I’m still studying Japanese!!

Just because I haven’t posted anything in a few days doesn’t mean I’ve been spending my time reading Dear Prudence archives or anything like that <_< >_>…yeah. I finally got my M3 Lite to overcome the dreaded “Write PSRAM fail! System wil be shut down!” problem (more on that some other time) so I’m happily continuing with Fire Emblem DS and Rune Factory.

Today I’m super happy about the news that my favourite anime, Hajime no Ippo, will be getting another season next year. So I’m spending the day reading articles about the series, starting with the wiki entries! Yay!

And I’d post more for today but my head is full of Dempsey Rolls.

Quit playing Fire Emblem DS

Day and night time, rain and sunshine
I seek my dream everywhere
Day and night time, rain and sunshine
I seek my dream everywhere

I can’t get enough of that Chage & Aska šŸ™‚

What I can and have gotten enough of is that stupid Fire Emblem DS. Okay, it’s not stupid. But it’s annoying. I’m on chapter 15, just a few steps left between me and the boss, and I’ve been stuck there for the past 2 weeks.Ā  If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Somebody ALWAYS dies. Usually due to my carelessness, but we’ll gloss over that for now. Bartz has died, Gordon has died, Alan has died… it’s like they’re taking turns!

So finally I said, screw it all. No matter who dies next we’re moving on. Then I moved Oguma up to put the finishing touches on the boss –remind me again why I shouldn’t take a swordsman up against a general wielding a killer lance — and, as expected, CRITICAL. Instant death. And the criticals in the game are ugly and boring anyway, so I didn’t even get any pleasure out of watching that. And I was so angry I even forgot to swear in Japanese. GOSHDANGIT, YOU STUPID LITTLE PIECE OF —-ahem!

Anyway, there’s no way I could let Oguma stay dead. I mean, he’s Ogu-freaking-ma! So, reset #15. I’ll try again later tonight, when I’ve gotten over being pissed off at myself and at the game. And that’s all for today.

Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken

So I’ve been playing this new Fire Emblem game that came out for Nintendo DS a few weeks ago and I’m already up to chapter 15. Goshdangit, Garnef, why didn’t you tell me you were planning to move? Bloody desert stages *grumble mumble grumble* Normal Mode is shockingly easy, though. The AI is really, really bad; they almost never attack .

I’m enjoying it, but more importantly I’m getting quite a lot out of it in the Japanese department. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t like interrupting my gaming sessions to write out sentences or look up kanji. What I’m doing for Fire Emblem Shin Ankoku blah blahĀ (later known as Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon in the West), then, is reading all the dialogue out loud as I play. Being a remake of a NES game there isn’t that much dialogue to read anyway, but I try to sort of role play every single line, especially the bad guys parts and sort of get into the script, you know?

And what I’ve realized from this is, my pronunciation SUCKS! I can’t even hear myself properly but I can tell it sucks because it sounds all flat and monotone, and then I mean so say something but then it comes out completely differently… yah. It’s harder than it sounds. I think I’ll give a little more respect to voice actors now ^_^;;.

But what am I going to do about this sucky pronunciation? Getting more audio input definitely helps. I found it was easier to read stuff like “hatashite dou naru deshou ka” correctly because I’d heard that line so many times before. But I also think I should work more on output at the same time. You know how you talk to little babies, tell them to say “Papa” and then they babble and burble and finally come out with “Papa”? Yeah, like that, but not quite as cute. I need to find some audio to speak and repeat and to read out loud while checking my pronunciation. I already found this site with links to audio books and corresponding texts and am merrily downloading away even as I type. When I (eventually) get around to buying that mp3 player I started talking about 3 months ago, I’ll make sure it has a voice-recording option so I can tape myself as well. That’s my resolution for next week, by which time I should hopefully be done with Fire Emblem.

And that’s all for today.

恂ćŖćŸć®åŠ©ć‘čˆŸ

Itā€™s the 13th of August and Iā€™mĀ feeling gooood. That means I should help someone else feel good, right? Okay.

You know how I was talking about JPSEEK theĀ other day? After footling around on their site a bit more, I discovered theyĀ also have Japanese magazines and stuff (mostly fashion), up for download.* IĀ like fashion, in a look but donā€™t touch kind of way. Meaning I could browse aĀ fashion magazine for hours but when I get up Iā€™m going to put on the same oldĀ jeans and t-shirt and walk out ofĀ the house like that. Money must be spent on videoĀ games, know what I mean? Speaking of which, Fire Emblem Shin Ankoku Ryuu!! ButĀ thatā€™s a subject for another post.

So, by dint of hard work (and Babelfish), I haveĀ found for you the location of these downloadable magazines: here. You have toĀ register, and then you have to post in the thread before you can see the link,Ā but hey, itā€™s better than paying for it, right? Iā€™m such a nice person, though,
that Iā€™ll give you a freebie: the August edition of Vivi magazine (jpseekersĀ donā€™t get mad at me, we’re all pirates together). You notice theyā€™re hosting their files on www.fs2you.com. Why u do dis? Itā€™s not theĀ most reliable of sites and may occasionally seem to be down. If it seems to be
down, try updating your hosts file with these:

59.63.157.25Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  www.fs2you.com
222.169.230.101Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  dyn.www.fs2you.com
59.32.232.195 cachefile1.fs2you.com
222.169.230.98 cachefile2.fs2you.com
221.204.246.79 cachefile3.fs2you.com
61.150.85.80 cachefile4.fs2you.com
60.2.139.27 cachefile5.fs2you.com
61.184.189.10 cachefile6.fs2you.com
61.174.62.132 cachefile7.fs2you.com
58.211.75.49 cachefile8.fs2you.com
61.134.84.238 cachefile9.fs2you.com
61.156.40.181 cachefile10.fs2you.com
218.75.151.4 cachefile11.fs2you.com
58.211.75.31 cachefile12.fs2you.com
124.94.101.133 cachefile13.fs2you.com
221.204.246.115 cachefile14.fs2you.com
218.75.151.10 cachefile15.fs2you.com
58.218.209.126 cachefile16.fs2you.com
61.157.152.173 cachefile17.fs2you.com
125.46.41.27 cachefile18.fs2you.com
125.91.11.223 cachefile19.fs2you.com
59.53.48.134 cachefile20.fs2you.com
59.53.48.136 cachefile21.fs2you.com
59.53.48.144 cachefile22.fs2you.com
61.139.106.204 cachefile23.fs2you.com
59.53.48.172 cachefile24.fs2you.com
124.94.101.146 cachefile25.fs2you.com
61.166.111.227 cachefile26.fs2you.com
How do you do that, you ask? Go to C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc. You see a file called ā€œhostsā€? Open it up with Notepad. Copy and paste the above at the bottom (under localhost). Save and close. Now try the link again. Ta-daaa! No need to thank me, just send money.

*Flipping through fashion mags is not clinically proven to improve your Japanese, seeing as youā€™re staring at pictures 95% of the time. Reader discretion is advised.

And that’s all for today!

Edit: All of a sudden fs2you is asking you to install something called Raysource before it will let you download larger files. Like hell we will. Take your crappy filesharing system and stuff it where the sun don’t shine. Thank goodness I milked it for what it was worth when I had the chance.