bonbonmacaron

[bonbonmacaron]

Finding delight in language learning

It's all too easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of unknown vocabulary when learning a language. That's why it's important to savor moments of delight. Here are 4 words I've come across recently that delighted me.

【1】 虎口 hǔkǒu - the area between the thumb and index finger When I came across this word, I was very confused as to why the webnovel I was reading had a tiger.

【2】 烛泪（燭淚）zhúlèi - drops of melted wax that run down the side of a candle This one seems so poetic to me—candle tears!

【3】 毛毛雨 máomaoyǔ - drizzle The dictionary says 毛 can mean small or fine, but in my head I think of it as "fuzzy rain" since 毛 also means hair/fur.

【4】 趿拉 tāla - to wear (one's shoes) while stepping on the backs to flatten them / onomatopoeia for shuffling sound I used to wear my shoes like this all the time when I was growing up, so I love that there is a specific word for it.

Definitions are from MDBG, edited by me.

[bonbonmacaron]

What word or words do you wish we had in English? For example, I love estadounidense. It’s so much easier than saying “person from the United States”.

estadounidense is such a good example lol - the closest thing we have in English, that is totally informal, is calling it "USian"

I think there are a handful of words that I've come across where you can't totally translate because it's like... a visceral feeling you only understand if you know the culture?

mala leche is a big one; I can never quite describe it to people, but when you get more used to the culture you see mala leche and part of you makes that noise like you just touched something really hot and immediately withdraw, that's the gut reaction to how bad the vibe is haha

Also the verb madrugar is hard to get quite right; because it means "to get up early", but this can also be something more like "to get up so early the sun hasn't come out yet"

I think estrenar is another one that's a little more difficult to translate or I wish there were a better way to explain it; the closest you can get is "to debut" (and same idea for acting, "to debut" or "to star"), or "to show off (for the first time)" like with clothes

...And this one is probably more relevant for Spanish-speaking countries or countries with stricter naming policies, but tocayo/a I wish had a better translation in English

The equivalent is "namesake", but tocayo/a can mean "someone with the same name as you" - so it could be "someone you were named after" like a relative or a saint, like you had a grandparent named Robert and now you're Robbie or Roberta, that's a tocayo/a even if it's a genderswapped version (which they also did for saints like John turns to Juan or Juana) - but it could also just be like "yeah there are three girls named Ashley in my class" or "my name is Maria and so is hers" etc. and that's also tocayo/a

-

There are also some words that just don't have the same meaning anymore, ones that make sense in some languages but not English

The idea of tutear "to speak informally with someone" literally "to tú someone" is hard to express in English where in general we address everyone the same, but in older English it was "to thou" someone because we used to have more emphasis on classes and social standing - something that makes total sense in many Asian countries, or countries that use a more formal or informal register, but something very much lost in some English-speaking countries

[bonbonmacaron]

JLPT N1 Vocabulary

補足　ほそく　supplement; complement

保護　ほご　① protection; safeguard; guardianship; custody; patronage; ② preservation; conservation

保険　ほけん　① insurance; ② guarantee; warranty

本能　ほんのう　instinct

本音　ほんね　real intention; motive; true opinion; what one really thinks

本心　ほんしん　① true feelings; real intention; one's heart; ② one's right mind; one's senses; one's conscience

本質　ほんしつ　essence; true nature; substance; reality

施す　ほどこす　① to give (time, money, goods); to donate; ② to do; to perform; to conduct​; ③ to apply (processing, makeup, etc.); to add (e.g. ornamentation, annotation)​; ④ to sow; to seed; to scatter (e.g. fertilizer); to sprinkle​; ⑤ to spread far and wide​ (Archaic)

崩壊　ほうかい　① collapse; crumbling; breaking down; caving in; ② (radioactive) decay; disintegration​

放棄　ほうき　abandonment; renouncement; renunciation; resignation; abdication; surrender; relinquishing; waiving; giving up

方策　ほうさく　plan; policy

報酬　ほうしゅう　remuneration; recompense; reward; toll

法廷　ほうてい　court (of law); courtroom

票　ひょう　① vote; ballot; ② label; ticket; tag; stub (used as a suffix)

[bonbonmacaron]

Hiragana and Katakana

Numbers & Times / Dates

Counters & Pointers

Expressions of Time

People & Family

Useful Verbs

Useful Adjectives

Conjugation Basics

Common Verb Conjugations

Useful Adverbs

Useful Nouns

Common Particles

Sentence Recipes

The guide roughly covers the content of the first ‘Minna no Nihongo‘ textbook and is intended as a supplement for classroom study, not as a replacement – it does not include copious examples or explanations.

Click through to download

[bonbonmacaron]

I'm fucking dying someone please make a Pink Panther-style crime comedy about this

[bonbonmacaron]

Snowboarding in Peking opera costumes

[bonbonmacaron]

western cat twitters are like “HoOman” and japanese cat twitters are like “Today I will consider the state of things.”

[bonbonmacaron]

My favorite YouTube Channels to learn Japanese:

Japanese Ammo with Misa

I love learning with her videos, she has grammar videos, kanji and vocabulary videos and also song lyric videos and much more for all levels of Japanese learners. She includes lots of detail in her videos and is very easy to understand and listen to. All her videos have subtitles in kanji, furigana and English.

2. Miku Real Japanese

Miku has lots of videos that include grammar, quizzes, culture and listening practice. She organizes her videos into 3 parts: dialogue/skit, explanation and practice questions. I also like that she makes videos to practice listening to Japanese without any English except for subtitles.

3. Popo Kids

This channel has lots of children's books to listen to and read. It is great to learn simple but useful, everyday phrases. I learn lots of vocabulary for events, foods, animals, colors, and places.

4. Watercolor by Shibasaki

This is a more hobby related way to learn Japanese. Since I like to do watercolor painting, I wanted to learn vocabulary related to my favorite hobby. He speaks in Japanese and has English subtitles to go along in his video. I use his videos for listening practice and also take notes on vocabulary.

5. Life Where I'm From

This channel is not to learn the Japanese language but to learn about Japanese culture. He makes videos about various Japanese events, places and traditions including learning about rural Japan, Japanese school lunches, various Japanese foods and religion in Japan. There is a great variety of topics to learn about and understand the various situations Japanese people encounter.

I hope this list helps you to find a new resource to learn Japanese from😉

If you have any questions, ask me anything~

[bonbonmacaron]

made this for studying my class vocab ໒꒰ྀི • ﻌ • ꒱ྀི১

[bonbonmacaron]

A Guide to Taiwanese Name Romanization

Have you ever wondered why there are so many Changs when the surname 常 is not actually that common? Have you ever struggled to figure out what sound “hs” is? Well don’t worry! Today we are going to go over some common practices in transliterating names from Taiwan. 

With some recent discussion I’ve seen about writing names from the Shang-Chi movie, I thought this was the perfect time to publishe this post. Please note that this information has been compiled from my observations–I’m sure it’s not completely extensive. And if you see any errors, please let me know!

According to Wikipedia, “the romanized name for most locations, persons and other proper nouns in Taiwan is based on the Wade–Giles derived romanized form, for example Kaohsiung, the Matsu Islands and Chiang Ching-kuo.” Wade-Giles differs from pinyin quite a bit, and to make things even more complicated, transliterated names don’t necessarily follow exact Wade-Giles conventions.

Well, Wikipedia mentioned Kaohsiung, so let’s start with some large cities you already know of!

[1] B → P 台北 Taibei → Taipei [2] G → K [3] D → T In pinyin, we have the “b”, “g”, and “d” set (voiceless, unaspirated) and the “p”, “k”, and “t” set (voiceless, aspirated). But in Wade-Giles, these sets of sounds are distinguished by using a following apostrophe for the aspirated sounds. However, in real life the apostrophe is often not used.

We need some more conventions to understand Kaohsiung. [4] ong → ung (sometimes) [5] X → Hs or Sh 高雄 Gaoxiong → Kaohsiung I wrote “sometimes” for rule #4 because I am pretty sure I have seen instances where it is not followed. This could be due to personal preference, historical reasons, or influence from other romanization styles.

Now some names you are equipped to read: 王心凌 Wang Xinling → Wang Hsin-ling 徐熙娣 Xu Xidi → Shu/Hsu Hsi-ti (I have seen both) 黄鸿升 Huang Hongsheng → Huang Hung-sheng 龙应台 Long Yingtai → Lung Ying-tai 宋芸樺 Song Yunhua → Sung Yun-hua

You might have learned pinyin “x” along with its friends “j” and “q”, so let’s look at them more closely. [6] J → Ch [7] Q → Ch 范玮琪 Fan Weiqi → Fan Wei-chi 江美琪 Jiang Meiqi → Chiang Mei-chi 郭静 Guo Jing → Kuo Ching 邓丽君 Deng Lijun → Teng Li-chun This is similar to the case for the first few conventions, where an apostrophe would distinguish the unaspirated sound (pinyin “j”) from the aspirated sound (pinyin “q”). But in practice these ultimately both end up as “ch”. I have some disappointing news.

[8] Zh → Ch Once again, the “zh” sound is the unaspirated correspondent of the “ch” sound. That’s right, the pinyin “zh”, “j”, and “q” sounds all end up being written as “ch”. This can lead to some…confusion. 卓文萱 Zhuo Wenxuan → Chuo Wen-hsuan 陈绮贞 Chen Qizhen → Chen Chi-chen 张信哲 Zhang Xinzhe → Chang Shin-che At least now you finally know where there are so many Changs. Chances are, if you meet a Chang, their surname is actually 张, not 常.

Time for our next set of rules. [10] C → Ts [11] Z → Ts [12] Si → Szu [13] Ci, Zi → Tzu Again we have the situation where “c” is aspirated and “z” is unaspirated, so the sounds end up being written the same. 曾沛慈 Zeng Peici → Tseng Pei-tzu 侯佩岑 Hou Peicen → Hou Pei-tsen 周子瑜 Zhou Ziyu → Chou Tzu-yu 黄路梓茵 Huang Lu Ziyin → Huang Lu Tzu-yin 王思平 Wang Siping → Wang Szu-ping

Fortunately this next convention can help clear up some of the confusion from above. [14] i → ih (zhi, chi, shi) [15] e → eh (-ie, ye, -ue, yue) Sometimes an “h” will be added at the end. So this could help distinguish some sounds. Like you have qi → chi vs. zhi → chih. There could be other instances of adding “h”–these are just the ones I was able to identify. 曾之乔 Zeng Zhiqiao → Tseng Chih-chiao 施柏宇 Shi Boyu → Shih Po-yu 谢金燕 Xie Jinyan → Hsieh Jin-yan 叶舒华 Ye Shuhua → Yeh Shu-hua 吕雪凤 Lü Xuefeng → Lü Hsueh-feng

Continuing on, a lot of the conventions below are not as consistently used in my experience, so keep that in mind. Nevertheless, it is useful to be familiar with these conventions when you do encounter them.

Keep reading

[bonbonmacaron]

mysterious sanxingdui gold mask of ancient shu culture

cnetizens found the best angle to take a picture with the gold mask in sanxingdui museum at guanghan, sichuan province

The celebrity who cnetizens think looks most like a sanxingdui mask is zheng yunlong. Sanxingdui museum invites him as promotional ambassador of sanxingdui culture.

The Samsungdui Museum is popular for its cultural souvenirs, so you can experience the fun of archaeology. The history of Sanxingdui can be traced back to the end of the Neolithic period, continuing into the Shang and Zhou periods.

[bonbonmacaron]

[bonbonmacaron]

I told my students they're allowed to be creative and don't have to be factual when writing about themselves in German because I keep getting questions like "what if I don't have roommates or what if I don't have hobbies" and I'm like guys just make something up! Have fun! I won't fact check you!

So now I am grading homework where a student is claiming to be from North Korea and his hobby is tax fraud

[bonbonmacaron]

japanese is such a kind language. like you forget a character it will hold ur hand and tell u that everything will be ok and you can just write it in hirigana and everyone will understand :)

and then chinese is like oh im sorry you forgot a character? youre illiterate. you mispronounce a word? your mother is now a horse

[bonbonmacaron]

Does anyone know what the Japanese equivalent of itchi.io might be? Where do the Japanese post all their amateur indie games? I know about DLsite but they don't have much in the way of a free selection.

[bonbonmacaron]

@official-german-translationen

How I love that German has a rather long word for ‘car insurance’ but merely three letters for ‘existential despair and the meaninglessness of life’.

[bonbonmacaron]

自立

じりつ

independence; self-reliance

諸君がまず学ばなければならないことは、自分自身の考えによって自立することである。 しょくん が まず まなばなければ ならない こと は、じぶん じしん の かんがえ に よって じりつ する こと で ある。 The first thing you must learn is to stand on your own ideas.