ただいま！

I'm back from my short hiatus, and I am more or less recovered. I hope you all don't mind that 90% of this post is "Ex Post Facto".
By the way, this post will hammer your bandwidth.

The first order of business, Happy Tanabata everyone!

For those of you who don't know what Tanabata is, it's the Star Festival. It's about the stars Altair and Vega (Known as Hikoboshi and Orihime in Japanese), and they are two lovers that can only meet one day of the year (7/7).

Or something like that, I grew up around the Chinese version, so my mind is a little scrambled about all of that.

You write a wish on paper and hang it on a bamboo tree. It's seen in a lot of anime, I don't have any screencaps handy though :/

Second, now that I am back, I can resume TL'ing Sora no Otoshimo PICO.

Third; The weather in Japan sucks right now. Don't visit Asia in the summer.
Aside from that, the people there are really nice and helpful, the streets are very clean, and unlike America, it doesn't take a million hours to get out of the airport.

Saw this in the electronics district in Osaka, too bad I was there 2 days before the release, otherwise I would have gotten Robotics;Notes (a relapse prevented me from leaving to get it two days later)

Oh, also, at the time of my first post, 化物語（上）was the only Japanese book I owned. After this trip, that is not quite the case anymore.

The Zaregoto Series (Bought book 4 twice)

 

Various NisiOisiN (Actually, just Medaka Box and the Monogatari series)






TYPE-MOON








The PIXIV 2011 annual, and Golgo 13









This book was quite interesting:

 
I don't know how well you can see with the resolution (phone camera) but the book is bilingual.

And the most important thing:

Hehe, I guess I'm still not that good at writing, this post turned out to be mostly pictures.
give me some time, I believe in Laconic phrases, and it will take a while to change that.

I did have pneumonia, and I'm told it got quite bad after the first relapse (WBC count at 20k), I'm a lot better now though.

Japanese 101 - Closure

Ahem, so it's been a nice month.
I am closing Japanese 101.

Thanks for reading!

==================

この日は「日本語その一」の最後日
皆さん、読みました、ありがとうございました！

Comments and Questions Appreciated!

Hmm, this is a recent addition...

and I never did make a formal announcement.

On the "Pages" Tab on the sidebar, there is now a "Contact Me"
Click HERE to view it.

I'll try to check it daily.

Remember, your questions and comments are always appreciated!

What exactly are my qualifications for Japanese?

Some people have raised the point, "What qualifies you to teach Japanese?"
To get to the point, none.

If you want something concrete like a JLPT certificate,
I don't have one.

I speak Chinese, English, and some Japanese
I can write English and some Japanese.
I use to be able to write in Chinese, but that skill is no more.

I've taken about 2 years of Japanese classes.
Keep in mind, that this is a school class. I have it for five out of seven days of a week, and for about 182 days a year.
I also do quite a bit of self study in the summer.

Mild Xenoglossy also is helpful, but that may have just been the Chinese

So, for those doubtful individuals (you know who you are), you do have that right to question where I derive my legitimacy.
I have no concrete proof, that I have a grasp of the language, you can only take my word for it.

I'll take the JLPT, and if I pass, then you can rest easy, knowing that I am someone you can learn from.

New Headphones :D

I'm still using a phone camera for this.

 2 New Headphones. The Numark Redwave, and the Electrowave.

Kanji and TL'ing

Kanji, (漢字) one of the three (four if you count romaji) Japanese written　languages. The others being Hiragana (Japanese words) and Katakana (Foreign words in Japanese).

Now Kanji itself is entirely borrowed from the Chinese language. As if a Japanese Man or Woman were to go to China, they would be able to read everything, and that somewhat goes for a Chinese visiting Japan.


Kanji is very important for TL'ing, since it can help us distinguish words apart.


Here's an example, Take two phrases:
Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon (I'll blog about this later if you want an explanation), and Hitagi Senjougahara


The part we are interested in is the Senjou.
Pasted senjou into EUdict, Here is what I get.


Now that doesn't help me at all.
Kyoukai Senjou Horizon, is "Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere" not "Horizon of the Battle's Boundary" as cool as that sounds.


In order to get a better grasp of what the words mean, we have to look at the Kanji.


Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon - 境界線上のホライゾン
Senjougahara Hitagi - 戦場ヶ原 ひたぎ


To isolate the Senjou's, they are:


戦場 and 線上.


If we paste 戦場 into EUdict, Here is what we get. Battleground
If we paste 線上 into EUdict, Here is the English translation, On the line.


Different words, same pronunciation. That's why Kanji is important.




But wait! Rel! if we paste 上 we get this, and I thought the word for 上 is うえ.
Well, in fact, all of those are correct. In Japanese, every Kanji has multiple readings, meanings, and can change based on the words before and after it.


Small wonder Japanese is one of the hardest languages to learn.

Another Generic First Post

Title says it all. So I'd like to tell you a little about me and this blog.

 God I hate blogging. It feels so... narcissistic...
Oh yeah, I will respond like this... a lot...

 As for me, I'm your typical anime watcher.
Oh wait, possibly not.
You'll see.

By reading this, you have opened up Pandora's Box.
Never know what will come out...

 I'm still getting use to HTML, so please bear with me until I become comfortable with all this tech stuff.

This blog has one main purpose. To help me learn Japanese.

I've already been taking it for a year and a half, but I seek to better myself.

The fact that I enjoy watching anime doesn't hurt either. This blog typically be about

The Works of NisiOisin

And the works of Kinoko Nasu