Lupine's Language Log - TAC Les Voyageurs, East Asian Team

[Cavesa]

Thanks for commenting Cavesa! I will definitely look into BDs, I knew there were comics translated into French, but I didn't know this was the name for them!

Translated?! Yeah, some, but most are original and awesome. The francophone book market is probably one of the largest producers of original comics on the planet. There are comic books of various styles, genres, literary quality. I'm sure you'll find something you'll like and will regret this offense deeply

[lupine]

Hi Rotasu and Yuurei! I've added you both as friends, thank you for reading and commenting on my log!

When I do scriptorium with Assimil, I use the Assimil dialog as well as the example sentences from the lesson. I don't use the fill in the blank sentences mainly because I don't have audio for them, so I don't have anything to refer to for pronunciation. I start by saying the first sentence aloud, making sure that I pronounce everything correctly. Then I say each word individually as I write it down. Finally, when I've finished the sentence I read it out loud again. I repeat this process until the entire lesson is complete. Sometimes I will stop and refer to the audio when I am unsure of how to pronounce a word. It's pretty simple, though it can be time consuming if you don't have much practice with the writing system of the language. I have used scriptorium on the Japanese Assimil in the past, but currently I'm only doing scriptorium for French. I find that it really helps me to remember the sentences from Assimil, so that when I go to do my cloze-deletion Anki cards, I don't have to look at hints as often to remember what word is missing.

For listening and reading, I'm listening to an audiobook in my target language, and reading the story with an English and target language parallel text. The book I'm currently working my way through in both French and Japanese is Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, mainly because it holds my attention and it was readily available in both languages.

I'm so glad there is another person out there who watched Chihayafuru and bought a deck of Hyakunin Isshu cards! I confess this was my gateway into the game as well, and I really love watching the anime and reading the manga. I had never heard Fukui-ben before watching the anime either, so I watched it as much for the game as for listening to Arata speak!

By the way, Cavesa, I was completely unaware that BDs were original works in French, and I will perform a perfect 70 degree bow to you and all of France to show my regret for having caused offense. Thank you for setting me straight on this, I will certainly learn from this mistake and read a bunch to make up for it

So, last week was a bust when it came to language study, some personal things got in the way, but this week I'm back on track. I recently discovered Mango Languages, and that I can access it for free through my local library. I've been toying around on the mobile app all day, and I like the structure of the lessons they provide, not to mention the insane amount of languages they offer. I dabbled in Icelandic for a bit, but I think it's a bit too challenging for me at the moment. I might try to freshen up my Japanese pronunciation by doing the Japanese course though, and it couldn't hurt to also get some practice with French and Irish as well, since they are offered.

I'm also getting a lot of Japanese listening done , if you can count Super Sentai and One Piece as "listening"...

[vonPeterhof]

Hi, Lupine! Just stopping by to say that I'm enjoying your log, especially the anime and manga recommendations. I'm working my way through the 百人一首 right now as part of my Classical Japanese studies, and I've heard good things about Chihayafuru, but hearing that it also features Fukui-ben clinches the deal for me Definitely watching it after I'm done with Hyōka.

BTW, if either you or your boyfriend are familiar with the works of the writer Gen Urobuchi (Fate/Zero, Madoka Magica, Psycho-Pass), then I would highly recommend his Kamen Rider Gaim as a gateway to the Kamen Rider franchise. Aside from a couple of easily skippable obligatory callback episodes it's a pretty beginner-friendly entry into the franchise. Its first few episodes have lots of fun with its ridiculous premise, but later on it becomes quite emotional and surprisingly philosophical for a children's TV show (or not so surprisingly, if you've seen Urobuchi's take on magical girls).

By the way, Cavesa, I was completely unaware that BDs were original works in French, and I will perform a perfect 70 degree bow to you and all of France to show my regret for having caused offense.

Might also want to extend that bow to Belgium, seeing as how it produces a disproportionate amount of francophone comics, including some world-famous ones, like the Smurfs and Tintin

[Yuurei]

I'm so glad there is another person out there who watched Chihayafuru and bought a deck of Hyakunin Isshu cards! I confess this was my gateway into the game as well, and I really love watching the anime and reading the manga. I had never heard Fukui-ben before watching the anime either, so I watched it as much for the game as for listening to Arata speak!

Ah, I suspected you were inspired by Chihayafuru as well. And damn, now I feel like re-watching it. XD
And yes, Fukui-ben is really nice as well. Personally, I have a weakness for Kansai-ben. <3 If you're at all interested in it, the anime Lovely Complex is completely in Kansai-ben and I can certainly recommend it.

[lupine]

Hi vonPeterhof! I've added you as a friend, thank you very much for following my log

I'm so glad to find more Hyakunin Isshu enthusiasts out there! If you don't mind my asking, what resources do you use to learn the poems? Yuurei, if you have any resources you'd like to share as well I'm all ears! (or eyes in this case, haha). I have been using "One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each - A Translation of the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu" by Peter McMillan as sort of a jumping off point for the translations and symbolism of the poems. I was lucky enough to find this via interlibrary loan (which used to be a free service at my local library, but sadly it now costs $7 a book!). I've also been using http://www.ogurasansou.co.jp/site/hyakunin/hyakunin.html for more modern Japanese translations of the poems as well as a break down of each line or phrase, and I've been relying on youtube so far for audio.

Thank you for the Kamen Rider recommendation! My boyfriend deeply regrets not starting from the very beginning with Super Sentai, since there are so many cameos, so my guess is I'm going to have to start in the 70s and work my way forward with Kamen Rider as well. I will be looking forward to the day when I can watch Kamen Rider Gaim though. I loved Psycho Pass!

It's funny, despite my Super Sentai obsession, my first encounter with tokusatsu (ignoring Godzilla and other kaijuu) was actually Kamen Rider, which I discovered years ago by listening to the Kamen Rider Anniversary Theme Collection (I was on a Gackt kick at the time, and he did one of the themes). I really loved the Kamen Rider Agito theme the most though, and wanted to watch the show, but the only series I could track down to stream was Kamen Rider Kiva. I saw a few episodes, but I didn't realize beforehand that the show was geared toward young kids, and I found that off-putting at the time. It was only last year that I started watching sentai, and now I think I would really enjoy Kamen Rider if I tried to watch it again, since I have a new appreciation for the genre.

Speaking of Gackt, and since Yuurei mentioned Kansai-ben, I'd like to recommend Sket Dance to anyone looking for a good comedy anime. It's really hilarious, and has a main character that speaks in Kansai-ben, though it's filled with lots of puns and Japanese cultural references that I, as a foreigner, had some trouble with at first, but I think that it's definitely worth watching! By the way, Lovely Complex is also one of my favorites! I used to watch it repeatedly!

One more Kansai-ben anime I can recommend (especially to Yuurei, since it seems fitting) is Ghost Hunt, though as I recall Kansai-ben is only used by one of the minor characters. I really loved this anime, and it was one of the first manga series I read raw because there weren't any translations. Some of the story arcs are really creepy, but I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to ghost stories. There are light novels for this series too, actually they came before the manga and anime. I would like to read those someday as well.

As for my log, I'll just say that life has intervened a bit again, but I'm keeping up with my French Anki deck and Mango for Japanese. I've been trying to do about a chapter of Mango a day (which takes about 45 minutes), just so that I can see how far it will take me. I'm five chapters in and it's all pretty much review so far, but because it's basically translation and speaking practice, I think it's worth doing for now. I've also been doing a lesson of Irish Mango a day, which is vastly different from the Irish Duolingo. I think they must be teaching different dialects. Mango gives a bit more grammar explanation, as well as more useful phrases.

I would drop Irish altogether for the time being, since my focus should be Japanese and French, but my mom is just getting interested in learning languages after I showed her Duolingo, so I want to be her study buddy. Yesterday we were both ranting after dinner about which words were giving us trouble, specifically the pronunciation of "breá", and despite our frustrations, it was nice to be able to talk to her about foreign language study for once. I think she really enjoys her daily studies, and takes it seriously, so I'm happy to try and encourage her further by studying it myself. It doesn't hurt that Irish is just a cool language in general too, not that I've ever run into a language that I thought was uncool...

[tangleweeds]

So is this what I want to read: Bilingual Chihaya Furu ? I'm intrigued by Hyakunin Isshu now too.

ETA: If the vocabulary in Duolingo Irish is giving your mom grief, show her the Memrise course for Duolingo Irish.

My Duolingo-only vocabulary never sticks.

[vonPeterhof]

About the 百人一首, I first learned about it from this Kanji Koohii forum thread, where a longtime user who happens to be an academician specializing in Japanese classics wrote detailed analyses of the poems. After he stopped updating the thread I searched the web and also came across the 小倉山荘 website, which is what I'm using right now. Sorry, I guess I can't really recomend you anything more useful than what you're already using.

On the subject of Kansai-Ben in anime, I can also recommend Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha. It's a low-key semi-romantic comedy series about a schoolgirl who befriends the Shinto deity Uka-no-Mitama and gets supernatural powers out of it. While its romantic and dramatic storylines are nothing to write home about, the friendships that develop between various characters are heartwarming, but in a very believable sort of way, if that makes sense. The anime takes place in Kyoto, but unlike most series set in that city all human characters speak the actual modern Kyoto dialect, as opposed to standard Japanese, a generic Kansai (i.e. Osaka) dialect or stereotypical geisha talk. Its most noticeable difference from the Osaka dialect is that the negative ending -hen becomes -hin when preceded by -i- (できない - できひん, 見ない - 見いひん); plus, the pitch accents on some words are different, though I can't remember which words exactly. This dialect can also be seen in the Hibike! Euphonium book series, but not in its anime adaptation, which went with standard Japanese instead.

[Rotasu]

As for my log, I'll just say that life has intervened a bit again, but I'm keeping up with my French Anki deck and Mango for Japanese. I've been trying to do about a chapter of Mango a day (which takes about 45 minutes), just so that I can see how far it will take me. I'm five chapters in and it's all pretty much review so far, but because it's basically translation and speaking practice, I think it's worth doing for now. I've also been doing a lesson of Irish Mango a day, which is vastly different from the Irish Duolingo. I think they must be teaching different dialects. Mango gives a bit more grammar explanation, as well as more useful phrases.

How are you liking Mango for Japanese? I remember seeing it's app in the store but couldnt check most of it out without paying for it. Did you purchase it or using it at a library? How would you compare it to other programs/textbooks?

[lupine]

tangleweeds, that's the correct manga. I really enjoy reading it, so I hope you will too! It's ongoing, and I think it's somewhere around 150 issues now.

vonPeterhof, thank you for sharing your resources on 百人一首, and I will certainly check out that anime! The plot sounds really interesting, and I have sort of an addiction to romance anime, so I'll probably love it! I'll try to listen for the specific differences between Kyoto dialect and the standard Kansai dialect, now that I know what to look for

Rotasu, what I've done so far with Mango has been really enjoyable and overall it seems helpful. It's very simple in structure; they read a sentence, you repeat, then they read the individual words in the sentence, and you repeat them, then you get the full sentence again. There are no unnecessary games like picking matching pairs of words, it's just about listening and speaking. If you have a local library that has an account with Mango, all you have to do is log in via your library card number from any computer or smart device (you don't have to be at the library to do this), and the site is then free for you to use. I haven't kept up with it this past week really, but I still recommend it. My mom is using it consistently for Irish as well as Duolingo, and she prefers Mango because you always get the pronunciation for every word you learn.

As to my log, again I've been rather busy with other things, and have only made time for a lot of Japanese listening while I worked on other projects. If I'm being honest with myself, I could've found the time to at the very least do my French anki cards, and at least once this week I could've done LR for French or Japanese, but I didn't. I often have these moments where I get in a funk and drop the ball. This is why I started a log though, because at the end of the week I have to hold myself accountable and publicly admit that I didn't try hard enough.

Like I said though, I've spent a ton of time doing Japanese listening. I caught up with One Piece, where previously I had been about 40 episodes behind. I love that show! It's hilarious, and you really care about the characters, even ones that you've only known for one episode. Sometimes the story arcs go on for ages, and on a weekly basis it can be hard to remember where you're at. That's why I often wait a long time and then binge watch it, so that I can ride that building wave of excitement all the way through to the end of the story arc where they beat the bad guys. I'm going to attempt to stay up to date with it this time, because I'm nearing the end (I think) of a story arc, and I want to see what happens, but after that I will most likely drop it for 8-10 months again and pick it up later. i've always wanted to go back and read the manga, but it seems like quite the endeavor. It took so long to watch all 700-some episodes, I'm not sure I'm willing to put in the time to re-read the same story. Maybe someday though!

On the Super Sentai front, I've finished Dairanger and moved on to the oldest series with completed subs, Taiyou Sentai Sun Vulcan. I've been consistently watching 5 episodes a day and I'm currently on episode 25 of 50. I would start at the beginning with the original, Himitsu Sentai Goranger, even without subs, but my boyfriend and I want to watch the same series, and he's a bit rusty on his listening comprehension. Sun Vulcan is harder to watch than Dairanger because of the camp and the very repetitive, episodic nature of the show. However, I love the music, and I feel that the show is continually improving as I watch.

This next week I want to continue my 5 episodes a day of sentai watching, as well as catching up and continuing with my french anki reviews. I also want to start adding 5 new cards a day to my regimen. Lastly, I want to get back into doing LR, so I'm going to set a goal of at least one chapter of Japanese and French LR with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by next weekend. I think these are pretty light goals that I should be able to accomplish if I just put in just a bit more effort.