4 posts tagged “japanese”

I think I've finally gotten over my jet-lag induced, screwed up sleeping pattern, though being waken up every morning by everyone else's noise kinda throws me off.  So far I haven't gotten a job yet, but I've written a resume and just have to finish the cover letter, which is the hardest part. -_-lll  I'm definitely not as active as I was every day in Japan, so it kinda makes me restless having no easy means of transport and nowhere to go besides the boring, almost empty mall and local shops. *sigh*  I wish I could just hop on a bus or walk somewhere interesting and new so easily again...I know I've been saying it over and over, but I really miss my life in Japan.  I'm also worried my Japanese will deteriorate since I can't speak it every day anymore...I've been working on lyrics translations for my blog as usual, as well as a book, and it disturbs me when I sometimes can't recall a fairly basic word.  I need to get cracking on my kanji study too.
 

But I have been making progress on this book I'm translating, though I've been going at a fairly slow, relaxed pace...I'm already a third of the way through.  Also, my translation blog is doing very well...I've had several requests to use my translations in subbed pvs, and I'm well over 10,000 views now, yay! \^o^/  One thing I need to get around to though, is organizing my Japan photos...I have literally thousands of them, so that's gonna take awhile.  I've put a few nice ones I took recently in this post for you to see. : )
Oh, and something pretty cool happened to me the other day...I actually had a dream in Japanese!  It's the first time that's happened, I think...maybe I just never remembered it when I woke up before, but it made me happy.  I also found something amusing last night...it's a comment by DELUHI's guitarist Leda where he does an interesting new "crab" pose at the end. XD  I love how he gets the (笑) and kinda cracks up at himself and runs away embarassed afterwards. lulz
 

But speaking of DELUHI, one thing that makes me extremely depressed is the fact that they'll finally be doing lives in the Kansai area (where I was living in Japan), in particular a show in August at Osaka BIGCAT featuring SCREW, Sel'm, DEATHGAZE, AND 9GOATS BLACK OUT as well!  マジかよ〜なんで?!!  I waited months while I was there hoping they'd play nearby, and now only after I've left they're finally going to!  Not to mention the GazettE will be having a summer tour for the new album 'DIM'... TToTT  What really gets me about this is that my visa was good until like, September, so it's totally plausible (if I had somewhere to live and something to do like a job or program) that I could've stayed there through the summer! *cries* [I am aware that this is an entirely selfish, pointless rant, so feel free to ignore it. ^_^;  I just can't help being frustrated about it though...]

I happened to look at the stats of my lyrics tranlsation blog yesterday while organizing it, though I hadn't paid any attention to that section before (I didn't even realize they provided such a detailed breakdown since Vox has nothing of the sort)....and I discovered that I have a total of 609 views! 0_0  That's waaay more than I would have ever expected!  I only started the blog in mid-September as my 個人目標 project for Japanese class, so I didn't imagine it would get so much attention.  I'm very surprised and really happy at how many people have been reading my translations. :D
 
I've always wanted to do song translations and make that kind of site...and of course plan to continue it even after the academic year is over. I really enjoy doing them, and it helps me improve my Japanese comprehension a lot, so I'm glad there are people out there who enjoy reading the work I've been doing.  I think I've gotten better at translating over course of the past few months, so feel like I can manage decently on my own without too much correction from my professor, although it depends on the song. ^_^;  Because the semester is over now, I assume she's not gonna be checking up on it anymore until January, so I'll be trying my best to do a good job without her help.  Thanks so much to everyone who's been visiting my blog! <3

I had my Japanese language final today...I pretty much got my ass handed to me. _|¯¯|O  Total FAIL...or at least that's how it feels. TT_TT (I realize I'm being pessimistic.)  Even though I spent literally all of yesterday studying, I made stupid mistakes, and I'm just frustrated in general about several things, including not only Japanese, but the way the study abroad program is being run, etc, etc.  Japanese has basically been taking over my life for the past few months.  I've never been worked this hard in Japanese, or at such a fast pace, even back at my home institution.  At my university we learned around 300 kanji in one year (meaning individual characters, not counting compounds made using those kanji), but in my class here in Japan, we learn that amount in one semester!  Plus, taking into consideration the fact that each kanji may have up to 12 compounds listed, means we've also learned like a thousand-and-something kanji compunds! @_@  It's craziness! 

There's no way my brain can remember that much in such a short span of time, especially since I don't see them everyday.  I mean, how often do you see the words 半官半民 (= semi-governmental) or 群集心理 (= mob psychology) used?!  I know they're useful, but still...I've had trouble keeping up with studying all this stuff regularly and retaining it, so when we have cumulative exams like this, I'm always screwed.  *sigh*  At least the test is over...but now I have to start working on my 10-15 page paper for my Japanese pop culture class (I'm writing about kabuki, takarazuka, and visual kei...it should be pretty interesting. If worse comes to worse, I can just rant about stuff to fill space since the professor has low standards :D). I'm consoling myself with the fact that winter break is almost here and I'll be able to do all the things I haven't had time for 'cause of school, including going to Tokyo for several days, which will be awesome.  By the way, these are some photos of the pretty fall foliage I took not too long ago at a temple called Daitoku-ji.

By the way, I just watched Vidoll's pv for their new single, 'Maimu'....seriously, what happened to them?!  I thought they were heading in a good direction with 'Cloud' but ever since 'Blue Star' it seems like they've been going downhill.  The quality of the 'Maimu' pv is surprisingly low, and the song itself has a weak composition that's all over the place.  I personally don't see anything promising in this single, and wonder if this is just a slump or a more permanent, significant shift in musical style for them.

I've been trying to study Japanese daily to at least maintain (if not improve beyond) the skill level I had at the end of last semester, but it really is quite hard to keep up with, especially the kanji and reading practice, since it requires not only time but serious focus.  I often find myself too tired, busy, or distracted to do it properly, but I found something that really helps with this problem recently. I discovered these books by chance the other day, and find them extremely useful, better than many other similar sorts of books I've seen before.  They're called Read Real Japanese; one has essays and the other short fiction by famous contemporary Japanese authors, such as Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Kawakami Hiromi, and Ogawa Yoko.

What I like about these books is that they have the original works in the Japanese (which are pieces written for native Japanese speakers unlike the stuff in textbooks), and on the opposite page there's the text line by line with the English translation.  But it's not just a chunk of translated text, they break it down into pieces so you understand each part of the sentences and there's an even more detailed, grammatical explanation in the back of the book, as well as a dictionary.  They also come with a cd that has Japanese actors reading the texts aloud. 
I'd recommend these books to anyone studying Japanese at the intermediate-to-advanced level who wants to make the jump to reading real literature but doesn't have the skill to dive into the real thing just yet.  In any case they're great reading/listening practice material if you want something more interesting and natural than the passages in textbooks. : )