nishi-no-majo

[nishi-no-majo]

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I think, Eminem is a wizard. Also it seems that American wizarding magazines had an audio option for moving photos in the early 2000's.

[nishi-no-majo]

[nishi-no-majo]

[nishi-no-majo]

Yesterday I successfully cured a headache with three tea spoons of cognac, one ice cream and a few songs by Marilyn Manson. I think, it was some kind of magic ritual.

I’m going to add this recipe to my spellbook, next to treating the flu with hot meatballs (a proven method).

[nishi-no-majo]

Covers of Takemitsu Zamurai novels - 竹光侍 - volumes 3 and 4.

[nishi-no-majo]

SF サムライ・フィクション - Samurai Fiction/SF: Episode One (English title) - 1998. Hotei Tomoyasu is amazing. Soudtrack is amazing as well. The film is hilarious. It's a really gread parody of classical Japanese jidaigeki - 時代劇 - films. Higly recommend to everyone who is interested in stories about samurai and have a sense of humor. Also, it may be of interest to fans of Tarantino's 'Kill Bill'. And of course, if you are fan of Hotei, 'Samurai Fiction' is a 'must-see'.

[nishi-no-majo]

[nishi-no-majo]

‘All that you've loved is all you own’

[nishi-no-majo]

Some thoughts on reading in the language you're learning - part 2 (how I choose what to read) I have a few rules for choosing books in languages I'm learning. Some of them are quite universal and some of them work only for me. For instance, I never read adapted and/or bilingual books. It's simply didn't work for me personally. Those kinds of books are bad for my motivation and truly boring. I'm one of those people who gets easily bored if task is too simple. I like a little bit of challenge. Also, I think that having translation on the next page isn't that good for real learning. It can even be a big roadbock. When you begin to read in your target language there are a lot of new vocabulary - too many new words - and you simply can't learn all of them immediately. You start with translating and remembering only most frequent and most important (for unberstanding main theme and storyline) words. And it's very hard to figure out "right words" if you have a full translation on the next page. There always will be a temptation to learn by heart every single word from every single page. I think, it's a main reason why so many people have been reading one very simple bilingual book for years (and taking a break every few days or weeks). I never choose children books (books for 3-5 years old children, not some YA, Harry Potter or Diana Wynne Jones type of books). You know, those big books with beautiful illustrations and one sentence per two pages. Not very helpful for serious learning. I think, it works only if you a real fan and a collector of children illustraited books - it's always a good thing to have a link between you hobbies and languages you're learning. Otherwise, you could spent you time and money much better, Most of those children illustraited books cost like 3 or even up to 5-6 times as much as some paperback novels. I prefer to choose books by native authors instead of translations. Almost everyone recommend to read Harry Potter (or any other your favorite books) in every new language you're learning. I think, it's a very bad idea. And it isn't because there is always a chance that you will hate your favorite book after all those re-readings. Main reason is a quality of translation. There are too many bad translations. There are many bad books and badly edited books by native authors too but you could read reviews and decided for yourself. It much harder to do with translated books. You favorite book in different languages could have a lot of bad reviews because of bad translation or because of cultural differences/other non-language-related reasons. For example, Russian translations of Harry Potter are truly bad and unacceptable. Yes, I'm quite picky but this time it isn't me. There was even an online petipion against one of those Harry Potter translations. About 72.000 people signed. The moral of the story: don't learn Russian language by reading Harry Potter books in Russian, really. It was my list of reading don'ts. Maybe someday I'll write about my dos.

[nishi-no-majo]

先生！　、、、好きになってもいいですか？ 2017

I thought I’m quite old for stories like this but oh my, it was so heartbreakingly sweet! (Yes, unrealistic but really good for curing my bad mood)  My heart almost melt. ♥

[nishi-no-majo]

[nishi-no-majo]

[nishi-no-majo]

[nishi-no-majo]

Japanese traditional musical instruments 三味線 (しゃみせん) shamisen - is a three-stringed musical instrument derived from the Chinese lute sanxian - 三弦 胡弓 ( こきゅう) kokyū - is a traditional Japanese string instrument, played with a bow 三線 (さんしん) sanshin - is an Okinawan musical instrument and precursor of the Japanese shamisen かんから kankara or kankara sanshin ごったん gottan - is a traditional Japanese three-stringed plucked instrument 尺八 (しゃくはち) shakuhachi - is a Japanese end-blown flute 笙 (しょう) shō - is a Japanese free reed musical instrument 八雲琴 (やくもごと) yakumo-goto 箏 (こと) koto - is a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument. 琵琶(びわ) biwa - is a Japanese short-necked fretted lute, often used in narrative storytelling 小鼓 (こつづみ) kotsudumi - Japanese small hand drum 太鼓 (たいこ) taiko - traditional Japanese drums 大鼓 (おおつづみ/ おおかわ）ōtsuzumi, also known as the ōkawa, is an hourglass-shaped Japanese drum

[nishi-no-majo]

[nishi-no-majo]

I think, Japanese quite spoiled me. There are like a million of amazing Japanese textbooks for every level and to cover every aspects of language. There are also a lot of fiction and non-fiction books in various genres by native authors, not only translation from English (If you know any good contemporary Italian authors - apart from late - and truly genius - Umberto Eco, please tell me, I've been searching for years). And I didn't even start talking about quality of paper, covers and print. Most of Japanese books are twice cheaper than, for instance, English books and like one hundred times better in terms of quality. I really wish to have such abundance of choice in any other languages I'm studying.

[nishi-no-majo]

Some thoughts on reading in the language you're learning - part 1 (kind of preface) I never studied English in any formal way. I didn't have English classes and textbooks. I can even say, that I wasn't interested in learning English at all, I only wanted to read some books in English because those books weren't translated in my native language (and, to be honest, maybe I wanted to read some fanfiction). One day I opened a book and began to read. Of course I did it with the help of a dictionary, but after a few months I almost stopped using any dictionaries and started to read easily and without so much effort. First books I read in English were books by modern buddhist teachers Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and Pema Chödrön (and, yeah, maybe there were some drarry fanfiction too, I have a quite wide range of interests). I think, reading is an amazing tool in language learning process but I don't recommend to throw away your texbooks and studying your target language solely through reading. I did that with English. It was fast, it was pleasant, it wasn't boring even for a second and now level of my reading comprehension is very high (level of my listening comprehention is very high too, thanks to movies and audio books) but I have some real problems with grammar and pronunciation and I can't express my thoughts in English as easily and flawlessly as I would like. I also often (okay, always) mix up American English and British English because I read books in both and didn't pay attention to differences. I know that I need to fill gaps and blank spaces in my knowledge, but it's very hard to do now. This is one of the main reasons why I decided to start a tumblr blog - I need to practice more writing in English. Despite these flaws, reading books still is the first thing I'm trying to do when I start to learn new language. Truth be told, it wasn't that easy with Japanese because of kanji writing system. I started to read my first books in Japanese only after I learned kanji for N5 and N4 JLPT levels. But I highly recommend to read something even if you know only a few kanji and your vocabulary knowledge is very limited. Maybe not books, but some magazines, manga, blogs, twitter accounts, etc. In the begining it won't be a real reading - you simply search for familiar kanji, words and grammar patterns (it's also a great way to remember them better). But the feeling when you can find, read and understand your first kanji and words is really incredible. The same thing with listening to radio in your target language. It feels truly good when you listening to radio (or watching movies/tv-shows) and for the first time understand some words and few sentences. I think, it's also quite good for your motivation and self-esteem. I have some basic rules for choosing books for reading in languages I'm learning but I'll write about it in the next part.