Ahh, crap! Poor Harumafuji! He was hoping to win the natsu basho and possibly advance to yokozuna within the next few tournaments, but today he lost badly to Kotoshogiku and dropped to 2-1. It’s still early so he might stand a chance, but hmm… Asashoryu, Hakuho and Kotomitsuki are still at 3-0 so the competition is tough. Speaking of Asashoryu though, Goeido really gave him a tough time. Maybe he’s not up to competing with the young ‘uns any more? In contrast Hakuho is in really fine form. He’s the clear favorite to win this one, now that Harumafuji’s chances look bleak.
Tag: Japanese
A category for anything to do with Japanese. Mainly includes stuff I originally watched in Japanese. There may or may not be English versions available.
Sumo!
Yes! The summer sumo tournament is under way! I’ve been a sumo fan ever since I accidentally caught a sumo special on ESPN several years ago, and now that I have access to NHK, I make sure I watch every tournament every day. My favorite wrestler? Asashoryu! I tend to like flashy, controversial sportsmen, so long as they can actually deliver the goods. Asa’s been a little short on the delivery part recently, but he’s still more fun to watch than the other stuffy, sour-faced clean-cut kids like Hakuho and Harumafuji. I used to like Kotooshu too, but maybe all the adulation went to his head because he’s been very meh over the past few years.
Anyway, it’s only the second day of the tournament so there’s a long, long way to go. And I’ll be loving every minute!
Japanese e-book treasure trove
Remember I posted about Swedish a while back? Yeah, I wasn’t really serious about that. And I’m having second thoughts about the Swedish company anyway, firstly about whether I even want to work for them and secondly about whether it’s worth learning a whole new language for a company I’m not planning to work at for very long. I hear most Swedish people speak excellent English anyway.
So it’s back to my first love: Japanese. Learning Japanese may be time-consuming, but the pay-off is almost immediate in terms of the fun you can have with it: not just anime and manga but also tons of good books, music, movies, dramas, comedies, etc. Today I hit a mini-goldmine of books about learning Japanese. Unlike the results I occasionally get on mininova, these are all uploaded on free file-sharing sites, so no need to worry about seeds. I found them here: Japanese e-books, but since you need to register to see the links (which I recommend you do because they have lots of other great stuff), I’ll just list the results below:
Nihongo Notes
Teach Yourself Beginner’s Script
A Short History of Japan From Samurai to Sony
Japanese Children’s books – Practice reading Hiragana
Remembering the Kanji I, II, III
Remembering the Kana I, II
CultureShock! Japan: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette
Read Real Japanese: All You Need to Enjoy Eight Contemporary Writers
Knuckles in China Land! (it’s a video game, not an e-book)
Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese: Third Edition
Kana de Manga
Kanji Mnemonics – Instruction Manual for Learning Japanese Characters
101 Japanese Idioms
An Introduction to Japanese Syntax, Grammar and Language by Michael Kamermans
Japanamerica
Making Sense of Japanese Grammar
Think we’ll all be experts by the time we’re done wading through this giant pile of books? We can only hope! See you next time!
A much-needed wake up call
Sometimes you get lazy, you know? You let a day slide here, another day slide there, read a few English sites, listen to a little English radio. A little bit won’t hurt, you tell yourself. You even think you’ve gotten far enough and start contemplating learning something else.
Then a Japanese person pops up like jack-in-a-box. 「今度うちで遊びに行かない？」ZOMG, brain freeze! What am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to say? Cue me sitting there mouth flapping open like a fish on the beach. Eventually I managed to stammer out a weak 「お邪魔します」and matters are laid to rest, but I have just exposed a fatal flaw in my learning process.
Not enough input yet! In fact, I’m starting to have doubts about the “Enough good input will lead to good output” process, but I don’t have a leg to stand on because I haven’t gotten that much input yet. Sure I’ve been reading a little more, but when it comes to listening, I can’t remember the last time I got out a podcast or even a movie and paid close attention. More importantly, I don’t even enough input for every day scenes. I know a lot of words you might use on a battleship like 発信準備 but what do you say when someone invites you over? I drew a blank.
So I have seen my shortcomings, and I’m going to work on them a lot more from now on. Stammering is uncool in any language!
Final Fantasy Tactics A2
In keeping with the spirit of having fun in Japanese, I’ve been playing more and more games in Japanese. I recently finished Final Fantasy Tactics A2
Was it fun? Heck yeah. I made it all the way to the last boss then turned around and went right back into town so I could keep doing missions and having fun. When I got tired of that, I took my overlevelled self back and whupped the pathetic little boss into submission. Power Up 4 + MP Turbo + Grimoire Fragment + Nu Mou Illusionist + 2 Jugglers spamming Smile = Sayonara, boss.
If I had to find fault with FFTA2, it would be with two things. Firstly, the story is really trivial and unimportant. Boy gets tossed into strange world and the only way to go back home is to have lots of adventures. Boy takes to task like a fish to water, and spends 10+ years wandering around world having fun. There’s a bit of story in there with evil organizations and sealed monsters and stuff, but they’re obviously there out of obligation. No sense of urgency and no sense of purpose makes this game a bit on the “meh” side when all is said and done. Secondly the battles are too, too slow. Moving, turning, choosing an attack, executing the attack, your opponent doing the same, it all takes way too long. A simple 5 on 5 encounter can take upwards of 15 minutes if you’re not careful.
Lastly, did I learn any Japanese from it? Haha, I’ve long stopped evaluating material by that standard. If it’s fun, it’s fun, whether I learned something from it or not. But I don’t recall seeing any particularly unusual kanji or phrases I didn’t know. The language – and the whole game, in fact – appears to be tailored towards a slightly younger crowd, so it’s easy to understand, and they repeat themselves a lot to make sure you get it.
All in all it was a good experience, and now you know what I’ve been up to in all the weeks I haven’t been posting. 🙂 That’s all for today.