Last post of the semester!

I can't believe it's the end of the semester!　We sure learned a lot, huh?　Good luck to everyone on your finals。

いま、ラボで　はたらいています。I'm getting the hang of the te-form now. I memorized the song. It actually helps me a lot.　But it will haunt me over winter break whenever I hear "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."

My confidence for the class karaoke kind of died because everyone says it's too expensive... also it's getting cold... and we have finals.......
Oh well, we can do it in the spring! The weather will be nice, and I'll be able to purchase alcohol by then :D

じゃ、また！

What's up with the particles

The particles have suddenly gotten really weird. I don't like how we need to substitute が for を like "すし　が　たべたい".
And weird particles for leaving, りょう　を　でます

Oh well

I am kind of sad there is only a week left. I like this class section. I just hope the next semester of Japanese is as fun as this one.


Oh yeah also カラオケが したいです。I hope we can go as a class. But maybe it's too expensive...

Japanese Chat Club

I went to the Japanese Chat Club on Friday. It was fun. I talked to Naomi-san, Saori-san, X-san (I forget her name) and Kotone(?)-san. I think they were the popular/cool type. I didn't get a chance to talk to them very long because I went to get a snack and someone took my seat.

I met Tanaka-san! He looks pretty similar to the pictures from class, so I recognized him immediately. His name is Keitaro Tanaka and, like a bunch of the other students in ALP (American Language Program), attends Shanghai Something University. It's a famous university. He likes to sing, listen to music, and draw. His secret hobby is anime and videogames. We had a lot to talk about.

So I exchanged emails and now have a second Japanese pen pal! I met my first pen pal over the summer, in Osaka. Keitaro is from Kyoto.

counters

I don't like all these counters... that was an annoying thing in Chinese too.
Why can't we just use つ for everything?

I can't wait to see and hear everyone's podcasts. I think this is a really fun project.
おもしろいですね。I posted my group's (Fay, Eric, and my) video on facebook and youtube :D
フェイさん、エリックさん、ビデオをTake downしたいなら、ぼくに　おしえてください。

I signed up for classes today. I picked First Year Japanese II with Nazikian sensei again :)
(Hopefully Sato sensei will be teaching as well.)
ふたりは　いいせんせいですね。

さくぶん：てがみ

やまださんへ、

はじめまして。おげんきですか？　わたしは　らいねんの　なつに　やまださんの　うちで　います。にほんで　にほんごを　べんきょうします。たのしいですね。

いま　わたしは　アメリカのコロンビアだいがくの　三ねんせい　です。ここで　にほんごを　べんきょうします。にほんごの　一ねんせい　です。
にほんごの　べんきょうが　すきですが、せんこうは　コンピューター・サイエンスです。まいにち　たいへんですよ。しゅくだいは　たくさん　あります。そして、まいしゅう　コンピューター・ラボで　はたらきます。わたしの　ともだちは　わたしが　きらいです。ことし　ともだちに　みませんから。コロンビアの　せいかつは　とても　たいへんですね。

らいねんの　六がつ　三かに　ひこうきで　とうきょうの　なりたへ　いきます。あそこで　やまだんと　あいますね。

よろしくおねがいします。そして、ありがとうございます。

アンドリュー　シュー　より

Bilingual songs Cool

Hikki (宇多田ひかる) is pretty cool. I was listening to her song "Distance" I think, I like how she goes back and forth between Japanese and English lyrics. It's a really cool effect.

There was a movie about a decade ago directed by Shunji Iwai called 「スワロウテイル」or "Swallowtail Butterfly".　It takes place in a town called "Yentown" where everyone speaks a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, and English.　The result is really cool.　It's an awesome movie as well, but beware: lots of Iwai's movies are a little depressing at times. I saw a few other movies he directed, including 「花とアリス」(Hana and Alice), 「Love Letter」, 「リリイ・シュシュのすべて」(All About Lily Chou-Chou). I liked them all, but this was a few years back, so I'm not sure if my tastes have changed.

にほんの ドラマ

にほんの ドラマ みてほしい　(I want to see a Japanese drama)
でも、どれがいい、しりません
僕に いいドラマをRecommendして　おねがいします。

Densha Otoko　電車男　とても　おもしろかった！！

Food

Sushi is ok. Some kinds are gross...I'm thinking of this time at a Japanese レストラン where they had a sushi platter with different kinds of sushi. Tuna, shrimp, eel, salmon, other kinds of fish are mostly ok... but there was this weird looking brownish (?) one with a lot of green onions on it, and it was really sour and nasty. I gave it to my friend.

I really like the different kinds of katsu. Katsu is breaded fried meat, right? Like とんかつ is pork, uhh I forget the other ones. But I think they make chicken and beef katsu too. かつどん is tonkatsu with たまご on it. I like that.

にほんの snacks (おかし I think) も rockin' ですね。Pocky of course, and those bean things enclosed in soft flour, 「もち」 right? Those are so overpriced at M2M, but so good.

I'm also fond of the large number of snacks for kids, like "Koala March" or whatever. And snacks that look like little cars or that have pictures of Hello Kitty. They might not taste great, but they are fun to look at.

せんしゅう の しゅうまつ (last weekend)

せんしゅうの　どようびに　プローグラミング　コンテストを　しました。
じゅうにじから　ごじまで　CLIC ラボに　Javaプローグラミングを　しました。
たのしかったです。

ろくばん　(sixth place) に　おわりました。
Google mouse を　GET しました。

にほんご novelty

にほんごは、for many learners, seems to be a novelty.
When they first start, the class seems interesting and おもしろい。
As the difficulty increases they lose interest pretty fast. This is, of course, a common phenomenon.

Judging by the pace of our class, I can sort of see why this is the case. The people who are really interested in learning about the Japanese language and culture have already been exposed, to a quite large degree, to a lot of the idiosyncrasies of にほんご　and get past the initial learning stages with no trouble at all.

I get the impression that a lot of people are turned off because the pacing is a little quick, with a lot of vocab and not too much cultural immersion.
When I was in Japan this summer, every minute I felt like I was learning so much about にほんのculture and language (even when I wasn't doing anything!). It really is the feeling of immersion that you need to be really interested in learning about a language and culture.

Same with ちゅうごくご。　I'm a pretty pragmatic thinker, so I would never learn Chinese if I didn't feel a reason to. Even now I know very few people who only speak Chinese, so I don't have much interest in learning it. I'm starting to listen to some C-POP and Taiwan-Pop so I have a little more impetus. And why learn かんこくご？　That seems more practical to me than Chinese, since a lot of Korean people seem to speak exclusively in Korean to each other, and I want to know what they're saying. It's also a little novel, since I know lots of people study Chinese and Japanese but not Korean for some reason...

Japanese songs

My favorite part of class is listening to Japanese songs.
にほんのうた

I like J-POP, especially the girly kind and music from anime.
For some reason I like Asian pop singers better than American pop singers. Maybe because they're not all effeminate guys or degenerate into crack hos.
「くらっく　ほうず」ですか？

I think the coolest people in Japan listen exclusively to American and British bands. Girly music is for otakus and little girls. Then there's lots of in-between, for the majority of people.

I don't know what to think about Asian rap. It's kind of funny. But then again most American rap is pretty (unintentionally) funny. I like when rappers do duets with pop artists, those are pretty sweet.

Self Intro

We wrote self-introductions for homework. The situation is:
"You are an exchange student at Osaka University in Japan. You have to introduce yourself in Japanese at a welcome reception that professors and students attend. Prepare a "self-introduction speech" that you can read from in case that you become too nervous to speak."

---
みなさん、はじめまして。わたしはアンドリュー　シューです。アメリカからきました。コロンビアだいがくのがくせいです。そこでにほんごをべんきょうします。さんねんせいです。よろしくおねがいします。

異議あり！

いぎあり！
Objection!!

If you've played Phoenix Wright for Nintendo DS then you know this famous phrase. I've been working on Phoenix Wright 3: Trials and Tribulations. It is pretty good, but so far feels like it lacks a little je ne sais quoi that the first 2 had.

いまはごご7時です。きょうの日本語クラスがおわりました。

このクラスがけっこう好きです。みんなげんきです！それで、たくさん可愛い女の子がいますから。　（＾＿－）☆　My other classes are filled with guys. Being a computer science major is awesome. But sometimes it isn't so great.

Oh yeah I forgot to say in my first post that I went to Japan this past summer! For 10 days only... but it was a great 10 days!
If you want, you can check out my photos! I went to Tokyo and Osaka, and Kyoto for half a day.
http://tinyurl.com/yqdtsd
http://tinyurl.com/2dw9qs
http://tinyurl.com/2tw7ua
http://tinyurl.com/39dzdm
http://tinyurl.com/3c23yp

はじめまして。アンドリューです。

Mina-san hajimemashite. Andrew desu.
Watashi wa nihongo no gakusei desu.


I like the language lab. It's pretty aesthetic, with white everywhere. The white Mac machines really fit in with the motif. Today Sato-sensei is also wearing white. I think that's pretty cool. He must have planned it.

I am looking forward to learning Japanese. It seems like everyone in the class already has some prior knowledge, but I think that's to be expected, since Japanese culture is pretty interesting, and some small parts are seeping into America, like video games and anime.

I am glad I signed up for language lab on Wednesday, it fits pretty well in the slot right before class. I did not want to sign up for Friday.

Blogs are kind of fun when everyone is writing a blog at the same time. I think when I try to do blogs or websites by myself, I'm generally less motivated.