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.