Skip to content

Hidden

Road of Resistance

I have recently stumbled upon this particular song by Babymetal, which may have become one of my all time favorite songs and/or pieces of all time.  And that’s saying something considering I have a classical background and also rank Rachmaninoff’s piano concerto #3 as one of my favorite pieces of all time.   The Japanese are in a very real way not very innovative.  There is little that has come out of their country or culture that they can truly say originated there.  True, there are a few things, and… Read More »Road of Resistance

Learning English (ESL): Definite vs. Indefinite Articles

My sensei, who has been in this country for somewhere around thirty years, still has difficulties with this topic.  It is as difficult for a foreign speaker as “wa” vs. “ga” is – and she had to ask us once which one was appropriate to use.  So I thought this would be a good thing to post for Japanese speakers who are learning English.  Here goes. It is very simple for a native English speaker to know when to use “a” and “the”, and I honestly think it could be… Read More »Learning English (ESL): Definite vs. Indefinite Articles

私はなぜ日本語を勉強しますか

私は1年から日本語を勉強しました。難しいと面白いでした。九月からクラスで勉強しました。今は難しいです。でもなぜ知りません。 日本語は楽しすけどオースチンであまち日本人ありません。オースチンの日本語は私と日本語を話ません, 多分私はいい日本語を話ませんから。多分日本人忍耐ありません、でも多分私はばかです。 多分止まれ日本語を勉強します。知りません。でも私は恥ずかしい日本語を話ますてばか感じます。多分すぐ知りますなぜ日本語を勉強しっています。でも今は落胆したします  

The Most Important Thing

Every now and then, I take a step back and try to reassess where I am and what I’m trying to accomplish, but even more importantly, how to get where I want to be. And frankly, there’s a lot of noise, and not much of it is helpful. I’m on several sites. Each one of which claims that they all I’ll need to get fluent, which is essentially a lie with a little bit of truth. But they only teach the mechanics. Even if I were to be fluent mechanically,… Read More »The Most Important Thing

Sunday Song #4: Sakura No Hanabiritachi (AKB48)

I haven’t written one of these for a while, and this one’s a little late.  I have some good excuses which you don’t care about, but if you knew them, you’d agree that they’re good, so we’ll just leave it at that. This is an interesting song.  Its first few bars of introduction are really catchy and high energy – they actually remind me of an 80s or 90s song.  In fact, that’s how I found this song, because they kept playing that intro on AKBingo and I liked it… Read More »Sunday Song #4: Sakura No Hanabiritachi (AKB48)

Post in Japanese #1

Hi all.  I am going to try to write a weekly post in Japanese, mostly to address the issue in “Crisis of Confidence“, which I wrote about earlier.  It will have a lot of mistakes and I will need to look a lot of things up.  Feel free to correct.  The point is just to do it no matter what.  Honestly, it will probably take me a long time to write this, as I refuse to use Google Translate except to check that my work is halfways intelligible… 🙂 こんいちわ。私は日本語学生です。私がとても恥ずかしいい日本語をかいてます。… Read More »Post in Japanese #1

Sunday Song #3: 女子かしまし物語 （モーニング娘）

Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari (“The story of Noisy Girls”) by Morning Musume is one of the first songs that made me think that J-Pop is a little bit more than just stupidity, even if, paradoxically, it’s one of the least intelligent songs of the whole batch. The reason is both structural and not.  Structurally, it’s extremely high energy.  I find myself rather envious of the energy those girls exhibit when performing this song, but then I have to remember they’re young and, well, as they say, youth is wasted on the young. … Read More »Sunday Song #3: 女子かしまし物語 （モーニング娘）

Monday English Colloquialism Corner #1: Goldilocks

Goldilocks and the Three Bears Sometimes you will hear an English speaker say something like “We’re looking for that Goldilocks sweet spot”.  What does that mean? As you can see from the story, Goldilocks is a fairy tale, which is a story told to children at a very young age.  It usually has a “moral” to it, but it also sometimes is just a short story meant to entertain children.  It’s usually read at bedtime, so this means that most people know the stories, and the stories have entered our… Read More »Monday English Colloquialism Corner #1: Goldilocks

Logan Paul: An Apology on Behalf of my People

I’m a bit late to the party on this one, I think the kerfluffle happened before I even started blogging.  But I want to chime in on this anyway, because I think it’s really important for me to. Logan Paul is (or, maybe, was) a YouTuber who was known for his over-the-top style of videos.  That’s fine.  Logan Paul went to Japan.  That’s fine. Logan Paul managed to get himself in so much trouble he’ll likely be arrested if he ever sets foot there again. He took a video in the… Read More »Logan Paul: An Apology on Behalf of my People

Sunday Song #2: What is Love (もーニング娘)

Life is hard, with many contrasting things, all fighting with each other for supremacy.  Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you cry.  Sometimes you are burning with passion for something, sometimes the passion leaves.  But through it all, you have to ask yourself – is what I’m doing helping or hurting? If I can’t even make one person understand me, how can I change the world?  If I can hurt someone, how can it be said that I’m making the world better? This is something that many people are grappling with today,… Read More »Sunday Song #2: What is Love (もーニング娘)