忙しい、忙しい。このごろみなさんがいそがしそうですね。ぼくも！ 政界や世界は難しくて少し怖いね？平安は嫌いそう。 小さい人間は何法がいいですか？ 根気、共感、剽悍な気だと思います。
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Why Not Continue?
As the saying goes, “How delicious this strawberry is!” Tigers below us, the branch we’re hanging on to slowly ripping out of the cliff…but why not have a strawberry before you go? So why don’t I continue to write in this blog. Well, why not indeed,
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Just Good Enough
So what kind of person decides to study Japanese because they like languages? Many types, but one type is the person who loves languages and wants to be the best they can be at everything they do. (Self-insert? You tell me.) And that person comes to Japanese, and for the first six months or so in the average structured class, doesn’t think it’s so bad. “Hiragana? Psssh. Simple. Katakana? Weird shaped hiragana. Easy. Everything is just something something desu!” But then things start creeping in. Causative form. Passive form. Potential form. Causative-passive? Japanese verbs are easy, though. The most regular conjugation patterns ever. But then the non-baby kanji. Even the… Read More
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Dogen – Phonetics, or How I Learned to Love Morae
Japanese is hard enough as it is for someone with English as their native language. A wildly different grammar. A set of only 46 morae that are used in every Japanese word. And the pronunciation of each one doesn’t vary between different words (ignoring the sort of nasal sound that you get with the か・き・く・け・こ in some words). And, of course, the 2000 or so kanji that are found in the words you need to be a literate reader of everyday Japanese, and… And then you throw pitch accent on top of it. Listen, you need a lot of dedication to learn this language. You have to have a real… Read More
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Dogen — The Early Years
(I was going to title this post “My Hero Academia”, but that would get angry anime fans leaving nasty comments. So I didn’t.) So what is his background? How did he achieve mastery over pitch accent? Did he achieve mastery over pitch accent? Let’s answer the last question first. Native speakers on YouTube have confirmed how good his Japanese is. So how did he get this expertise? Basically, he started back in undergraduate university. He began in Washington, and then got to study in Tokyo. He also decided to only focus on native pronunciation in his studies. This kind of laser-like intensity paid dividends, at the cost of maybe being… Read More
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The Dream Sleeper
ああああああああああ！ 乗りたい！！！ The Dream Sleeper ゼッタイ面白い！！！ 情報
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I’m Back
It’s like I never left. If you were me. Because I’m always here. I took an immersion course recently and, well, let’s just say I stayed quiet through a lot of it. So I got annoyed at myself and my laziness. Which has reaffirmed my desire to learn this language as a long running bucket list item. Of course, I will never be 100% fluent in it. But I can work to get to at least 90% fluent. I’m back, baby! Hail to the まだまだ日本語を話すおやじ！
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Time = Money
So learning Japanese takes a lot of time, or money, or both. では、クラスを始める前に調べなければいけません。 And it’s your time and money, so why not do some research first? If you don’t research, you just waste both of these precious resources. This applies to all Japanese classes and teachers. Sometimes you can’t know until you take the course, unfortunately. I tried doing a traditional classroom-based course for three years and it was good for what it was. A solid explanation of Genki I and II, a grammar foundation, and a lot of vocabulary that you never got to use because conversation was saved for the higher levels. (Just a personal gripe about Genki… Read More
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The Path of Pitch Accent
So what is pitch accent? Let’s go to the self-proclaimed 上手 of it all. Or at least in the English-speaking world. Kevin O’Donnell (who goes by Dogen [see below]) is certainly メッチャペラペラ. No argument from me as to how hard the man worked to get where he is today. He teaches you pitch accent. For the government-approved dialect of Japanese. I get a bit irked by his choice of pseudonym. Dōgen, also called Jōyō Daishi, or Kigen Dōgen, (born Jan. 19, 1200, Kyōto, Japan—died Sept. 22, 1253, Kyōto), leading Japanese Buddhist during the Kamakura period (1192–1333), who introduced Zen to Japan in the form of the Sōtō school (Chinese: Ts’ao-tung). A creative personality, he combined meditative practice and philosophical speculation.… Read More
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Cure Dolly and Organic Japanese
I forget how I initially came across her videos. Probably the YouTube algorithm delivered it to me, along with the several dozens of other Japanese videos I watched.
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