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December 2019

Leggo my eigo

Many years ago, when I was a teenager in the late 80s and early 90s, the cult that I was raised in had a propaganda magazine called “Youth <insert year here>” where leaders of the cult would attempt to be relevant to the youth of the day, and most of the time, they just came off as condescending. I remember very little about that magazine, to be honest.  I remember the very first magazine that came out had a large photo of the cult leader’s face adorning the front, inside… Read More »Leggo my eigo

Jyukugo

Japanese jyukugo fascinate me, because each one tells a story.  Sometimes the story is boring, but sometimes they offer an unwitting insight into the mind of a culture. I was reminded of this when I learned the jyukugo 電池.  The two kanji together mean “electricity” and “pond”.  But if you put them together, it means “battery”.  It’s a very poetic word, and not really intentionally, I think.  The Japanese people needed to think of a word for electrical storage, and well, why not? I’ve often been curious as to how these… Read More »Jyukugo

Politeness

One of the more frustrating things about Japanese to a beginner is the multiple levels of politeness.  At first glance they seem completely foreign, but I really don’t think they are.  It’s baked into English as well, it’s just not so much a grammatical construct as a manner of speaking. Contrast, for example, Greetings, I would like to inquire as to the report dated 11/15/2019, and await your reply forthwith. with Yo, dawg, you got that report or no? The first example is intentionally pretentious, but you get the idea. … Read More »Politeness

Working Hard at Japanese Doesn’t Work.

I have been on Wanikani for a few months now.  I am taking the lessons very slowly so that I don’t get overwhelmed.  It’s funny – every time I learn a new kanji or a new pronunciation, I think “how am I going to remember that?”  And then, a month later, I look at it and it pops to mind, completely unbidden, the moment I look at the word. So I think the harder you work at Japanese, the more you’ll seem to advance, and the quicker you forget.  It seems… Read More »Working Hard at Japanese Doesn’t Work.

The Intimidation Factor of Kanji

Let’s face it.  As a Japanese learner, Kanji are intimidating.  They are this set of pictographs that really seem to have nothing to do with anything, each of them have a whole bunch of readings, all of which apply only in specific contexts.  There is a sentence: 明日は日曜日です Where the same kanji appears three times, has two different readings, and two and a half different pronunciations (one of them is in a word that has a reading that only applies across the entire word – there is no specific reading… Read More »The Intimidation Factor of Kanji