lost, groping in the dark.” I can think of at least three common ones. If you use all three skillfully, people will think you are the most articulate disoriented person they have ever met.
1. Anchumosaku, literally, “groping in the dark”
2. Gorimuchu, “five miles in a fog”
3. Bozenjishitsu, “so much in a daze you have lost sight of yourself”
The Japanese love it when you tell them how dizzily disoriented you are over things, especially over one Japanese custom or another.
Of course, not all of these four-kanji phrases are so useful. They are a mixed bag, which, by the way, in Japanese is gyokusekikonko. This phrase literally means “a jumble of jewels and rocks.”
One way to stretch yourself in any language is to speak above your level, that is, to use expressions that generally only a native speaker would. Then, one day, you will wake up and find yourself speaking like one. The goal of everyone learning a foreign language is to use that language freely and effortlessly, jiyujizai ni tsukaikonaseru, the closest equivalent to “fluently.”
Mastering four-kanji phrases is, to my mind, the best way of achieving that effortless freedom.
Isshokenmei ni yaru shika nai or there’s no other way but to give it everything you’ve got.
Source credit: Roger Pulvers, Special to the Japan Times
Learn more about Japan and Japanese by reading Namiko’s blog here.
Learn Japanese! Kansai Dialect
I had the pleasure to meet Ikue Shingu (Lecturer in Japanese, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Junko Hatanaka (Lecturer in Japanese, The University of Texas at Austin) at the American Council of Teacher’s of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) a few months ago. We discussed their website for learning the Kansai dialect of Japanese. As a linguist, teacher, former resident of Osaka, and Kansai-ben lover, I found the site to be most interesting. Check out the various chapters to watch video dialogue, practice reading and writing, listening, and speaking. Here is a short blurb on Kansaiben:The Japanese taught as a foreign language is what we call “Standard Japanese.” Descriptively speaking, the Standard Japanese is the variety used in the Tokyo area. The original ‘Standard Japanese” was in large part the product of political considerations during the last half of theMeiji era (1868 -1912) under the Genbun itchi (the unification of the spoken and written language) movement, a movement dedicated to present a united face to the world so that Japan would be perceived as a civilized nation. Standard Japanese, based on the dialect of Tokyo Yamanotearea, has personified prestige and power since the Meiji government adopted it as the national language and began standardizing language education in schools. Although the situation has not been the same since WWII, Standard Japanese is still used as the representative Japanese language on public occasions. If you live in or visit the Kansai area and want to belong to the Kansai people, you should try to greet them in their own language – – i.e. to use their “we code.” Check out the website for more: http://llarc.mit.edu/kansai/
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Black Tokyo Japan 