Study consciously

http://www.victorymanual.com/study-slower-learn-faster/

This is my favorite post that I've read over there so far, mostly because as I commented, I keep thinking I need to start some diving strategies. Really thinking hard about what you're learning could be the key. (And it's also true that I wish I had all day every day to devote to this. Not gonna happen! ;p) but I do have long afternoons. Actually it just occurred to me that my schedule is almost school-like, except in high school I would wake UP at 6, not be at work by 6. Still, though, getting out at three gives me some open daylight that I need to start using to my advantage more.

For some reason I can't get the schedule vs. non-schedule thing down. I know that if I say everyday between 4 and 6 is Japanese time that I could attempt to do that, but...it seems unlikely that I would actually have every day between 4 and 6 free. That said, the way things are now, I seem to manage to WASTE all the time between 4 and 6 (or just not leave work ;p) soooooo, maybe I should try being hardcore and seeing what that gets me, if anything.

Honestly, I've found the most important thing is just to do something, anything. Anything is better than nothing. That sounds defeatist, but it's really empowering. I mean, it sounds sort of positive, but not positive enough, when really it is ultra positive because it means that the smallest thing can be useful and build you up.

For instance, today I reviewed some really easy kanji, but there were still words I didn't know. I wish I could remember them now, but that is why I will be reviewing them tomorrow, and maybe in a deeper way. There's always the question of how much time you should spend learning different words ("marbles" vs. "participation" vs. "paths between rice fields" whut), but like I said. SOMETHING ANYTHING.

I'm gonna get that on a t-shirt I think.

(You think I'm kidding.)

The L2 Linguistics Bug Returns Feat. Victory Manual

I went to go see Matt Alt speak about yokai today at NEW PEOPLE and got really inspired to...well, study more. Everything inspires me to study more.

This blog, too, inspired me to study more and harder: http://www.victorymanual.com/

The guy who writes it, Alex, is a teacher in Korea, so he is dealing with L2 issues all the time, both his own and his students.

It's a little bitter-sweet to read such an awesome blog like this, because L2 linguistics and teaching were some of my main interests, which gradually morphed into translation/interpretation, which were more or less dismissed once the videogames journalism career materialized, which in turn was more or less abandoned for Twitter; I do a hell of a lot of not looking back for being the most nostalgic person I know.

I DO look back, though. I think I made this point already, but I COULD BE a translator on the side, the way I write right now. That thought is very exciting.

The fact of the matter is that I could be translating professionally right now. I could be doing a ton more in Japanese for work and the only reason I can't is that my Japanese is not there yet.

So what does this mean? Today it meant that I spent a while in Kinokuniya oogling everything from The Tale of the Heike (translated) to English textbooks for Japanese speakers (I was trying sort of hard to find a book about Japanese linguistics, but failed). I also spent a while reviewing. Actually, the first grader kanji review is very nearly completed. And I'm happy to say that it wasn't all review; I've been acquiring vocab for real, as well as a couple kanji that managed to slip by earlier.

Actually, in general, between conversing with the Japanese contract team at work and doing slap-dash review, I have been improving. I noticed the other night when I met a new conversation partner that I could actually put a few sentences together.

I'm still ridiculously nervous and shy in Japanese, just because I love it so much and want to do it right : /

But I did talk to him in Japanese a little bit and he seemed to understand me all right.

Other big news is that I get to attend the JP team meetings at work. At first this will involve me sitting in a corner quietly with a notepad trying as hard as I can to just understand, but I figure the more I go the more I will learn. More exposure can't be a bad thing.

Translation: 風街 （ウィキペディア）

Obviously there is some danger in translating wikipedia articles, as they are liable to change, but honestly, it's probably the best resource out there that I know of right now to learn about HAPPY END. (And yeah, I'm gonna go back and edit the English into the post before this post, too.)

Anyways, this is an article about their concept of kazemachi. You could probably translate this as "breeze town" or "wind town," but I think that sounds horrible and cheesy, so I refuse to do that.* It's a super amazing concept that you could almost say is very similar to Hayao Miyazaki's sentiments when he designs the scenery for his movies. Basically, talking about nostalgia in my last actual translation post hit the nail on the head -- this band is all about nostalgia. I'm in love.

Anyways, here's what I came up with to translate what I found here (today, so apologies if it has changed):

Kazemachi(1)

Kazemachi is a concept established by the rock band HAPPY END. It depicts the Tokyo scenery lost since the Tokyo Olympics, with old fashioned imagination. They are presenting impressions of the Aoyama, Shibuya, Azabu, and surrounding areas from the era before Tokyo Tower was constructed. However, since "It's Summer" from the recording Kazemachi Romance is a depiction of Matsumoto's boyhood memories of summer vacation spent at the Ikahon hot springs (the home of his grandfather), it's not the case that they limited it to just purely Tokyo scenery.

The work of manga artist Shinji Nagashima had such a big influence on these atmospheres that at HAPPY END's first concert when they played "It's spring, c'mon!" Eiichi Ootaki announced, "This is a song dedicated to Mr. Shinji Nagashima."

It can be said that all of HAPPY END's work is connected to this idea of kazemachi. Especially in works such as their masterpiece, Kazemachi Romance, they sing in a deep, detailed way about the appearance of kazemachi.

(1) I'm not gonna do super detailed notes this time. Just to sum up the experience, though, I would say that the second line was definitely the hardest part to translate, and you can tell, since it's sort of janky. ものis not the most concrete concept, since it can be a person or a thing or pretty much whatever. (Also janky is the font in the post, for whatever reason...I've been having weird font size/type issues this whole time...) Anyhow, other than that...I apparently really need to track down some Shinji Nagashima manga.

*In a similar way you could call 風街ろまん, "Breeze Town Romance" which sounds similarly awful. PS - This has been edited ;p Way to go anyone who clicked on this and saw me totally misread the album title.

Translation: Working on 10/24/2009

This morning I was going to do laundry, but since some other early(ish) riser stole the machine as I was on my way to breakfast, I'm going to work on translating the はっぴいえんど wikipedia page.

I haven't decided if I want to post it section by section or just do the whole thing. It might depend on how far I can get today. Actually, wikipedia articles make for perfect weeknight practice material, since you can just do a section a night instead of going on forever.

That said it's not like that song was very long, but it took quite a while to do.

THAT said, it's a wikipedia article, not poetry.

We'll see. I'm gonna just get started.

EDIT: Wow, wait -- I found something else I need to translate first :) Pretty short, though, so it'll be up soon.

Translation: 夏なんです ー はっぴいえんど

Well, I was out tonight trying to relax or something (which wasn't working because I was alone and hence drawn to check my e-mail on my iPhone) when I realized that I really couldn't wait any longer to try to figure out the lyrics to 夏なんです, my favorite はっぴいえんど track so far, which I will translate here as simply, "It's Summer."

You could arguably do, "Since it's summer" or "Yes, It's Summer" or some more explicative sentence, because of the ん thrown in there, but we wouldn't say that in English really, and I think "It's summer" can have that feeling they are trying to impart, although as you might know, we don't associate it so strongly with awesome cicada noises.

(One thing you may NOT know is how nostalgic I am about Japanese summers. This is one sentiment that somehow has seeped directly into me from Japan, so somehow I really feel like I understand what they mean when they sing this song.)

Anyways, it's a rough translation. Keep in mind that I am not a super pro (yet?) I think I will present it with number notes in parentheses which you can find afterwards. Feedback is completely asked for and encouraged. I didn't even look to see if I could find any existing translations of these lyrics anywhere, so it's all just me (and jisho.org with occasional help from goo.ne.jp) for better or worse. I'd love to hear suggestions/corrections.

Incidentally, the original lyrics I found here, although you can't copy and paste them, which made it obnoxious to look up in an online dictionary. That was half of the point of having them computerized; the CD booklet is hand-written -- charming, but a bit scratchy/hard-to-read for a non-native speaker...

It's Summer - HAPPY END

On the white footpaths between rice fields in the country, dusty breezes grow still. (1)

Squatting low to the ground, those kids shoot marbles. (2)

It's the sparkling, glittering

sun.

It's the sparkling, glittering

summer.

The local deity's forest is dark green; (3)

a calm has descended. (4)

Someone dangles from the crossbeam (5)

of an old teahouse storefront.

It's the whirring sound (6)

cicadas make. (7)

It's the whirring sound

of summer. (8)

The parasol twirls, I'm bored.

The parasol twirls, I'm bored.

loo-loo-looo-loo-loo-looo-loo-looo-loo-loo-looo-loo-loooo (9)

As I follow the cobblestone path, the weather runs its course (10)

Unfortunately, summer is accompanied by showers. (11)

It's the melancholy, fluffy (12)

towers of clouds. (13)

It's the melancholy, fluffy

summer.

The parasol twirls, I'm bored.

The parasol twirls, I'm bored.

loo-loo-looo-loo-loo-looo-loo-looo-loo-loo-looo-loo-loooo...

(1) It did seem to me that the footpath was implied to be white, but the rice fields make more sense, right? Hard to say. 風 I translated as "breezes" here because it's summer, and 立ち止まるis literally "to stop/halt/stand still," but "grow still" seemed to fit the mood more. I guess I'm one of those translators who thinks it's fine to take a liberty as long as it's my liberty and no one else's ;) I do try to have a good reason, though.

(2) It took me a really long time to track down a translation for ペタンに partially because the word has a couple forms, but anyways, it means something like "flattened," which does not really describe the way people play marbles, at least when I think of it, so I said "low" instead. Also, I was really psyched that I learned ビー玉 earlier, from the kanji drills I was doing (reinforced with smart.fm training -- BTW, I made a list that will contain all the words I learn from はっぴいえんど songs.)

(3) We say "dark," not "deep." I suppose you could go with "deep" since forests can be "deep," and also "dark," but this not that kind of forest. I like that ふかみどり is literally "deep green" but it doesn't sound like fluent English. Now that I'm looking closer at the definition, though, it does include "heighten" and "intensify." I wonder if those are bi-products of "deep" or not.

(4) I originally had "stillness" instead of "calm," but when I edited the first verse to "became still" I decided to change it up. "Silence" didn't seem to fit. 舞い降りるis a very active verb (swoop/fly down, alight) for something that in English we think of as settling or, like I said, descending.

(5) This came out less awkward than it could have, but I'm still trying to think of a way to make it not sound like someone hung himself...

(6) As you may have seen in my tweets (@tora, and in the sidebar there) I was having some trouble locating an English onomatopoeia for cicadas. I'm not sure we have one. I googled and found it described as "whirring," though, and I consciously went with that as opposed to "buzzing."

(7) Literally this complete line would've been "It's the houshiitsukutsuku voice of the cicadas," seemed awkward sounding. Plus "voice of the cicadas" is really stick in the mud and formal or overly poetic-sounding in English. "The sound cicadas make," as in, "What sound does a cicada make?" is more colloquial (we're in the country, after all!) and more child-like (which goes with the nostalgia, especially after the kids -- oh, I translated 奴らas "those kids" even though it literally means "those guys" -- shooting marbles <---oh, I said shooting instead of "flip," "snap," or "repel." It is "shooting marbles" in English, right? I guess I could just say "playing" but I wanted to preserve the action if possible.)

(8)Actually, though, now that I'm looking at this revised English I just worked out -- "It's the houshiitsukutsuku voice of the cicadas" (earlier I was making an error and adding another "of the" where it's really not needed, I don't think) I can see the argument for using that. And then that would make "It's the whirring sound of summer" into "It's the whirring summer," which I sort of like. You would be taking pretty big liberties to call it, "the voice of summer" since 声 is only stated along with せみ, but...you could probably also get away with that.

(9) You may be tempted to go with ru-ru-ruu, but do not. No one in English would say that. "Loo," on the other hand, we would say.

(10) I thought the onomatopoeias would be the hardest part of this song, but it was definitely the first part of this verse. I THINK/hope I really nailed it here, though, in the end. "Paved stone path" would've been really stiff -- plus cobblestones are more nostalgic. I had to google for 縫い目を辿る to see how else it was used. At first I thought maybe it was straight up imagery, like maybe little rivulets of rain were rushing down the path after something happened to do with the sky (whut) but then I had the idea that the singer was the one going down the path (which is confusing since the verb there, 駆け抜けるcan be used to "pursue (a course)" but I didn't get the verbs mixed up, I promise) so I dug a little deeper on the "following the threads" thing and came up with "ran its course." I really hope I did this right. If anyone has any ideas on this in particular, I'm extra keen to know them :)

(11) Didn't feel the need to specify "rain" showers since we mentioned the weather. Also, translated 〜てしまう as "unfortunately." Hope that works.

(12) 悶々can be "worrying" or "anguishedly" and I went with just "anguished." This might be a bit dramatic, but the alternative seemed too whimsical. I wonder if I can think of something quick oh wait it was on the tip of my tongue..."brooding?" That seems really dark for summer, too. While I was working on it, I came up with "foreboding" but that is silly. Not that summer should be "anguished" either. Hrm hrm. This is in no way a perfect translation. AH HA -- do you think "melancholy" would be too much of a stretch? Oh I'm in love with it...I'm going to use that. Summer can definitely be melancholy, and that word fits the pacing really well (the strolling, the thinking, the nostalgia of the whole thing -- we're not worrying or anguishing -- we're just kinda...moping? A little bit? Bored and melancholy? I dunno! Feedback!)

(13) "Cumulo-nimbus" seemed a bit too sciencey and proper. "Columns" of clouds didn't do much better, so I used "towers" to be more poetic.

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT!

Boy, I really love doing this type of thing. Enough that it is quarter after midnight and I definitely have to be working by 6 am (although I can sleep in a tad because I'm having a work from home morning...) Very sleep now, though. Let me know what you think!! :)

UPDATE: OoooOOOooo, I just had the thought that maybe I should have gone with "twirls" instead of "spins." I'm ok with a little whimsy there. Deadpan is no good. Changing it. Feel free to fight with me over it later :)

UPDATE #2: Hmm, another thought. Tonight I saw the movie, Battle League Horumo, and in it one of the character's said, "You're boring!" and used the word たいくつ. So the question is, does this guy think he is boring, or is he bored? What are the usage rules for たいくつ? I'm too tired to look it up now, but maybe in the morning, but I will put it on my list of things to get done this weekend (which is getting rather long...)

UPDATE #3: Going with HAPPY END instead of Happiiendo.

UPDATE #4: たいくつis apparently used as both "bored" and "boring," so that is convenient. I'm going to leave it the way it is.

UPDATE #5: Realized instead "goes well with" it should be "is accompanied by" regarding summer showers. The line before that is still really bugging me.

Smarter fm

So I've begun using the quiz feature and it seems pretty effective. Of course, you will still have to practice writing on your own, but for recognition and comprehension, these flashcards (like many others, but these won't get lost or have coffee spilled on them) are a good bet.

I made a very brief foray into my Twitter list last night (ツイッターの単語）and the accompanying list for words that are not necessarily considered "Twitter specific" (by me; JP Twitter non-essentials).

Since I've been fooling around with this so much I haven't had as much time for Kumon or audio or grammar or anything, really, but I've made tiny progress in those areas as well. Hopefully some more later today...

Had the exciting realization yesterday that if writing can be a side project, then so can translating. I don't have to give up on that goal just because I have a full-time job. I've been getting pretty interested in the publisher Haikasoru (under the Viz umbrella) after finishing Housuke Nojiri's Usurper of the Sun, and I feel like translating could also be a way to pick up some vocab if I pair it with smart.fm.

I may also start to do some English --> Japanese translation at work, but have it approved by someone more fluent. And I'm also learning some more skills so I can be of further use to the Japanese contract team. Glad I get to expand in these ways, but I'm hoping I can learn at a pace fast enough to really be super useful.

Someone has my domain

I was finally going to register sucknot-japanese.com and someone has it already.

This makes me sad.

If you know who it is, tell them to contact me : / I really want it ;_;

Smart.fm

This is a very useful study site for any flashcardable material. The thing that really blew my mind, though, was the audio samples for nearly every word I input. (I'm EmaWii -- so far I have made a list of all the words I am looking up from the first grader kanji くもん drill book.) It's pretty fantastic, actually.

Supposedly the unaffiliated (i.e. using the API) iPhone app allows you to download all your lists, sound files intact, and study them away from the computer -- although the fancy quiz feature (which I haven't really played with yet) is not available...

Looking forward to putzing with all of this more. It's ten times better than anything else I've seen, with all these audio samples just sitting around. You can even create and upload your own, so I could make a list of English vocab and upload me saying all of it in my perfect native English. Sort of interesting.

Doubly interesting is the Twitter Vocab list. That said, I think I am going to create my own version. They seem to be putting in a lot of stuff that is quite targeted enough for my liking ("time?" really? That's useful, but doesn't have THAT much to do with Twitter).

Translation project ideas

This is one of the things I had wanted to translate -- I had forgotten. I'm really into the bands チャットモンチー and はっぴいえんど right now, and it seems like it would be a good way to spend some study time, learning songs I really like. That is even the kind of thing I could put in this blog.

Then I started brainstorming:

*I could also translate some of the books I have bought recently -- the Japanese ones, that is.

*Probably the best place to start, though, is Japanese tweets. They are short and sweet and presumably the way people actually talk in Japan IN REAL TIME ;) with the potential for slangy Internet stuff which is good to know for a geek like me, anways.

*Japanese Twitter-related websites

*Videogame articles (to the roots!)

*Recipes for cooking club

*Movie coverage (of Japanese movies that I need to be NEW PEOPLE to play)

*News

etc.

There is no shortage of material out there.

Well, I guess I'm done winding down because I'm really sleepy. Slowly clearing my schedule out for more studying.

Major update AND Hello again

The first thing you will notice is that I have hooked up my Japanese Twitter account to this blog. Makes much more sense. When I started this blog, I didn't HAVE a Japanese Twitter account. Yay, progress.

The second thing you will hopefully start to notice in the future is me actually using this as a hub for my study activities. For starters, let me just expound a bit on recent happenings:

*I started a Japanese cooking club with a couple friends and one of the members is a pretty hardcore Japanophile, which makes me happy. He speaks conversationally quite well, it seems, and all from some close-watching/listening of J-dramas. Granted he is currently not working or in school, living at home, but I think we can all learn a bit from his dedication.

*NEW PEOPLE opened in San Francisco and I hang out there a lot. This will become apparently if I keep up with this blog like I intend to, because I go to see a lot of Japanese movies there, which is listening exposure, even if you do have the subtitle crutch.

*Bumped my tutor down from an hour to a half hour a week. Basically, I just want someone to chat with and whom I can bounce questions off of. I appreciated her efforts in personalizing a class for me, but I have way to many aspirations to be locked into a set schedule of quizzes and things.

Main study resources, currently:

*文法が弱いあなたへ is a great grammar review book. I have probably mentioned it here before, but since I have only just finally gotten into a good study habit, I'm still using it. To recap: it's perfect for an intermediate student (the book is all in Japanese) who wants to review some points.

*くもんの小学校ドリル, where have you been all my life? The 国語 kanji workbooks are KILLER. I wish I had had these in high school. TO ALL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS TEACHING YOURSELVES JAPANESE: please go out and buy these workbooks. Oh. My. They are meant for Japanese elementary school kids, so not only are you learning the kanji in the order that Japanese kids learn them, but you are learning them along with the readings and vocabulary that Japanese society deems necessary for kanji n00bs. I went back to 一年生 for some review, but I am already learning stuff I never did before.

*Have been doing Pimsleur Japanese level 3 audio lessons, which are a decent mix of making me think a little and way too easy. I like that they are throwing in some formal language, but the scenarios are feeling a bit simple for the level of politeness they are throwing at you. That said, anything that gets me saying Japanese words out loud is a plus. I am shy and I think this sort of listen and repeat stuff is what I need to get my tongue all 日本語'd up and ready for action.

*にほんご敬語トレーニング has been my keigo book of choice, although I haven't delved too far in yet. Rumor has it there is some sort of ultimate keigo book out there that I must own. I heard it might be in the mail to me. We shall see :)

*The latest addition to my growing stack of extremely useful and practical (no joke) Japanese language books is 日本人の知らない日本語, which has been a huge best seller in Japan. No wonder it was so easy to find at Kinokuniya this afternoon! It's done in "comic-essay" form, and teaches, as the title states, "Japanese that Japanese people don't know." Seems very entertaining, and since it is entirely in Japanese, for Japanese people, about things that even they may not know or do correctly, I am really excited to prioritize this in my study sessions.

*Kotoba! for iPhone is a pretty decent Japanese dictionary. I figured something was better than nothing and this was free (if I remember correctly?) More often than not, the word I have been searching for has been in there and they have translations to multiple languages and even kanji details.

*iEijiro (iPhone) is a dictionary for more advanced usage and...whatnot. Haven't had much luck with this, honestly. It seems extremely useful, but for more limited purposes, maybe?

*Check out the latest Otaku USA for an article I did about iPhone kanji apps :)

*Japanese Flip is a great flashcard program (iPhone) for JLPT vocab.

*Mnemosyne is back in style with me and I'm actually in talks with someone to get an iPhone port going, or at least a comparable program. This is very exciting, especially if we can make it so you can sync your stacks and grade levels. Then I can take all the vocab I'm working on with me in my pocket, where it is far more accessible than on my laptop.

*KeyholeTV is a MAJOR discovery. Not much more to say besides that it is streaming Japanese TV and radio. We should all just let our jaws hang open in awe that this exists.

Main study tactics at the moment:

*Aiming for an audio lesson a day, but not quite making it.
*Doing three lessons of くもん drill at a time, which right now is around per day, but not sure how that will scale, especially since I want to try to absorb all this really good vocab.
*Thinking of how to work in more keigo practice. Might wait until after the audio lessons are exhausted.
*Very interested in looping in more work-related Japanese stuff. Might begin the pain in the neck yet very instructive task of going through all my Japanese language mail from the week and pulling vocab for Mnemosyne cards as well as just instilling proper everything from my Japanese co-workers.
*Also really need to look over the Japanese versions of the site, help materials etc. This is something I mean to do long ago, but I just need to set aside time.
*I'm also interested in doing a translation project now and then. I'm not sure what I would like to translate, but I will probably start with news articles about work, since that could prove to be doubly useful.

Luckily, since Japanese has been placed as one of my three whole areas of priorities in life (right up there with work and health) it has been really easy to find more time to do it lately, which has been making me very happy.

But now look how long I spent updating this blog when I could've been actually studying. We'll see, we'll see ;) Anyways, for now, hopefully someone will find all those recommendations relevant. I will try to update with some less obvious ideas (the ones that aren't "surround yourself with study opportunities" and "take them") as they come up and maybe log some progress/questions and answers from my tutor/etc. Or I could get too busy to update for another few months.

There's a lot of passion here, but I'm not sure it's for the blog. I'm pretty sure it's for the doing and the studying. This is a problem I have had with all my blogs lately, even the ones I bought domains for, so...

yeah. We'll see.