I'm typing this on my iPad Mini, so I'll keep it very short. Usually I don't encourage bad Japanese (meaning deliberately rude or offensive,) but one day it could come in handy, so I'll teach you some, occasionally.
Here's a really good and easy one: if you want someone to stop doing something, except in a nasty, pissed-off fashion, just add the particle "na" to the "infinitive" form of the verb.
So, by saying "miru" (to see) and adding "na" you have just said a close equivalent of "Stop fucking looking!"
And this goes with all verbs. "Sonna'n yuu na!" means roughly "Don't fucking talk like that!"
"Sonna'n suru na!" means "Stop fucking doing that!"
That's your bad Japanese for today.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Friday, November 15, 2013
Every Day I Get the Greys
Let me see if I can't try to post more on this site, even if it is just vocabulary lists that I send my students. You could download them too and it might help you out.
Or I could post about my latest scrapes with kanji -- there are always gripes about them.
So shall we do that? A post every day? At least that will give someone new a million posts to read through.
Okay, here goes: a vocabulary list consisting of 20 of each verbs, nouns and adjectives. As usual, nothing ultra-difficult -- just stuff you should know as a beginning Japanese student.
Note: I tried to paste the stuff in directly, but no go. I'm putting the image in as a 300 d.p.i. jpeg, so your best bet is to: open it in a new window, then: "Save image to desktop."
That way you should be able to read all the tiny furigana above the kanji.
If you can learn this entire vocab list, write in the comments section and I'll send you a present.
Or I could post about my latest scrapes with kanji -- there are always gripes about them.
So shall we do that? A post every day? At least that will give someone new a million posts to read through.
Okay, here goes: a vocabulary list consisting of 20 of each verbs, nouns and adjectives. As usual, nothing ultra-difficult -- just stuff you should know as a beginning Japanese student.
Note: I tried to paste the stuff in directly, but no go. I'm putting the image in as a 300 d.p.i. jpeg, so your best bet is to: open it in a new window, then: "Save image to desktop."
That way you should be able to read all the tiny furigana above the kanji.
If you can learn this entire vocab list, write in the comments section and I'll send you a present.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Hanging In There (Wes Says . . .)
As a teacher of Japanese in a not-so-friendly-to-Japanese city -- the French barrier alone scares them away in droves and they don't seem to understand that although everything TECHNICALLY is in French here, 99.9% of the Montreal-dwelling denizens speak both languages, a huge proportion of them to the extent of being completely bilingual -- at complete ease in either language.
But it's still scary for Japanese. They'd much rather go to Banff.
What results is the non-transference of much of a Japanese influence in Montreal, which leads, to my mind, in a much smaller interest in Japan and the language. I'm not sure. I suppose I would have to run an identical ad, minus the French part, in, say, Toronto, to see what comes up.
But what tends to happen with my students is that they have a remarkably swift burnout rate. When they leave my lesson, they're right back in Montreal, not exactly a teeming bastion of Japaneseness.
There are hardly any reminders of Japan here. There is exactly one (1) grocery store in Montreal that is wholly owned and operated by and for Japanese. The types of ingredients a Japanese would look for in typical Japanese everyday meals -- viz. NOT sushi -- are extremely scarce.
They are all notoriously fussy about their rice. Even within Japan, there are multiple grades of rice. And Calrose, made in California (albeit by long-transplanted Japanese) just doesn't cut it. It's totally low-grade crap to the average Japanese, and even finding Calrose is an unlikely prospect in your neighborhood Metro.
So, they come and they go -- mostly, go. Thus, no japanese presence. Thus, no reminders to my students that it's worth the effort to learn Japanese. Thus, and extremely high turnover rate.
There is practically not a single motivation to study Japanese here. You're really on your goddamn own, and if it weren't for the Internet, you'd be SHIT OUT OF LUCK ENTIRELY.
There is, literally, only me, or your friendly neighborhood language school. Me? I care individually about every single student's reasons to study and I try to make sure that the motivation to continue is always there.
But it's a hard slog.
When they get to me, usually, the range of their knowledge is so small that anything more than "Konnichi wa" is Advanced Japanese to them. So to expect to be having conversations within a few weeks -- let alone a few YEARS -- on two hours a week in my class is a very unrealistic way of thinking.
As a musician, I constantly compare learning a language to learning a musical instrument. You can't get away from the comparison. The processes involved are almost identical. Just substitute "Chord" for "Idiom." "E Minor" for "Polite level." You get the picture.
But no one says it better than a real musician, and an interview I read yesterday by one of the world's most gifted (and sadly departed) musical geniuses parallel what I'm trying to say about the struggles of learning a new language, and, in this case, the struggles of learning how to play the guitar.
If you can forgive the extraordinary 60s African-American jazz musician's turn of phrase (everyone is a "cat" -- it how they really spoke back then!) then you'll find this gem of wisdom from jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery amazingly relevant to learning Japanese (all comments in italics mine):
Why are there so few guitar players today? I think it’s like, the average person thinks he wants to play guitar, then he goes as far as, “I think I’ll buy me a tenor 12-dollar guitar and mess around to see if I like it.” (The person who decides they want to start learning Japanese.)
Then, they find out— after maybe the first week or two—that their fingers feel like pins are sticking into them, but they can’t stop, because once they stop it’ll heal up. I think a lot of people don’t realize that it’s just crises you’ve got to go through. (Adjusting to the bizarre differences in sentence structure between English or French and Japanese.)
I think another reason is when they think about playing guitar they pick it up and feel they should automatically play what they are thinking. Then, a guy thinks he’ll go get himself a teacher, and the teacher has to do everything, and they won’t try to do anything for themselves. (My constant comment that people sometimes come to me expecting me to be holding a syringe labelled "Japanese, Level 1," which I inject them with, and they go home having learned Japanese, Level 1.)
But they are the one who has to learn guitar, because a teacher can only show you so much. You have melodic lines and chords, and you have to know the neck before you can do either one. It takes a long time, and you have to think ahead to your limits before you can do anything. (Meaning the teacher can only show/teach you so much -- the actual scut work, the nitty-gritty, which can be endless drudgery like learning vocabulary, conjugations, etc., you have to do outside the classroom environment, all by yourself, with no one holding your hand or looking over your shoulder.)
Then, you’ve got to figure if you want to slur up to a note, then you’ve got to come back so you’ve got to know where you’re going. These things play so big of a part that you get discouraged when nothing happens. (You study all the verbs, you learn the vocabulary, you do everything you're supposed to do but you still can't speak any Japanese yet.)
It’s like playing pool, isn’t it? Well, of course, I’m a pretty sharp pool player, but the guitar is just a hard instrument. A cat will listen to a guy that is playing, and think he can do that, but he won’t study on how long that cat’s been playing. (He means that a musician might hear another musician who seems to be far better than himself, but it will never enter into his mind how long that superior musician practiced to get that far. I call this the "convenient being brilliant with no effort factor." Of COURSE the other guy is going to know more kanji than you, of COURSE he's going to be able to speak much better than you, because he PUT IN THE TIME. There is no magic involved.)
Then, he gets discouraged because he can’t even get two notes out. Then, he says he’ll struggle with it himself, and maybe he’ll find out in six months that he still can’t make a line, then he feels like he’s a dumb cat. (The frustration after you've been at it for months, seemingly with no tangible results. This is an illusion designed to make you give it all up and shrug, saying:"Obviously I have no talent for this.")
But when you find guitar players that are playing, you’ll find out that at one time they never cared if they never played, they were going to keep on until they did. (Wow, this 60s slang is almost like a foreign language, isn't it? I think he means that the ones who succeed do so because they didn't care about getting immediate results -- they knew if they just hung in there and did the work, they'd get better.)
After a period of time, the beginning player will hear a little difference in his playing, and that little inspiration is enough to go further, and the first thing you know, you won’t back out. The biggest problem is getting started. (This needs no comment, but it really points out why people give up so quickly.)
Then, later everybody plays more than you. And those things are not very inspirational—they’re pretty discomforting. And then somebody says, ““Why don’t you put that thing down? You’re not doing anything with it.” (Meaning, you see everyone else getting better, but not you. And people around you start asking you, "Why are you wasting time with this Japanese thing, anyway?")
Well, that’s no help. And you’ll find more people against you than for you, until you get started. Then, you’ll find more with you than against you. (Thank you, Wes, I couldn't have said it better myself.)
So I guess my point here is that too many of my students reach a danger zone fairly early on, when they seem to be making no progress, when they can't even ask or respond to simple questions . . . so they just quit. From now on, I'm going to warn all my new students of this major pothole in the road that they're going to run into sooner or later. And then they'll decide whether they're going to try to leap across or turn back, defeated.
But it's still scary for Japanese. They'd much rather go to Banff.
What results is the non-transference of much of a Japanese influence in Montreal, which leads, to my mind, in a much smaller interest in Japan and the language. I'm not sure. I suppose I would have to run an identical ad, minus the French part, in, say, Toronto, to see what comes up.
But what tends to happen with my students is that they have a remarkably swift burnout rate. When they leave my lesson, they're right back in Montreal, not exactly a teeming bastion of Japaneseness.
There are hardly any reminders of Japan here. There is exactly one (1) grocery store in Montreal that is wholly owned and operated by and for Japanese. The types of ingredients a Japanese would look for in typical Japanese everyday meals -- viz. NOT sushi -- are extremely scarce.
They are all notoriously fussy about their rice. Even within Japan, there are multiple grades of rice. And Calrose, made in California (albeit by long-transplanted Japanese) just doesn't cut it. It's totally low-grade crap to the average Japanese, and even finding Calrose is an unlikely prospect in your neighborhood Metro.
So, they come and they go -- mostly, go. Thus, no japanese presence. Thus, no reminders to my students that it's worth the effort to learn Japanese. Thus, and extremely high turnover rate.
There is practically not a single motivation to study Japanese here. You're really on your goddamn own, and if it weren't for the Internet, you'd be SHIT OUT OF LUCK ENTIRELY.
There is, literally, only me, or your friendly neighborhood language school. Me? I care individually about every single student's reasons to study and I try to make sure that the motivation to continue is always there.
But it's a hard slog.
When they get to me, usually, the range of their knowledge is so small that anything more than "Konnichi wa" is Advanced Japanese to them. So to expect to be having conversations within a few weeks -- let alone a few YEARS -- on two hours a week in my class is a very unrealistic way of thinking.
As a musician, I constantly compare learning a language to learning a musical instrument. You can't get away from the comparison. The processes involved are almost identical. Just substitute "Chord" for "Idiom." "E Minor" for "Polite level." You get the picture.
But no one says it better than a real musician, and an interview I read yesterday by one of the world's most gifted (and sadly departed) musical geniuses parallel what I'm trying to say about the struggles of learning a new language, and, in this case, the struggles of learning how to play the guitar.
 |
| Seminal jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery |
Why are there so few guitar players today? I think it’s like, the average person thinks he wants to play guitar, then he goes as far as, “I think I’ll buy me a tenor 12-dollar guitar and mess around to see if I like it.” (The person who decides they want to start learning Japanese.)
Then, they find out— after maybe the first week or two—that their fingers feel like pins are sticking into them, but they can’t stop, because once they stop it’ll heal up. I think a lot of people don’t realize that it’s just crises you’ve got to go through. (Adjusting to the bizarre differences in sentence structure between English or French and Japanese.)
I think another reason is when they think about playing guitar they pick it up and feel they should automatically play what they are thinking. Then, a guy thinks he’ll go get himself a teacher, and the teacher has to do everything, and they won’t try to do anything for themselves. (My constant comment that people sometimes come to me expecting me to be holding a syringe labelled "Japanese, Level 1," which I inject them with, and they go home having learned Japanese, Level 1.)
But they are the one who has to learn guitar, because a teacher can only show you so much. You have melodic lines and chords, and you have to know the neck before you can do either one. It takes a long time, and you have to think ahead to your limits before you can do anything. (Meaning the teacher can only show/teach you so much -- the actual scut work, the nitty-gritty, which can be endless drudgery like learning vocabulary, conjugations, etc., you have to do outside the classroom environment, all by yourself, with no one holding your hand or looking over your shoulder.)
Then, you’ve got to figure if you want to slur up to a note, then you’ve got to come back so you’ve got to know where you’re going. These things play so big of a part that you get discouraged when nothing happens. (You study all the verbs, you learn the vocabulary, you do everything you're supposed to do but you still can't speak any Japanese yet.)
It’s like playing pool, isn’t it? Well, of course, I’m a pretty sharp pool player, but the guitar is just a hard instrument. A cat will listen to a guy that is playing, and think he can do that, but he won’t study on how long that cat’s been playing. (He means that a musician might hear another musician who seems to be far better than himself, but it will never enter into his mind how long that superior musician practiced to get that far. I call this the "convenient being brilliant with no effort factor." Of COURSE the other guy is going to know more kanji than you, of COURSE he's going to be able to speak much better than you, because he PUT IN THE TIME. There is no magic involved.)
Then, he gets discouraged because he can’t even get two notes out. Then, he says he’ll struggle with it himself, and maybe he’ll find out in six months that he still can’t make a line, then he feels like he’s a dumb cat. (The frustration after you've been at it for months, seemingly with no tangible results. This is an illusion designed to make you give it all up and shrug, saying:"Obviously I have no talent for this.")
But when you find guitar players that are playing, you’ll find out that at one time they never cared if they never played, they were going to keep on until they did. (Wow, this 60s slang is almost like a foreign language, isn't it? I think he means that the ones who succeed do so because they didn't care about getting immediate results -- they knew if they just hung in there and did the work, they'd get better.)
After a period of time, the beginning player will hear a little difference in his playing, and that little inspiration is enough to go further, and the first thing you know, you won’t back out. The biggest problem is getting started. (This needs no comment, but it really points out why people give up so quickly.)
Then, later everybody plays more than you. And those things are not very inspirational—they’re pretty discomforting. And then somebody says, ““Why don’t you put that thing down? You’re not doing anything with it.” (Meaning, you see everyone else getting better, but not you. And people around you start asking you, "Why are you wasting time with this Japanese thing, anyway?")
Well, that’s no help. And you’ll find more people against you than for you, until you get started. Then, you’ll find more with you than against you. (Thank you, Wes, I couldn't have said it better myself.)
So I guess my point here is that too many of my students reach a danger zone fairly early on, when they seem to be making no progress, when they can't even ask or respond to simple questions . . . so they just quit. From now on, I'm going to warn all my new students of this major pothole in the road that they're going to run into sooner or later. And then they'll decide whether they're going to try to leap across or turn back, defeated.
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