日本語一筋 [JP]

[Sizen]

Before I talk about anime for far too long, I've been reading all the discussions about the super challenge, and the desire to do something similar has definitely been on my mind. In all honesty, I'm more interested in a simpler form closer to what I think had been originally imagined: just 100 books and 100 movies, no page counting or minute counting. I don't want to be bothered by all that. I've tried logging study hours and done a few Tadoku challenges, but I find keeping records to be tedious work. I think it would be a good opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone and watch/read books and movies I normally wouldn't. Especially non-otaku stuff.

My only concern is that I have no idea where I'm going to find the time. As you'll see, I'm already spending an inordinate amount of time on anime these days, but my Japanese activities aren't limited to that. Yes, I do other things (articles, books, comics, radio, regular TV...). And then there's the rest of my life. So fitting another 1~2 books plus movies per week on top of everything else seems like a pipe dream, if I'm being 100% honest. The movies actually seem doable, but unless I find time to read at work or something, the books are the major bottleneck. If anyone has recommendations for Japanese movies, I'm all ears.

Nerd mode from here on out, folks. You were warned.

The new anime season is upon us and I've had to create a schedule so as not to forget on which day which shows are showing on which sites. I'm still a bit unsure of the actual time that 重神機パンドーラ and ロストソング are uploaded to Netflix, but with this schedule, I think I'll finally be able to confirm.

Here's what my life looks like now with 25 shows to follow (and likely some changes to come):

Saturdays are going to be fun.

So some thoughts and first impressions: 魔法少女俺 is the new fifth (sixth?) wave of magical girl anime, I suppose; 踏切時間 does away with the long intros and outros and gets straight to the point - a plus for short form anime; ガンダムビルドダイバーズ is a regular shounen - nothing great, but maybe fun; 立花館To Lieあんぐる is yuri trash; 3D彼女 will likely be alright, but I have my doubts - pretty fun so far however; シュタインズ・ゲート ゼロ started off as an unapologetic fanservice episode (HEY YOU REMEMBER FARIS AND HOW SHE DOES THE NYA THING RIGHT?) and ended intriguing - will have to rewatch the original series again; ありすorありす is trash... period; 重神機パンドーラ doesn't seem like the sort of thing I'd normally watch, but hey, I'll give it a shot - start using words like photon reactor and I'll give you a shot; こみっくがーるず I was expecting to be boring, but it had its moments - will be keeping an eye on this one; メガロボクス I haven't watched yet, but plan to; 多田くんは恋をしない okay, I'll say it, I like this one so far, even if the main heroin is the unironic, かたじけない-saying weaboo that I am loath to become; ヲタクに恋は難しい airs tomorrow in theory; グラゼニ hey, what do you know, I might like baseball anime; あっくんとカノジョ I guess it's just 3 minutes a week; 魔法少女サイト another series I plan to take a look at but haven't had the time to watch yet; ヒナまつり we have a winner! the first episode had me laughing for real; あまんちゅ this is the 癒し系 we wanted; お前はまだグンマを知らない... the first episode didn't really speak to me, but hopefully there will be more Gunma related antics; ダリフラ is finally getting to the actual story, so it's pretty alright; SAOAGGO... yes... it is ridiculous... but not as ridiculous as the actual series itself... hopefully it can live up to the bad writing of the main series and be worth a watch; カードキャプターさくら クリアカード編 is still オシャレ af and an enjoyable watch; ロストソング I'm not sure this will live up to the epic it is touted to be... but hey, a musical; カリギュラ had the potential of being the most intriguing show this season - an exquisite mix of creepy and mysterious - but the end of the first episode left me dissapointed... I was hoping the show would be a little more subtle; ウマ娘 yes brethren, it has come to this... the carrot juice in wine bottles was pretty choice, though; finally, I haven't watched キューティーハニー but plan to check it out.

Wow, I was planning to make it a tradition of doing these short reviews at the beginning of each season, but now I'm not so sure. That took longer than expected to say less than I had hoped.

Anyway, I need to get going so I can watch another episode before I head off to bed.

[vonPeterhof]

Not planning on watching the one with Japanese John Wayne punching sketchy CG bears in Meiji-era Hokkaido with the help of a sassy tween Ainu huntress? If anything, it's given me the rare opportunity to sh#ttweet in Ainu

[Sizen]

Here's what my life looks like now with 25 shows to follow (and likely some changes to come)

Not planning on watching the one[...]

The prophecy is fulfilled.

What resources did you use for Ainu, by the way?

[vonPeterhof]

What resources did you use for Ainu, by the way?

I've mostly used the STV Radio courses. The way this works is that each Japanese fiscal year (starting in April and ending in March of the following year) they start a new course with a new teacher who does weekly lectures of about 14 minutes. The lectures and the accompanying textbooks are uploaded on the website as podcasts and pdf files, respectively. Each teacher focuses on a particular dialect of Hokkaido Ainu. The only course I've followed from beginning to end was the one from fiscal 2015 by Takanori Nakai, who taught the Ishikari dialect, historically spoken in the area around Asahikawa (there were also a couple of lessons on the Classical Ainu of epic poetry). I've also been meaning to check out the books by The Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (they even have a series on the extinct Sakhalin Ainu), but haven't managed to yet.

[Sizen]

I'm learning Ainu, I guess. For those who don't know, Ainu is a group of dialects found in Northern Japan and Eastern Russia. Now I say "found" rather than spoken because the language is irrecoverably endangered. UNESCO counted 10 native speakers as of 2007, and while there are those who study and can speak the language as a second language, the lack of a standard language, the dearth of Ainu media and the complacency or simple disinterest of many Ainu doesn't exactly reflect well on the fate of the Ainu language. And yet here I am.

STV radio is currently airing lectures with Sekine Maya on the Saru dialect, and I'm very strongly considering following through with the entire series. At the rate of one ~15 minute lecture a week, I think I can make time in my schedule.

The theme of the lectures is practical, everyday Ainu and while the last episode on picking wild plants doesn't exactly scream practical to me, the three lectures that have aired so far have all been entertaining and, above all, fascinating to me. I especially appreciate the presence of Sekine Kenji, Maya's father, in the lectures. He appears to be extremely knowledgeable in Ainu culture and the Ainu language and often expands the topics discussed in each lecture a bit more than Maya. Luckily, he hosted his own series of lectures back in 2014-2015, so I'll be able to supplement this year's lectures with his should I decide to continue with Ainu.

The language itself is, as to be expected of a language isolate, still very foreign sounding, so I have trouble remembering the vocabulary and sentences introduced in each lecture after the first listen. Given the relative dearth of in-depth grammatical/linguistic explanations, I've had to form my own ideas about the language. I could read up on Ainu (I did for the phonology and history) and have everything explained to me, but to be completely honest, I'm having a lot of fun piecing things together myself.

Here's what I've gathered so far from the 15 sentences I've looked at:

• Ainu uses post-positions like Japanese, but I can't yet say if the entirety of the language is head-final yet.
• The language is probably SOV, like Japanese. I say probably because I can't tell yet if verbs are conjugated or if the accompanying subject is stuck to the verb. I'd be surprised if Ainu were OSV, so I'm tempted to say Ainu just uses clitic particles to denote person/number in their verbs. What's more is I still don't know whether there is some form of inversion with certain auxiliary verbs or if the (presumed) clitic アン (=an) is enclitic while the other (presumed) clitics エ (e=) and ク (ku=) are proclitic. Because every time I've encountered アン (=an), it's been with an auxiliary verb (チキ or ロー, for example), which could potentially force an inversion...? O.o
• If the above is true about verbs, the language is pro-drop, like Japanese.
• Ainu likely has reduplicated onomatopoeia like Japanese.
• I am the cutting board of a poor hunter. (イペサㇰイタタニ [ipesakitatani] is an expression meaning tall person, which when literally translated means "no-meal cutting board". イペサㇰ (ipesak - no-meal) is however an insult used for bad hunters/fishers who can't catch food for themselves, so a more appropriate translation would be "the cutting board of a bad hunter". Now, what does this have to do with being tall? Well, a hunter who doesn't catch food and, by extension, doesn't prepare any food, doesn't use their cutting board. As a result, their cutting board (which was traditionally a large log with a flat surface) wouldn't take as much of a beating and therefore wouldn't lose any of its height. In contrast, a short person would be イソンクㇽイタタニ (isonkuritatani), the cutting board of a good hunter.)

It's been a fun experience reading about Ainu, as well. Also, seeing what I've read/learned about showing up in Golden Kamuy is incredibly fulfilling.

Anyway, this post probably makes it look like I'm spending more time with Ainu than I actually am. I had a day off today, and the large majority of my time has been spent in Japanese. I have been slowly reintroducing French into my life, though. I'm also feeling the urge to start reading more in Spanish in Catalan since I have a decent level in the first and a workable level of comprehension in the second. I just need to find some good sources of reading materials that are relevant to me.

Gosh, I might need to reconsider the title of my log... 日本語がメインだけどほかの言語もたまに勉強するでも正直そんなに時間を割いてないというか本当に日本語を中心に勉強しているというかとりあえず応援よろ is probably what I'm looking for.

スイ　ウヌカラン　ロー！

[Sizen]

I’m exhausted as I write this.

We’re having our floors redone, and while it was inconvenient when the workers were pulling out the old floor and putting in the new, it’s plain bothersome when they’re staining it. The smell is unbearable and we can’t walk on the floor as the stain dries/sets. So as any self-respecting human would do, I’ve spent the past week in the guest room at my grandmother’s condo. Sleeping in a foreign bed. Man do I miss my own bed.

Anyway, I bring this up not because I want to complain about my living situation or brag about my oak floors, but because this week at my grandmother’s condo has been very revealing. It’s put into perspective the stark difference in skill level between my French and my Japanese. Despite spending hours a day immersed in Japanese books, comics, games, forums, et cetera, a half hour in French with my grandmother and my thoughts are in French for the rest of the day.

It’s truly a luxurious problem to have: the one foreign language I’m competent in is much stronger than the other foreign language in which I have a satisfactory level of proficiency. I know, I know. Woe is me.

Truth be told, I don’t think I’m as vexed by this state of affairs as this post certainly makes it seem. It’s just highlighting my weaknesses. That is to say, my Japanese is lightyears away from perfection. Or, at the very least, it’s still very much overshadowed by my French.

The good news is that Japanese is starting to take the place French took in my life 4~5 odd years ago. I wake up and read Japanese forums, I watch Japanese TV more often than not, I play my games in Japanese (glad I bought a Switch), and I do have more and more moments on a day to day basis when my thoughts naturally tend to be in Japanese. It’s undoubtedly a more arduous and drawn-out experience than it was with French, but I feel that I’m finally making big headway.


It’s quite fun, actually. I feel almost as if I’ve returned back to the days when I would practice kanji all day and write out conjugation charts for verbs, including the conjugations whose meanings I didn’t grasp yet, just out of curiosity and pleasure. In fact, I’ve started working on kanji again. I mean, I’ve always been keeping up with kanji and learning to read new ones as I went, but I’m now taking note of obscure kanji and learning to write them. Things that don’t necessarily appear in the Jouyou or Jinmeiyou lists, like 罹, 銛, 鏖, 碇, 頤, along with characters that don’t often get taught in any courses so I neglected to ever learn to write but that come up like crazy, such as 甥, 姪, 姑, 噂. I used to go out of my way to learn strange, almost obsolete characters, like 麒麟, 葡萄, 薔薇, just because it was fun (and it also impressed my Chinese classmates in Tokyo), so I’m just settling back into old habits.

Part of me wonders if I’ll take the Kanji Kentei if I keep this up.

I was also reminded today of another habit I used to have. I stumbled upon Dogen’s (of pitch accent fame) lang-8 page and was immediately transported to when I used to do creative writing in French. I was definitely no where near as competent as him (or public with my works), but I had a blast doing it, and it was good for my French. Writing at the same level in Japanese seems like a pipedream at the moment, however. I have written a number of stories in Japanese, but it’s never come as easy to me as writing in French… Gosh, I have an inferiority complex with my own languages. I’m gonna have to deal with that at some point.

Making this discovery did however make me look up an old Tofugu article on how Dogen worked on his Japanese writing. In it, he mentions his 万事ノート (almighty notes), which seems more appealing to me now than the first time I read the article. Basically, Dogen collects words, expressions, phrases, sentences, even strings of sentences that catch his interest and catalogues them in his almighty notes. As some who has done SRS to death, including a few thousand sentence cards, the idea of making my own glossary of intriguing Japanese really speaks to me right now. All the more so since I’ve been focusing more on collocations than individual words and expressions for some time now.

I don’t know if this’ll help me get back on the ol’ writing horse, but I did set up a page in OneNote for the explicit purpose of emulating Dogen’s 万事ノート (with a less lofty name: 気に入った日本語). Who knows, maybe having easy access to a catalogue of well formulated Japanese phrases will motivate me to put metaphorical pen to paper.

I guess that’s where I am at this point. I know I’m not very active on the forum, but that’s thankfully not an indication of my activities regarding Japanese. I just don’t got much to say.

[brilliantyears]

I'm happy to see you writing here again because I really enjoy your log

I'm gonna read up on that 万事ノート, but really have been thinking I should start taking more (handwritten) notes too... Curious how it's going to work out for you. Do you mind sharing what they (are going to) look like?

If by any chance you're still learning Ainu (or need some motivation?), I started a study group. Come join us if you want

[Sizen]

I'm gonna read up on that 万事ノート[...]. Do you mind sharing what they (are going to) look like?

I haven't settled down on a format that I'm really satisfied with, but so far it's sort of like this:

The pitch accent's are all for the dictionary forms if you're wondering why they're weird in places.

If by any chance you're still learning Ainu (or need some motivation?), I started a study group. Come join us if you want

As for this, I realized the madness of my ways and have gone back to focusing solely on Japanese. I really have more than enough to keep myself occupied with the one language at the moment.

---

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I did some writing last night. It's honestly nothing I'm proud of (as in I don't find it especially interesting), but here it is in its uncorrected form, as it was posted to lang-8, for those who want to read:

待ち伏せ

（ダンジョンズ＆ドラゴンズをやっていたときの記憶を少し脚色して書いてみたのがこの作文です。あまり面白くないという自覚はありますが、無性に日本語で書きたくなったので、ご了承ください）

仲間がボコボコになるまで殴られ、気絶したまま荒くれ者の根城まで引きずられた。

僕は何もできなかった。何かしようにも麻痺状態で身動きが全く取れなかった。

怖気づいて脚が竦んだとかそういうのじゃなくて、何らかの魔法がかかったのだ。

荒くれ者の頭が暗闇から姿を現し、手を差し出して浮世離れした口調で呪文を唱えてから身体が石と化したかのように固まり、紫色に塗り潰された仲間の顔が曲がり角の向こうに消えていくのを見ることしかできなかった。

正直悔しかった。こんな罠に嵌らないほどの力があると思っていた。

なぜこの時に限って気を緩めたんだろう。

しかし、済んだことはどう足掻いても変えられない。先のことを考えるのが正解。

身体の自由を取り戻したら、基地に向かおう。事情をレスリーに伝えて、二人で奴らのアジトを突き止めなきゃ、と思いながら自分の中で込み上げようとしている怒りが収まり再び隣でもう一人の仲間の寝そべっている身体とそこから広がっている血の溜まりが視界に入った。

やばい。負けた屈辱で危うく忘れるところだった。動かなきゃ。

だが、身体は言うことを聞かなかった。微かながらも魔法の効果はまだ残っているようだ。

ああ、なんて弱い人間なんだ僕は。

そう思いながら、ダワーの顔から血の気が抜けていく様子を見つめた。
神様よ。お前が実在するかどうかわからないけど、もし本当にいるならお願い、もうひと踏ん張り、力を貸してくれ！

途端に、まるで解けていくかのように魔法の枷が取れて、瀕死のダワーの傍まで駆け付けた。

つづく？

[Sizen]

Had a few off days, Japanese-wise. There was lots of English-based media I wanted to consume, and so I just didn't have the time or will to go as hard on Japanese.

I have a short vacation to British Columbia coming up, and the anticipation is killing me. It'll be so nice to be away from the library for a while.

I have managed to start cataloging my studies a bit better, though. I've set up a page in OneNote for the Jouyou Kanji I'm currently reviewing, and another for non-Jouyou Kanji (pictured below). I'm emulating the method used in the textbook I used to learn Kanji after I'd learned the first ~1000 Jouyou. That is to say, learn the characters through words and short phrases. The trouble is, when I started making a non-Jouyou list, I never noted down the sentences I found the Kanji in, so I've been pulling the sentences from dictionaries and the Internet, adding my own translation afterwards. What's tough about this is finding good, short and vocab-weak sentences. They've got to be comprehensible outside of context, but short enough to practice handwriting, while keeping new vocab to a minimum. I'm not always able to get something that fits all three of those criteria.

I find that between a pitch accent dictionary, forvo, and hellonative, I get pretty reliable information, but sometimes it can take a while to find an answer I'm 100% confident in.

[Sizen]

Getting back on that horse. Yesterday was pretty much entirely Japanese after I got back from work. Kept up to date with some forums, watched some YouTube in Japanese, a number of episodes of anime, played some more Octopath in Japanese, and read a bit of my novel before bed.

This morning I thought that it might be useful to analyze news articles in Japanese like I used to, so I did that after working on pitch accent for a bit.

I also made another post to lang-8. I wish I had something more creative to write about, but this is what I felt like talking about today. I've only written the two posts here in my log since I started cataloging sentences, but I am noticing that I'm incorporating a lot of what I add to my notes to these articles. I wonder what my writing will look like a year from now if I keep this up.

Anyway, here's the uncorrected version:

逆戻り

ワールド・オブ・ウォークラフトをご存知ですか。

２００４年に発売され、それから１４年というゲーム業界の基準で言えば永遠に近い期間にわたって更新と拡張を重ねて大人気を維持しているMMORPGです。

全盛期が過ぎているのは間違いないのだけれど、それでも数百万人ものプレイヤーが毎月利用料を喜んで払って遊んでいます。

僕は２００５年頭に初めてプレイしガッチリハマって、２０１０年日本に留学するまでほぼ毎日何時間もログインしていました。

親にこんな贅沢を許されたのは、学校の成績を保つことができたからだと思います。それに、ゲーム内においてもリアルにおいてもいい友達がいて人生が充実していたので、引っ込み思案気味な僕にとっていいことだと考えてくれていたに違いありません。

だが、日本ヘの留学を境に遊ばなくなりました。

５ヶ月後帰国した時点で、ゲームの方向性は自分がそれまで体験したものと壮大に違い、楽しいという気持ちにはなれませんでした。

あれほど時間を注ぎ込んだゲームから目を一瞬だけ離したみたいだったので、最初は長年の友達に裏切られた気持ちでした。

とはいえ、ゲームだからその気持ちは長くは続きませんでした。

時折懐古という眼鏡をかけて、ウォークラフトの世界で過ごした日々を振り返ってみると、いい思い出ばかり思い浮かぶのですが、今になって戻ろうという発想は脳裏を決してよぎりません。

少なくとも最近までそう信じていました。今は戻る日が来るかもしれないと思っています。ワールド・オブ・ウォークラフトの開発会社ブリザードは去年、BlizzConという同社主催のカンファレンスにてWoW Classicというゲームを発表しましたから。

お察しの通り、これは当初のゲームに限りなく忠実に作り直されたものです。

昔愛読していたあの本を時々読み返したくなると同様に、ゲームもたまにやり直したくなるものなのです。だから、ワールド・オブ・ウォークラフトという、見違えるほど何度も何度も書き直された“本”のオリジナル版がついに“読み返せる”ことを知ってわくわくが止まりません。

多分昔みたいに長時間没頭することはないと思いますが、いつまでも失われたと思ったものにまた触れることができればそれだけで充分幸せです。

The rest of my day will likely be catching up on anime and playing more Octopath, but I also have to prepare for my trip because I leave on Thursday.