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culture

Class is over

Last night I tool the final exam for the Japanese class I’ve been taking for three months.  I learned a lot.  I’m pretty sure I passed with an A (or at the very worst a B).  I feel like I have a better foundation than I did when starting the class. I am not taking Japanese II for the time being. I have felt uncomfortable in a college setting from the very beginning, and there were many reasons for that.  A relatively large percentage of the students there were teenagers,… Read More »Class is over

Prelude

I have purchased the books required to attend the CC Japanese class, and have paid the tuition.  Looks like I’m doing this. The book is “Yookoso 3”, which is horrendously expensive (I got it for about $99 and that’s half the price the bookstore was selling it at), the workbook which is also horrendously expensive (I got it for $80, which was a $40 discount from what the bookstore was selling it), and I didn’t opt for the CDs, as those resources are available online.  So, in total, I would… Read More »Prelude

Culture and Humanity

As a gaijin, which literally means “outsider” or “outside person”, our exposure to Japanese culture is almost always initially through their media in some way.  Either anima, manga, J-pop, or some other type of media that Japan has spread throughout the world.  And make no mistake, Japanese media and culture is amazing. It seems, though, that people who stop there tend to have two generalized reactions.  One is to tend towards otaku or weeaboo – people who are obsessed with Japanese pop culture to the point of it being unhealthy.  The other are people… Read More »Culture and Humanity

The Japanese Mind

I went to Kinokuniya yesterday here in Austin, and found several interesting books.  One is called “Japanese Respect Language”, which I intend to read at some point soon.  One is “Read Real Japanese”, which is a reader of six stories of increasing complexity, with notes as to things that may be challenging.  The third was “The Japanese Mind”, which I find to be the most interesting book of the three so far. It is a series of about twenty essays, each of which discusses a different aspect of Japanese culture. … Read More »The Japanese Mind

Ganbatte

“Ganbatte” is a word that, in Japanese, means “try your best”.  It seems to be a very frequently used word, particularly in competitive contexts, such as variety shows, etc.  But looking at the context in which it’s used, I don’t think it translates very well.  The reason is, as with many things, cultural. In English, “Try your best” has a connotation of “Do the very best that you can, and it’s okay if you still fail”.  I mean, obviously you don’t want to fail, but English speakers tend to have a… Read More »Ganbatte

Understanding Spoken Japanese

Understanding spoken Japanese – especially when done at speed – is hard. It’s hard for several reasons, but I think the primary reason is that the Japanese language tends to take a lot of shortcuts in speaking.  Vowels are much more important in Japanese language than in English – especially considering the fact that every syllable ends in one – and they tend to run together.  Couple that with the fact that vowels are often silent simply because the syllables are spoken so quickly that they kind of run together, and… Read More »Understanding Spoken Japanese

Nobita

I’ve been debating this one for a bit, but I think I’m going to wade in anyway. There’s a YouTube channel called “Find Your Love in Japan”, a channel run by a YouTuber named “Nobita”.  He recently made several videos about how he feels about “Black” people and their perceived attitudes. I’m not going to go into how I feel about what he said to any degree, for obvious reasons.  Suffice it to say he had a few valid points and a few not so valid ones, and the valid… Read More »Nobita

Shave and a Haircut, HAPPY

I am, by training, a classical musician, so from a musical perspective I find most idol music trifling. This does not mean it is always uninteresting.  Every piece of idol music I hear (well, almost) has  something interesting or thought provoking.  Sometimes it’s even in the lyrics, which are mostly insipid but with glimmers of depth to them.  For example, the lyrics of “what is love” by Morning Musume: If you can’t even make one person understand you how will you seduce the world? If you leave one person feeling sad… Read More »Shave and a Haircut, HAPPY

Should Japanese Change?

When learning a new language, one of the first things that almost everyone does is one of two things: Compare it to your native language Suggest improvements Now is Japanese a very efficient language?  Not really.  The kanji are elegant, but obviously it is a steep barrier to entry.  And I think it’s obvious that if one were starting over with a new language, Japanese is probably one of the last languages that one would come up with intentionally. But it’s what we have.  And while there’s nothing wrong with suggesting… Read More »Should Japanese Change?