Nighttime Practice

As I lay in bed about to fall asleep, I decided to give myself a little test to see what words I could remember for the day. At first I was drawing a complete blank, but as I concentrated, the words trickled in one by one. I remembered nearly all of it!

I called up my blog on my phone to verify if I was correct, and figured I'd try a mobile post. Technology is freaky. Goodnight!

Busy, busy, busy

What an odd week it's been. I've been studying (a bit more sporadically) this past week, but I'm definitely out of my normal sleep pattern, and that's been messing me up in all sorts of ways! Things have finally settled down with the reacquisition of my car (don't ask), and no impromptu trips to the repair shop. My ability to study really depends on how well rested I am, and the complexity of the information I'm going to be studying. If it's a review of material I'm already familiar with, I can do those lessons fairly easily. Being able to prove to myself that I remember information, even while I am tired, is actually beneficial for me. It reaffirms the fact that I am learning and can easily recall information. This newest core lesson was a different story, however.

Wow.

What a load of new information this lesson was! I opened it up three nights ago in an attempt to start it and was bombarded with sentences that I did not understand at least 75% of. I knew then and there that I was not going to be able to process all this new information that evening (having just finished the lesson which took me 1 and a half hours, I am secure in my decision!). But being well rested today and able to concentrate, I stuck it through. I've learned a lot of new things and am anxious to learn more about the key points shown to me.

For a bit of an extracurricular activity, I decided to finish a digital painting I started some months ago, a portrait of Ayumi Hamasaki, who I've mentioned a couple of times thus far. While collecting her albums, I happened upon a nice image of her, and I thought that trying to paint it would be some good practice for me. Normally my artistic tendencies are very illustrative and cartoonish. I haven't done a "real" painting in nearly five years, if not longer, since my college days. It took quite some time, but I finished it this week (I'm much better at being creative than studying while tired).

浜崎あゆみ - by Yours Truly

-Brendan

Things I learned today

• asa = morning
• hiru = afternoon
• yuugata = evening
• yoru = night
• asagohan = breakfast (asa  - morning / gohan - meal, lit. morning meal)
• hirugohan = lunch
• yuugohan = dinner

 

• hataraku = to work (as in a job)
• shigoto = job
  
• gakkou = school
• byouin = hospital
• resutoran = restaurant 

 

• okunai = indoors
• soto = outdoors
• itsu = when (itsu hataraite imasuka When do you work?)

 

• shimai = sisters
• kyoudai = brothers/sisters

 

• mae = before
• ato = after 

 

• kochira = this person

Questions on my mind

• What does "kimasu" mean in the following sentence?

juugo wa juuroku no mae ni kimasu

•  I understand the gist of the sentence is "15 comes before 16", but thus far I don't recognize "kimasu", perhaps it means "to come"? I will have to look it up!

Parting practice phrases

•  Kono onna no hito tachi wa okunai de hataraite imasu. このおんなのひとたちはおくないではたらいています。 These women work indoors. 
• Kare wa tamago wo motte imasu ga, tabete imasen. かれはたまごをもっていますが、たべていません。He has an egg, he's not eating it.
• Kare wa shigoto no mae ni koohii wa nomimasu. かれはしごとのまえにコーヒーはのみます。 He drinks coffee before work.
  

Practice, practice, practice

I've been diligently keeping up with my studies. My lack of posts has mainly been due to my screwy sleeping schedule as of late. Normally I'm a night-owl, I like to draw into the wee hours of the night. That's also the time my studying has been falling into as well. And usually, even if I study earlier in the day (like today), I'll write these entries at night. My schedule has been having me hit the hay pretty early lately, so I'm a little behind on updating this journal here. I don't think anyone is keeping track of it but me though, so it's okay.

Anyways, I've just wrapped up my current lesson plan, which the core lesson I last posted about covered. It was an interesting span and I still find myself picking up more on the intricacies of the Japanese language. It's rather amazing how hardwired ones brain becomes when it learns it's owner's native language, so much so that it really struggles to adapt to the structure of a completely different one. Some Japanese friends tell me I should have an easy time learning Japanese because it's a simple language, and there are only a few characters to learn (not including Kanji of course), while they find English can be difficult. I, naturally, feel exactly the opposite. But it has caused me amazement to think of how special a child's brain is to really grasp the complexity of language and make such deep associations that will last their lifetime. It's times like this I wish I could do a selective temporary memory wipe, learn a new language as a "child" and regain my old memory on top of it!

I've dedicated the last handful of days to committing 29 katakana characters to memory, including the ones in my last post. One of the things that throws me off the most, when I see them used in other forms of print, are the different fonts. I suppose the differences equate to serifs on roman-lettered fonts. You might think one little dash is an integral part of the form the character, whereas it may really be a "brushstroke", which while important to the traditional form of the kana, can be left out on a more modern font. My method of associating a picture with a character to keep it fresh in memory definitely helps, but is sometimes trumped by this font difference. I'll overcome this hurdle in time!

-Brendan

Things I learned today

• I'm much better at understanding what I'm hearing than I am at replying in a simple sentence on the spot
• byouki = sick/ill
• tsukarete = tired/exhausted

Questions on my mind

• Why, when stating the color of a suit, is the structure slightly different for black and grey? Kuroi suutsu = black suit / Haiiro no suutsu = grey suit. Why is the no necessary for haiiro and not kuroi?

Parting practice phrase

Watashi wa se ga takai desu. わたしはせがたかいです。 I'm tall.