The Kuji Khronicles - JA, PT

[kujichagulia]

I'll do this in chronological order, since that's how I have my notes written.

After writing yesterday's post in this log, I read some blogs in Japanese during free time at work. I didn't really finish any posts, but I read the first two paragraphs of five different blogs, including one on learning Portuguese and one on traveling. I was trying to search for something interesting, but I haven't found anything yet. However, it was good reading practice!

I also read some news articles in Japanese. I had stayed away from doing that for a while, because I felt like I wasn't going to get any useful, colloquial language from those articles. However, I'm now thinking that I'm putting way too much stress on colloquially-written material. The theme that is running through my mind this week is this: How can I make Japanese an even bigger part of my life? I don't worry about whether or not I'm getting colloquial language out of the English news articles I read, so why worry about it with Japanese? The point is to use the language. I read news articles in English. It makes sense to make that a part of my Japanese life as well - at least to some degree.

I also wrote a very short Japanese journal on the topic Do you need a car to get around? Don't ask; it came up in my spreadsheet of random writing topics.

Since it's short, you can read it here if you want. It's not that interesting.

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平日は普段がいらない。仕事に電車に乗る。でも週末はいろんな店に行くので車を使う必要がある。
On weekdays, I don't need a car. I ride the train to work. However, on the weekends I go to many stores, so a car is necessary.

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That's it. It took me only eight minutes to write that out by hand (when I'm at a desk, I'm trying to write my entries by hand to practice writing kanji). I'm supposed to write 15 minutes a day, but as long as I'm writing in the journal every day, I'm happy. Besides, with some topics I might need to write more than 15 minutes, so it all balances out.

On the way home I did some duolingo Portuguese practice. I met my daily goal - yay!

At home, while cooking and doing chores, I had Radio Macau playing in the background. I have this huge crush on Macau and Hong Kong at the moment, and the trip I took to Hong Kong last week didn't change that at all (I didn't get a chance to go to Macau this time around). I quit the Free and Legal Challenge (before I started) in order to focus more on improving my Japanese and Portuguese, but man, am I really having to battle some serious Cantonese wanderlust. I had Radio Macau, which broadcasts in Portuguese, on yesterday, but you should have seen what I had on the days before that while doing chores: news in Cantonese from Hong Kong and Macau. I know no Cantonese other than m'goi, which means "thank you," but it was fun having it on and listening to that fascinating language. For now, Cantonese is going to be the next language I learn.

After dinner I watched some Japanese TV with my wife. During commercials, I caught up on Tandem; there were some people I hadn't replied to for days. I also did a little bit of Anki. The rest of the night went to trying to solve an ebook problem on my wife's iPhone; luckily, I got that fixed before I went to bed.

Finally, after watching Japanese news while eating breakfast (scandal with the Prime Minister!), I did some DLI on the train ride to work. Once here, I started writing this post to get it out of the way before doing some work. NOTE: I'm posting it much later in the afternoon because it was quite a busy day.

[kujichagulia]

(JA) - 昨日は日本では祝日だったから日本語の勉強はあまりしなかった。買い物をしてばかりいた。新しい家具を買えばいいかなと思ってるからいろんな店に行った。私の妻が家具を見て考えると、私はAnkiをした。その上に家でテレビでいろんな番組を観た。ニュースの番組は日本の女子のカーリングのチームについて話してばかりいた。冬季オリンピックはもちろん先月終わったが、昨日その女子にパレードをあげて、みんながワクワクになりそうだった。カーリングの女子は顔を可愛くて、北海道の出身だから話し方も可愛いそうだので本当に人気になった。でも私は嫌になった。

[aledda]

I liked reading your post in Japanese, it served me as reading practice!

It took me a little to realize that カーリング was curling (and I was able to do that only because you mentioned the オリンピック before), and I wasn't sure of the meaning of ワクワク, so I had to look that and 可愛い (which made me do a major facepalm when I saw that it was かわいい). My "excuse" for that slip is that I have only seen 可愛い in ひらがな.

I should do the same and write on my log in Japanese, since my speaking skill is terrible, at least writing will help me produce some output in that language. But it is very discouraging to think that to write a simple sentence takes me 10 minutes.

Anyway, I hope to read more of your posts in Japanese.

[kujichagulia]

I liked reading your post in Japanese, it served me as reading practice!

It took me a little to realize that カーリング was curling (and I was able to do that only because you mentioned the オリンピック before), and I wasn't sure of the meaning of ワクワク, so I had to look that and 可愛い (which made me do a major facepalm when I saw that it was かわいい). My "excuse" for that slip is that I have only seen 可愛い in ひらがな.

I should do the same and write on my log in Japanese, since my speaking skill is terrible, at least writing will help me produce some output in that language. But it is very discouraging to think that to write a simple sentence takes me 10 minutes.

Anyway, I hope to read more of your posts in Japanese.

Thank you, aledda. I'm glad my post was useful for somebody!

Yeah, かわいい is usually in ひらがな, although when I read (or rather: attempt to read) books in Japanese, I sometimes see it as 可愛い. I don't know enough yet to know when to use the kanji and when to use the hiragana, or if it even matters.

Don't be discouraged by a sentence taking 10 minutes. I started my Japanese writing by writing one sentence a day - all in hiragana - and that sometimes took a while. Soon, I was writing about three sentences a day before I got lazy and stopped writing regularly. Nowadays I want to write as much and as fast as I can in English, but I'm still not there yet. I've recently started writing regularly in my Japanese journal again. I try to write as much as I can in 15 minutes, and that's usually about six or seven sentences. It takes time to get there, so don't worry. Write what you can, and it will slowly increase.

I still can't express everything I write in this log in Japanese, but from time to time I will try to write more in Japanese. 一緒にがんばりましょう！

[kujichagulia]

(JA) - 昨日のした日本語のことを書いておくのはつい忘れちゃった。どうしよう。。。全然覚えなかった。 確かにAnkiしたが。。。あ、日記に書かなかった。

あ、覚えるのはもう一つがある。昨日の夜、「男子ごはん」を15分間ぐらい観た。その後、ラザニアのレシピを手にいるために「男子ごはん」の公式のウェブサイトに行ったが、2週間前のレシピが書いてなくて、私の観たのは3週間前からだったんだ。ありがたいことに誰かが「男子ごはん」の過去レシピをウェブサイトに書いておいて、私は本当にうれしいだ。

(PT) - Hoje na manhã, no trem, fiz o diálogo de Lição 53 de DLI. Não posso falar em voz alta no trem, então quando pratico o diálogo, falo em voz muito baixo, e cobro minha boca com minha mão. Não é o melhor, mas funciona.

(EN) - I seriously can't believe I forgot to write down what I did yesterday. Oh well... In any case, I feel like I've somewhat gotten my groove back. I'm not doing everything I want, but I'm doing more than I was doing before February. I'm feeling that language learning passion again. Now the trick is to make it stick.

[aledda]

Yeah, かわいい is usually in ひらがな, although when I read (or rather: attempt to read) books in Japanese, I sometimes see it as 可愛い. I don't know enough yet to know when to use the kanji and when to use the hiragana, or if it even matters.

I still don't know whether to use kanji or hiragana in many cases either. I use the みんなの日本語 books and they have many common words written only in hiragana (even in the title is written みんな instead of 皆). So for a while I thought they were "special" words that didn't have a kanji
When I started using other things (flashcards and different apps) I started seeing kanjis for those words and I was shocked. I still remember when I discovered that いい = 良い It felt as if I had been living a lie all my life!
But then I go to dictionaries (i.e. Jisho), and they say things like "Usually written using kana alone", and I don't know whom i should trust
Anyway, I already took note of 可愛い, so it's now on the list of kanjis I thought they didn't exist.

Don't be discouraged by a sentence taking 10 minutes. I started my Japanese writing by writing one sentence a day - all in hiragana - and that sometimes took a while. Soon, I was writing about three sentences a day before I got lazy and stopped writing regularly. Nowadays I want to write as much and as fast as I can in English, but I'm still not there yet. I've recently started writing regularly in my Japanese journal again. I try to write as much as I can in 15 minutes, and that's usually about six or seven sentences. It takes time to get there, so don't worry. Write what you can, and it will slowly increase.

Yeah, I know it takes time and a lot of practice to write fluently in another language. Being able to write in English like this was a major feat to me (and I still make some mistakes), but with Japanese I'm always doubting myself.
Next week I will be traveling, so I guess I could take that opportunity to start writing on paper (since I will be away from my computer). I'll try to do that without judging my ability and being harsh with myself, and from there, I could start looking for things to improve.
Thanks for the encouragement and advice!

I still can't express everything I write in this log in Japanese, but from time to time I will try to write more in Japanese. 一緒にがんばりましょう！

あなたの文章をもっと読みたいと思います。私はあまり書くこともできませんが、頑張ろう!

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I was going to submit this but I saw that you posted again so:

(JA) - 昨日のした日本語のことを書いておくのはつい忘れちゃった。どうしよう。。。全然覚えなかった。 確かにAnkiしたが。。。あ、日記に書かなかった。

あ、覚えるのはもう一つがある。昨日の夜、「男子ごはん」を15分間ぐらい観た。その後、ラザニアのレシピを手にいるために「男子ごはん」の公式のウェブサイトに行ったが、2週間前のレシピが書いてなくて、私の観たのは3週間前からだったんだ。ありがたいことに誰かが「男子ごはん」の過去レシピをウェブサイトに書いておいて、私は本当にうれしいだ。

ラザニアのレシピを見つけたことはよかったですね。
このウェブサイトでレシピの写真を見ました。その料理はとてもおいしそうです。

(PT) - Hoje na manhã, no trem, fiz o diálogo de Lição 53 de DLI. Não posso falar em voz alta no trem, então quando pratico o diálogo, falo em voz muito baixo, e cobro minha boca com minha mão. Não é o melhor, mas funciona.

É muito bom ver o esforço que você faz para estudar japonês e português, tentando aproveitar cada minuto disponível para praticar esses idiomas. E como você me ajudou com o japonês, eu gostaria de ajudar você explicando apenas duas coisinhas, e espero que você não se incomode com as correções.

(I hope you don't mind if I point out these things, I'll write them in English so you can understand them better)

- The connection between nouns and adjectives in Portuguese is "easy" when the nouns end in -o or -a, but it's tricky when the word ends with other letters.
"Voz" ends with -z, so it's not obvious that it is a feminine noun. And since it is a fem. noun, when you use the adjective "baixo" to modify it, the adjective has to change to be feminine too, so it should go: "falo em voz muito baixa"
But not every word ending in -z is feminine. For example, "nariz" (nose) ends with -z too, but it's masculine (if you want to say something like "he has an ugly nose", it should be: "ele tem um nariz feio").
I hope you don't find it discouraging that for some letters there is no "magic rule" to figure out if they are feminine or masculine.

- "cobrir" is an irregular verb. One of these irregularities happens when using the first person of the singular in the present tense. So when you want to say "I cover", it changes to "eu cubro". Here you can see all the conjugations for the verb "cobrir".

[kujichagulia]

É muito bom ver o esforço que você faz para estudar japonês e português, tentando aproveitar cada minuto disponível para praticar esses idiomas. E como você me ajudou com o japonês, eu gostaria de ajudar você explicando apenas duas coisinhas, e espero que você não se incomode com as correções...

Muito obrigado pelas correções! Ainda erro às vezes com se um substantivo é masculino ou feminino, e também com conjugação. Mas vou melhorar!
じゃ、できたら、時々この日記に一部日本語で書いてみます。頑張ります！

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This should be the time to do a weekly review, but I think my study was all over the place this past week. I got language time in, but it wasn't as organized as it was in previous weeks. Anyway, let me quickly review my March goals and see if I can do some kind of review.

JAPANESE

• Read 15 minutes of Japanese a day.
• Anki reviews daily
• 15 minutes of study at home each day.
• 15 minutes of Japanese writing each day.
• Watch one episode of 男子ごはん a week.
• Watch one episode of Easy Japanese a week.
• 5 minutes of Japanese speaking practice daily.

WHAT WAS GOOD: I'm definitely reading at least 15 minutes each day. I'm very happy with that. I have a hard time, though, finding something I can really "sink into." The minimalist blog I was reading has become boring, and it feels at times like an infomercial, as the writer is always talking about a certain book or product. Lately I've been reading more news articles at Yahoo News Japan or BBC Japanese. I also tried going back to Hukumusume and reading the daily short stories they have on their page. In addition to reading, Anki reviews have been going well, although I haven't been adding a lot of new cards to my deck. Surprisingly, I've watched more and more 男子ごはん. I've found that if I just don't worry about trying to learn new words and phrases from the show and just enjoy watching it, it's a lot easier to press play and watch it. I'm still not at the point where I study 15 minutes a day at home, but I'm almost there. There were probably two nights I didn't reach 15 minutes last week.
WHAT WAS BAD: My writing has tailed off. I don't think I've written in my Japanese journal for several days now. I haven't touched any Easy Japanese video for a while. (And I really need to do a better job of logging my language activities! )

PORTUGUESE

• Do DLI study during my morning commute every day.
• Anki reviews daily
• 15 minutes of Portuguese writing each day... or three sentences, whichever comes first.
• Do one new lesson and reviews on the duolingo app each day.
• Watch one episode of Easy Portuguese a week.
• 5 minutes of Portuguese speaking practice daily.

WHAT WAS GOOD: DLI is going great. If I'm not extremely tired/sleepy, or with a splitting headache like this morning, I study DLI every morning commute. It's still slow going, but at this pace I will probably be done with Volume Six by the end of spring, and I can probably knock out Volumes Seven and Eight by the end of 2018, and then I should be able to just concentrate on enjoying native materials. Anki reviews are going well, as well.
WHAT WAS BAD: Everything else. I did duolingo every other day instead of every day. I don't write every day. And I didn't do any of the other activities. I'm not too downhearted, though, as DLI is basically my main priority at the moment, so as long as I'm working on that every day, my Portuguese studies are in good shape.

[kujichagulia]

I didn't post yesterday because I usually post to this forum during my work breaks, but yesterday I was off work. In the morning I went to the immigration office to apply for my visa renewal. I had to wait for two and a half hours! After that, it was lunch with my wife, then coffee with some other friends of mine.

It was a busy day, but thanks to the wait at the immigration office, I could get a lot of Japanese reading done. I attempted to read a news article about a political scandal going on here in Japan. There are some new developments in a scandal involving the Prime Minister and his wife, members of the Cabinet, and a nationalistic private school in the Osaka area that allegedly received valuable land to build a new school building for dirt cheap, thanks to the PM and/or his people. I also tried to read an article about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's visit to Beijing, but got bored of it after two paragraphs.

Finally, I gave up on news and politics and went to Hukumusume to read an easier fairy tale. The traditional Japanese fairy tale for March 27th was called 金のナスビ (Kin no nasubi - Golden Eggplant). It was a fairly easy tale to read (and it has audio at the top! I want to listen to it but I haven't yet). I don't quite understand the moral of the story, but I did learn a few words I didn't know. For example, 無礼者 (bureimono - rude person), 島流し (shimanagashi - exile; banishment), and 売り歩く (uriaruku - to peddle or hawk goods). 島流し was interesting because 島 is "island" and 流し is "(liquid) flowing," so I get this image of someone being washed off of an island by a big wave into exile!

The fairy tales at Hukumusume are very short, but I usually can't finish one in a day. It's hard for some reason to sit down and just concentrate on the story in one sitting, but I was able to do that during my immigration wait, so I'm happy. Long waits are very good for language learning.

I got a lot of DLI Portuguese done on the train ride over to the immigration office as well. Actually, on Tuesday at work I had a longer work break than usual, so I took my iPad and my headphones, found a bench near the athletic ground where the baseball club was playing, and, praying I didn't get hit by a home run, did nearly all the drills for Lesson 53. I was far enough from the students that I could actually speak out loud when doing the drills - something I can't do on the train. What drills I didn't finish at that time, I did yesterday on the way to immigration, plus I also started on the narrative reading. I finished that up this morning, so I'm ready for Lesson 54! Keep going, dude, keep going.

[kujichagulia]

For Japanese yesterday I didn't do as much as I wanted. I did no reading or writing. My Japanese was limited to Anki reviews and watching the news. I was working on lesson planning at work, so I didn't have long breaks, and I had a lot to do at home as well.

It was the same with Portuguese. After yesterday's post I just did Anki, and this morning I started on Lesson 54 of DLI. It seems that Volume Six of DLI is taking me on a tour of 1960s/1970s Brazil. The conversation and narrative of Lesson 51 was about Brasília, which at the time was a brand-new city. Lesson 52 was about Bahia and Salvador, and Lesson 53 was about the Northeast and the sugar plantations there. Lesson 54 looks like it will be about Minas Gerais and Ouro Preto. Being a geography fan, I like this kind of material!

I have made the decision to stop writing out the answers to the comprehension questions for the narratives in DLI Portuguese Basic Course. The reason is that I feel like I get little out of them. I've been using the questions to satisfy my goal of writing in Portuguese, but I would rather write my personal opinions and thoughts on various topics, like what I am doing with Japanese. That way, I can build up some vocabulary that relates more to me. Plus it's more fun. I will continue to read the narratives, though.

Anyway, here's hoping to a more productive Thursday, although I work late today so we'll see what happens.

[kujichagulia]

Well, so much for that productive Thursday - at least as far as my Japanese is concerned. It was a very Portuguese-centric day. During my first break at work, I decided to catch up with some of the chat conversations I've been neglecting on Tandem and WhatsApp. I sent some English and Portuguese voice messages... oh, and some Japanese ones, too, to a woman living somewhere else in Japan. So I did get some Japanese practice in! やった！ I typed text to some of my other partners.

Other than that, I wrote in my Portuguese journal, and while I was working on some lesson planning, I went to Spotify and listened to two playlists called Jazz Brasileiro and Nação Reggae. São muito ótimo, por acaso. Not much spoken Portuguese in the first playlist, but a lot in the second.

Other than that, plus some Anki reviews, I didn't do much the rest of the day. Well, I had my usual Thursday private English lesson with a high school student, so I did get more Japanese practice by talking to her mother in the car. Because of the lesson, I usually get home late on Thursdays, and after dinner, chores, a bath, and family time, I don't have much time to do anything other than put on some Japanese TV and/or radio or online video from Brazil while doing other things. I cut my hair, too, which took some time. 残念だけど、私の髪が長くなったからしょうがないね。

Finally, this morning during my commute, my DLI adventures continued. I finished reading through the Perception Drill for Lesson 54, then began practicing the dialogue. I'll probably finish up the dialogue during my commute on Monday.

Ugh... Monday... the beginning of April, which is the beginning of the school year here. All of those long work breaks I had in March will disappear next week as new and transferring teachers arrive, the teaching schedule is set, and we have to get to work preparing curricula and materials. And the meetings... oh, the meetings! I'm really sad right now. I'm really sad that I won't have the long work breaks anymore for language activities, but I'm REALLY sad about those boring meetings. Not looking forward to them at all.