InsaneJournal

AJATT Update - Old Socks and Bikinis
One month, eight days in...



(Just FYI, the title's a reference to America's Next Top Model, the cycle they were in Japan, and Norelle said お先に made her think "old socks and bikinis." Oh, it was fun listening to them butcher the language, LOL.)

Let's just say, it's true that this gets addictive. The more I do, the more I can do, and the more I do it! Also, listening to only Japanese music is a great rule - I only have Japanese songs stuck in my head, so that's all I sing. Hey, I memorized every single song on Utada Hikaru's (宇多田ヒカル) Distance and Deep River when I was, what, 12? 13? And because I love Hikki, I'll be making an exception to this rule for her new English album, This Is The One in March.

There were (and probably will continue to be) some starts and stops of certain methods, but it's alright. I'm settling into what really works for me, and stay for away from the stuff that doesn't. Pretty much the day after my initial AJATT post, I decided to really give Heisig's method a chance...and I love it! I went through about 1,000 kanji in 11 days. Then got bored. LOL. (Damn, I was trying to finish in a month!) Even though Heisig doesn't teach readings, recognizing those 1,000 kanji and vaguely understanding them made a lot of text less intimidating. I was able to figure out 死後硬直 meant "rigor mortis" without knowing how to say it. I'm hopping back on the Heisig horse, and started entering cards into a general Japanese Anki deck, and this time I included the on reading with each kanji; I'm also reworking a few of my mnemonics. I haven't gotten up to them yet in this deck, though, so we'll see how that goes. But Heisig has encouraged me and made me love kanji again - I have a list up to about 3,500 kanji that I intend to learn using this method.

I stopped iKnow for a little while, then used a plug-in for Anki to import the vocabulary, sentences, and audio. After about three days, it crashed whenever it got to this one card, so I returned to iKnow and it's hypnotic game-like music. 30 new items takes about half an hour total, and reviewing 30 old items about ten minutes. Honestly, I'm kind of addicted to vocabulary right now. I'll be up to 558 items by the end of the day. I'm back to my 200/week pace. I intend to go through their entire Core series - because, hey, 6,000 words they're just handing me! I pick up a lot of words outside iKnow, of course: 照らす、別れ、歩道、葬式、今宵、忍ぶ、無理. One of my favorite things to do is sing along to songs while sight-reading the lyrics; it's fun when I can read 90% of some lyrics, and I pick up readings to kanji I only recognize.

My OS is, in fact, in Japanese. This is only annoying when I'm trying to find something in OpenOffice I don't use often, but otherwise I adjusted within a few days. Interesting but surprisingly easy adventures include: downloading OpenOffice language pack and installing it, and disabling Opera's bittorrent client, setting Apple's 辞書 to pull up Japanese Wikipedia pages and not English ones...all in Japanese. I downloaded the Opera browser as my "Japanese browser" - only Japanese sites and Japanese bookmarks, etc. I open Firefox once or twice a week to check my social networking sites, and to squee about House on Mondays. (Speaking of House, I can't find it dubbed in Japanese online, just subtitled! I don't wanna spend $60+ just so I can get the dub...)

I've had three dreams involving Japanese. Two were in Japanese, involving people around me (who...weren't Japanese) speaking the language. The first one, I was trying to order some food, and didn't understand what the cashier was saying to me. The other, I passed two people in a stairwell and greeted them in Japanese. The latest one was weird...but the part involving Japanese, I was walking up a stairwell, and saw a sign that said 消える, then another one that said 消して. I don't know, I don't get it either. The rest of the dream was in English. Okay, then...

Most of my reading is usually from Reading Japanese with a Smile or Yomiuri Online's 発言小町 (this discussion is really interesting). I plan to go through my readers (plus buying one more, Read Real Japanese Fiction) before I dive into books unaided. By then, my vocab and kanji should be built up enough that it shouldn't be a constant struggle. I occasionally force myself to at least skim CNN.co.jp sometimes.

On the 18th, I started SRSing sentences. I mined from both of my Genki textbooks, plus my intermediate text. I didn't use every sentence, because some were boring/stupid/annoying. I think that only amounted to 800ish sentences. I pull a lot from that above mentioned forum, and I'll probably get some out of A Dictionary of Japanese Particles. Sometimes I write them in reviews, but mostly I haven't. I just read the sentence, and if I forget a reading/word/don't understand the sentence, I label it "hard."

I (and my mom) bought three children's books in Japanese for me to read to my nephew, since my sister wants me to expose him to Japanese. Haven't had a chance to read them to him, yet...

I've written two entries on Lang-8 so far. I follow the AJATT/Antimoon advice - use simple sentences I know are right. I've only made a few extremely minor errors so far. A huge improvement from my older entries. And I don't force myself to write. I just write when I have the urge to express myself in Japanese.

Coolest moment so far? Earlier this week, I was on Wikipedia, looking at the entry for 日本語, came across this:
[ 古来の大和言葉では、原則として ]
「ら行」音が語頭に立たない（しりとり遊びで「ら行」で始まる言葉が見つけにくいのはこのため。「らく（楽）」「らっぱ」「りんご」などは大和言葉でない）
And understood it without having to really think about it.

I think I can safely say I've learned more Japanese in the last month than I have in the last year and a half! I plan to do "All Spanish, All The Time" for a month this summer with my mom (I would have chosen Italian or Mandarin if she didn't agree to do it with me). I'll just keep my Japanese to about an hour a day for that time.


Recommendations: Music
Angela Aki (アンジェラ・アキ)
Awesome voice! Fills that piano-pop shaped hole Sara Bareilles' album left. Most of her songs use a lot of the same words and phrases, so she's generally easy to understand. Of course my favorite song is モラルの葬式. She used Latin. In a Japanese song. Who does that? Angela Aki does.

GO!GO!7188
I already loved them, they just had a new album come out (アンテナ), which is amazing. I can't even say what song is my favorite from it. Um, Akko writes some bizarre lyrics. Yeah...

Mika Nakashima (中島美嘉)
Most of her stuff is pretty jazzy and she has a nice voice. I really dig her album "Voice" the most, where she rocks out on a couple of tracks. I guess she's partially filling the hole Amy Winehouse left.

君のすべてに - Spontania feat.JUJU
I just heard this song on TV. Actually, it was JUJU's version, but I like Spontania's more. I like this song a little too much.


Recommendations: Drama
I'll admit I still watch new episodes of my favorite shows - House, Nip/Tuck, and Big Love. And I'm already in love with Dollhouse. But I balance it out...

Kimi wa Pet (きみはペット)
I only saw it subtitled before, but I love the manga and the two leads were cast perfectly. I'm trying to get ahold of this without subtitles, because I LOVED it. And Sumire is an ass-kicker. She's one of my favorite female TV characters along with Martha Jones (Doctor Who) and Amber Volakis (House).

Last Friends (ラスト・フレンズ)
Actually, I don't recommend it beyond the first episode. I got bored around episode 3 and sick of everyone (outside of Ueno Juri and Eita) over-acting. The opening sequence is great visually (and musically - Hikki did the song), and it deals with topics that are swept under the carpet in most dramas, which is why I originally watched it.

Zettai Kareshi (絶対彼氏)
I read some of the manga in Shojo Beat, but the drama changes the setting a little. This is freakin' hilarious even if you don't understand a word - the guy who plays Night is hysterical. おれセクシー！ Wathched the whole thing already.

Scandal (スキャンダル)
Yes, I went for it because of the title. I can't say I exactly understand what's going on, but the four leads amuse me (some of their scenes make me think "Sex in the City: JAPAN STYLE"). And the title doesn't lie, there are some scandalous things going on. I'm only up to episode 3.

Tsubasa no Oreta Tenshi-tachi (翼の折れた天使たち)
Hey, Ueno Juri's in this! This one's based on two books of short stories, so each episode is self-contained. It's a little more in scandalous territory (for those of you sick of everything being pure and sweet), but also touching. I've watched the first season (4 episodes) so far.

Life (ライフ)
I read Confidential Confessions avidly, and wanted to read Life, but never got around to it. Lo and behold, it's been adapted into a drama! It's primarily about bullying. Let me just tell you...these girls are vicious. I was telling my sister what had happened, and she said, "...that's only the first two episodes?" It will definitely hold your attention if you don't understand much Japanese, because something is always going down.

Unfair (アンフェア)
Let me just say: WHY THE HELL IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS ONE? (Come on, Eita's in it.) I've only watched the first two episodes, and Yukihara Natsumi has joined the ranks of my favorite female TV characters. Just watch an episode - the feel is completely different from most Japanese dramas. It almost feels like an American show. This one gives me an incentive to learn more Japanese, because I want to follow the intricacies of the plot about the serial murderer. Episode 2 has an awesome murder scene. It's worth it for that alone. There's 11 episodes, plus a special, and a movie...and rumors about a second movie. Which I hope are true, because I love this show a little too much.

Voice (ヴォイス)
Hey, Eita's in this one, too. But then again, what drama isn't he in? It's a medical show following five medical students studying forensic pathology. Beyond that, I'm not sure what the hell is going on, but the actors are good enough to make me want to watch them. This is currently airing (up to episode 5).


Awesome Resources
http://hukumusume.com/douwa/pc/jap/index.html - Bite-size children's stories!
http://kanji.koohii.com/ - Reviewing the Kanji (Heisig method)
http://game.goo.ne.jp/choi/title/fumikes/ - Stupid little game to waste time. At least it's in Japanese!
http://homepage1.nifty.com/~yu/utena/index.html - Script for the entire Utena (少女革命ウテナ) series, including the movie.
http://www.uta-net.com/ - Japanese song lyrics. New lyrics go up fast!
http://www.dramanote.com/ - Transcripts of Japanese dramas.
http://www.mysoju.com/ - For those of you who just want to stream Japanese dramas, and with subtitles. (Wuss!)
http://www.youku.com/ - It's Chinese YouTube, basically. There's a lot of Japanese dramas and movies on there, usually with Chinese subs.
http://www.mogulus.com/japan_kids - Japanese kid shows. Disturbing yet hypnotic...
http://www.bk1.jp/ - Possibly the best Japanese bookstore for those of us not in Japan. They won't ship CDs and DVDs overseas, so it's just books. The shipping costs are the best I've seen. When I get some cash, I'm buying Hikki's two books coming out in March (線 and 点). You can also earn points just by visiting the page, which equals cheaper stuff for you.