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I enjoyed correcting posts (in both English and my native language), but for some reason I started to feel nervous about it and stopped. I don’t know why, but I always feel weird correcting anything people do. Like they put a lot of work into something and I show up and go “NO THAT’S WROOOONG”. I know that they want to improve and be helped, and are very grateful for it, but I can never shake the feeling. :P
As for writing, I’ve not written anything in months or even gone back to the site since my last entry (which was actually not even in Japanese, it was in English *facepalm*).
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This reply was modified 12 years, 11 months ago by
Gigatron.
I usually go to jlist for most anything. Been wanting to try amazon.co.jp, but I can’t figure out how to use it. Play-asia for games, as mentioned (though expensive), and I use amiami (as well as HLJ and 1999.co.jp) if I want to buy figures and other anime this-and-that. I think Rakuten ships overseas as well (not 100% sure on that).
That said, I don’t actually *buy* anything from those sites, because I’m pretty much broke. :|
As far as food goes, I got a local source (which in my area is a miracle of a godsend).
This is why I wanted a PS3 as well. :D
Region-free Japanese games and DVD’s? Access to the Japanese PSN store? Near-total immersion while playing games? YES PLEASE.
I stressed over the cost of one until I won one in a raffle at a work event. ^_^
Let me ask, since you got that demo, that means it’s possible to buy content from the Japanese PSN store? I ask because even though I have a PSN Japan account, I wasn’t sure if they’d take my gaijin credit card to buy some Japanese games.
I’ve always wanted to get to the point where I could study using a Japanese-made dictionary.
That’s one of the ways I became fluent in English. Every day at school while I had down time, I would pick up an English dictionary (the biggest one I could find), and just pore over it non-stop. I’d go from A to Z “collecting” as many words as I could. Then I’d try to use those words wherever I could.
I’d love a real dictionary so I could maybe try that. I have plenty of electronic dictionaries, but I vastly prefer the paper kind for this, because I don’t have to “search” for anything, just soaking up random words. Like a game of “Vocab Pokémon” and I’m catching ‘em all. :3
Granted, I’d have to be far better at the actual language for that to work the way I did it with English. I could already speak it, but was just expanding my vocabulary. Plus, it works better if I can read the definitions in the target language.
What my ignorant gaijin ear gathered from that was something along the line of: “The mirror that repeatedly reflects the delusion that the thing I believed in is convenient.”
Or rather, that’s the best way I can try to translate that into English. Might make better sense to break it down.
信じたものは都合のいい 妄想 を繰り返し映し出す 鏡
[the believed in thing is convenient][delusion][repeatedly reflecting][mirror]I’m curious to know if I’m even close to right on that. :/
I think you’re right about the “implied verb”, that’s a better way to describe what I was thinking.
The singer hasn’t “told” you what the action is, per se, but by the context, one can automatically know that they’re “giving” or “extending” the pleasant song/kiss.
I don’t know that it’s necessarily poetic language (though there’s a lot of that in Japanese songs), because I’ve heard “wo” being used like that a few times in normal speech (mostly in informal situations).
It’s just a different way to order the words. I’ve seen that songs often play with word order a lot, which I’m told you can do in Japanese while still being grammatically correct.
To my (poorly trained) eye, it seems like it says:
To the red that expressed thanks, a pleasant song.
To the white that dropped thanks, a pleasant kiss.I think the singer is using the “wo” particle to mean that they are giving the song and kiss to the red/white (rather, “doing it towards” the red/white, if that makes sense). The nouns (song/kiss) are being used as the action they represent.
I could be COMPLETELY wrong, mind you, but it’s what it sounds like to me. :P
I loved using games to study. I changed all my gaming consoles to Japanese and obtained a PS3 for the express purpose of importing games from Japan (they’re all region-free, which is a huge plus).
I’ve always been a big fan of the Pokémon series of games since the beginning, but when I started studying I decided to get Pokémon White in Japanese and was pleased with what a good study aid it was.
I can also vouch for dating sims/visual novels. IMO an excellent way to pick up new vocab and phrases as well as studying conversational Japanese (reading and listening). At least, in my case, it helped to boost my vocab and made a marked improvement on my reading.
Though at the moment I’ve all but stopped actively studying, I still play Japanese games if only for the fun of it.
I’m subscribed to NHK News podcasts, which are of a decent length, spoken in a very clear manner, and free. I’m also nowhere near the level of understanding, but I’ve found that of all the Japanese podcasts I’m subscribed to, I can pick up the most from these (read: still not a lot, but at times enough to tell what’s being spoken about anyway). I just leave it running while at work.
I’ve been downloading them off of iTunes Japan. There’s a ton of really good free ones there (I’ve actually not encountered a pay one yet). Don’t know if you have an iTunes Japan account, but I don’t think you can find the NHK one anywhere else.
@MisterM2402 [Michael], the only reason I started learning it was because I intended to move, if not for that then I’d have no reason. :)
@マーク・ウェーバー, indeed I started TextFugu 2 months ago, but I studied using other methods long before that. It’s not my first run-in with conscious incompetence, and certainly won’t be my last, but it still hits me pretty hard. Like you said, eventually I’ll learn to dull the pain.
Mind you, my frustration at learning (or not learning, as it were) Japanese was a factor to my little “breakdown” up there, but the true root of it was more my frustration at not knowing if I could be strong enough to live the new life I intended to make for myself. And I still feel that way (though to a lesser extent now, thanks in part to all of you), but I’m slowly figuring out how to deal with it and still move forward.
A good friend of mine gave me some very good advice that helped me to “re-understand” why I wanted to start on this path in the first place, and helped me remember what made it all so exciting. I’m trying to sort myself out now and see if I can’t rebuild what I’ve knocked down.
I’ll let this thread fade now, it’s run its course, and you’ve all helped me a lot. Hopefully the next time you’ll see me in this forum it’ll be under better circumstances. :)
I wanna thank you all for the advice and “tough love”, which I admit I needed to hear. I’m honestly still not sure where I’m going to go from here, but I think I have a clearer head now with which to think about it.
I don’t WANT to quit, at my core I never did. It was a question of whether or not it was is my best interest to keep going with it, or cut my losses and do something else.
I’ll figure it out eventually. Until then, thank you for reading my dramatic whinging, and for the good punch in the shoulder I needed to get myself together.
I didn’t expect to get so many replies. I thank you all because you are all telling the truth.
When I posted that I was at the lowest level of discouragement and frustration I’ve been in a long time. It took a good friend today to get me back up from it, but that’s another story.
The doubts are still there, but I’m feeling slightly better about them. People around me keep encouraging me, but a big part of me is still scared to death. I dunno, I guess I have to really sit and ask myself if I’m going through with this or not. I know the alternative, because I KNOW I won’t be happy where I am now, and I DON’T know if I’ll be happy over there. It’s a big roll of the dice, but I guess when all is said and done I’ve got now’t to lose.
I do remember how excited I was, and I miss that. I look at the trappings I’ve surrounded myself with; books, flags, maps, posters, and I don’t want to give it up…
You hit the nail on the head when you gave the restaurant example, as the practise partners in question are actually the staff of my local Japanese restaurant. I’m a regular customer for over a year now and they all know me by name (affixing -kun to my name and all) and treat me very well, the owner especially often pushes me to try speaking in Japanese.
And yet, despite all that, I can’t shake the unease. It’s like, they’re OK with practising with me, but I know they’re also trying to work, and I don’t want to cross that fine line where the silly gaijin stumbling in broken Japanese just becomes an inconvenience.
And of course, they’re all used to customers walking in eager to try out the few Japanese phrases they picked up in travel phrasebooks to impress their friends (but who are not actually students of the language), and I fear that I might come off that way, like a pretentious guy trying to look cultured and everyone’s just humouring me. I can’t expect everyone to know how serious it is to me (indeed, my whole plan for my future hinges on it), so I withdraw and either stick to English or just keep my mouth shut to “save face”. And it kills me every time.
What you said about the vicious cycle is exactly right. When I try to speak, I freeze and chicken out. It reminds me of how little progress I’ve made and how long I have yet to go, and I become frustrated. So I lose the will to study, and only make myself feel worse the next time I have a chance to “test” myself.
What I wish I had was a “safe zone” to practise. That is, a closer friend whom I can trust, someone who won’t make me feel self-conscious, whom I can just hang out with and practise with face-to-face. But alas, there’s very slim pickings around here, and I’m lucky enough as it is to have the people I have.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 11 months ago by
