#Japanese language lesson

[artzee534]

multilingual sonic characters!

[caramelcuppaccino]

learning japanese update: i’ve been practicing writing down sentences and trying to understand the sentence structure. linguistically, japanese and turkish have similarities, so i can say that it’s been going well and i’m having sooo much fun!!

[konohamaru-sensei]

new halloween art!!

In the artbook sensei said that they like the halloween AU the most, so it's not suprising they grace is with wonderful art again!! Once more I will translate for you all to the best of my abilities. [Source]

topic: Halloween with the 30-something oniisans

"Can you get rid of it? Everything and anything should be for my sake."

"I don't need anything, as long as you are there."

"You still don't understand. You've long since been mine. All of you."

"You can have all of me... for yourself."

[redsamuraiii]

Shogun (1980)

Learning Japanese by the seaside with a pretty teacher. Sign me up. 😆

[girlytips]

The kanji “kei” (系) and its usage

As I still keep seeing it being used in instances where it doesn’t make sense, I thought it would be a good idea to talk a little about the kanji’s actual use within the japanese language.

系 is commonly used as a suffix to categorize and describe various things by their “type”, therefore can also be translated as such. For example, your nationality would be “country+kei+person”, stating the color of something “color+kei+object”, describing a song “genre+kei+music”, and specifying the style of your outfit “style+kei+coord”. However, in the overseas jfashion community there still persists the misunderstanding that it means “style” or “fashion”.

So where does this misunderstanding come from?

The very first instance of “kei” being used in a fashion context overseas was “visual kei” (ヴィジュアル系). During the late 90s, western media outlets discovered the genre and introduced it as unique fashion style from Japan heavily tied to music while also translating its name as “visual style”. This was the beginning of the whole misunderstanding as visual kei is only used to label a band as “visual-type”, meaning there is a heavy focus on a visual aspect. This is also why you will have a hard time shopping for the so-called visual kei fashion because it doesn’t really exist, and what is considered that overseas usually falls under the japanese goth punk (ゴスパンク) style that bangya wear.

After this, many years passed and “fairy kei” (フェアリー系) appeared within the jfashion online sphere, strenghtening the overseas conclusion that “kei” must mean “style” and therefore refers to fashions. While fairy kei is indeed used as a name for this specific 80s-inspired pastel fashion, it’s a lot more common to see it being refered to as just “fairy fashion” in japanese because “fairy-type” is also used to describe plenty of unrelated things. Meanwhile calling it fairy fashion would have been useless overseas for a similar reason and it made a lot more sense to use “fairy kei” instead.

From that point on, the international jfashion community would coin one “kei fashion” after another regardless of the styles actually being known by those names within Japan. Searching the majority of them in their japanese spelling would result in a dead end with many not even making any sense in relation to fashion, such as “mori kei” literally referring to forest types and “pop kei” to anything that’s popular at the moment.

Basically, the lesson of this post is that there is no need to include “kei” in the names of japanese fashion styles unless they are unrecognisable without it, because you are not writting in japanese using the kanji to categorize something by its style. In context of the fashion featured on this blog, it is used to differentiate the overall style genre from the english adjective that is “girly”, but not for its substyles as their names are distinct on their own.

I hope this little language lesson was useful to my readers, and if you have any requests for other jfashion-related terms to introduce or explain - just hit me up in my inbox!

[ros3ybabeslanguages]

Language Learning Update 🎀

So, this langblr started out for just Spanish but I've decided that I want to pursue learning three languages (out of the many I'd love to know) at the same time. I'm near A2 level in Spanish, my Japanese knowledge needs some work, and I've decided to add on Korean as well.

As many of you know, I'm currently out of town for work, and I didn't bring and Japanese study materials that I like to use. However, I discovered the Talk to Me in Korean website and found pdfs of their Level 1 and 2 textbooks, so I want to spend the next 6 weeks on Korean and Spanish, and see how I feel once I'm back home and university is going again.

I know learning languages both takes time and is a life long process. As long as I can stay consistent even with a bare minimum a day, I know I will be successful in the long run. It's impossible to acquire a language overnight, so I'm determined to make time for these languages and understanding of the commitment this will take.

Even when I've drifted from my languages learning, I ALWAYS come back to it. I love learning and I love communication. So this is something I'm ready to buckle down in, as many times as it takes.

If anyone has any good resources for learning Korean, Japanese, and Spanish, feel free to comment or message me them! Always looking for entertainment and study resources to accent my learning journey <3

til next time lovelies 🩷

[zhooniyaa-waagosh]

Me, first learning kana: Wow I love how straightforward Japanese pronunciation is, it's really nice to not have to wonder how things are pronounced.

Me, learning kanji: oh what the fuck actually

Me, now learning about the types of keigo and how they affect conjugation and pronunciation:

[mikurulucky]

Who else gets an urge or desire to learn a new language or resume learning a language you tried to learn in the past because your f/o canonically speaks it? Either because that f/o is multilingual or because your f/o is from media from another country, like an anime from Japan or a cartoon made in Russia.

Who else likes to imagine their f/o helping you learn their language? Or you helping your f/o get better at your language? Raise your hand if this is you in any way.

[rigelmejo]

Has anyone studied a language with the method of automatic language growth (ALG)?

ComprehensibleThai on youtube appears to have some amazing lessons specifically for ALG study. I found them when looking for various comprehensible input youtube channels. I am still looking into what ALG is more, and the subreddit I found that defined it has quite specific guidelines you should follow when studying, and I'm very curious. I am still hunting down more information on ALG before I draw any big conclusions.

I'm seeing information like: the idea is to watch videos/teachers in lessons (and eventually real life situations if you're in a place it's spoken, or shows in the language with various situations) and focus on grasping what is going on. Not trying to translate in your head, not trying to make conclusions conciously of "they said dui and nodded so maybe it means yes" - but instead just trying to understand as if you were a toddler learning your first language: just recognizing "they communicated Agreement" or when people say words as objects increase maybe they're counting, or when people say words and point to themselves maybe it's about them. The idea is similar to studying Comprehensible Input (like TPRS or Francais par le Methode Nature etc) except that there are many Comprehensible Input studiers who simply watch what they can comprehend, even if comprehension is due to cognates and guessing based on what they already know about the language explicitly. For example: when I watch a spanish video, I can use spanish subtitles on and guess what some stuff means based on French that I know - I don't necessarily HAVE to rely on visually watching the situation going on and drawing conclusions for that situation/experiencing it. With ALG, it seems the idea is to primarily NOT analyze the unknown and guess, but instead to mainly focus on the VISUAL information to follow what's going on... with (from what I am getting the impression of) the assumption you will pick up the language over time from hearing it in situations you could understand from visuals/body language.

So with ALG, I also saw that you generally don't speak for around 1000 hours, basically until it feels natural like your native language to say a given phrase. If it feels natural to say a given phrase or word then say it, if it feels like you must think hard and figure out what to say then don't say it yet. So sort of how as babies, we made sounds and practiced, but perhaps only said mama when we wanted something for several months. Then eventually we said baba or bottle, then "want bottle."

Although... I'd say ALG sounds like it'd prefer you not to speak until the pronunciation feels natural... whereas with actual babies, they usually have bad pronunciation in their own native language until 2-4. They speak anyway, with the bad pronunciation, because kids have stuff they need to tell us lol! Like "hungry" "water" "tired" "play" "want that" "help." I couldn't say letters like L or T or S until I was like 4 in my native language, but I was saying full sentences of "I want X with Y" by age 2. Just with letters missing, as toddlers do, but understandable enough their parents know what they're talking about. I remember my nieces, as toddlers from 2-4, ranting for many minutes over what happened to them that day, just telling me, and I could understand them because I babysat them a lot but to a stranger a lot of my niece's words were hard to understand. Maybe ALG has you not speak full words until you feel they're easy to say, since you're an adult, so you can afford to postpone speaking in the language (and get help/your needs met in your native language or with gestures until then), and since as an adult you can potentially make a variety of sounds quicker than a baby? I'm not sure. That is an interesting thing to consider mm.

Anyway. I have seen in some of the ALG stuff I'm reading that suggests if you Deviate from the expected ALG study model, then you may develop some ingrained language usage mistakes. That may well be true, I don't know nearly enough about ALG or ingrained mistakes to draw any educated conclusion.

I personally don't care much if I do ingrain some usage mistakes, or accent mistakes though. So it's not a big worry for me. And it makes me curious: for people who have studied both using ALG methods and other methods, what was your experience? Did ALG work better in some areas of improvement, in all? Did ALG work worse for you in any areas?

I would expect ALG works a bit better for eventually having good OUTPUT skills, compared to Mass Immersion Approach/Comprehensible Input combined with anki study or purposeful vocabulary word-lookup study. Just based on my own experience, that method of "consume material you can follow the main idea of" and "look up key words you don't know so you understand more over time" is what I did A LOT of. And for me, it improved passive vocabulary amazingly well! I got good at reading FAST, which was my primary goal, so that was great. I got good at understanding the language in videos with visual clues fairly quick as well (a bit lagging behind reading skill), and listening to it (no visuals) also improved fairly good (at a noticeable lag behind reading skill). In terms of passive vocabulary, it eventually didn't make a difference if I learned a word through comprehensible input to me, or through looking up the word, because I'd run into words again and again in reading/shows that I'd eventually simply 'understand it immediately' just like my native language. There's a bit of a lag, where lets say if I know 5000 words and am studying 200 new words in a new book, I will recognize those 5000 words immediately whenever I encounter them... but the new 200 words I've only seen a little bit will still require time and effort for me to recall when I see them or hear them again. Then later, after enough exposure, those 200 new words will be easy to recall, and I'll be learning Newer words that are harder to recall. Overall, learning with the "look new words up, while consuming content in the language" works well for building a big passive vocabulary fast.

But active vocabulary remains very small, unless I use the language actively by speaking and writing - so if ALG suggests learning through experiences and situations, it also seems to me that ACTIVE vocabulary you can use without putting in a LOT of effort to recall also seems to develop faster the more it's in experiences you have. So ALG style lessons may help develop that active vocabulary better, because ALG lessons primarily SHOW you situations and SHOW you how people communicate in them. However, since I haven't studied ALG type lessons for 1000 hours... I am not sure if it runs into the same issues as MIA/comprehensible input With word-lookup, when it comes to active vocabulary. That issue with comprehensible input/word-lookup study is: after 1-2 years engaging in content (reading, listening), the learner still has not spoke or written yet, and finds it quite difficult to start and must look up Many things when starting to speak/write. That is the position I am in for the languages I study: I understand a lot, but cannot say much (grammatically incorrect or not). For ALG, perhaps their grammar will be better when they start speaking/writing as they internalized the language more naturally and unconsciously. But I am not sure if they'll actually have an easier time outputting the language, or like the other input heavy study methods, they'll struggle to build their active vocabulary. I'm curious about the ALG process for developing active vocabulary, and I'm going to look into more learner experiences where they shared that part of the process. I'm curious if that part of the process goes smoother for ALG learners.

Anyway... just a language learning method I am mulling over. If you're studying Thai in particular, ComprehensibleThai on youtube is an excellent resource to start studying using the ALG method. Dreaming Spanish, I think, was also designed to ideally be used like an ALG course so the creator does have some explanations of how to study it in an ALG way (rather than in the way where you look up key words along with watching comprehensible stuff - which is what I did, and a lot of 'comprehensible input' general studiers tend to do).

[starlitsky3600]

any one know how to learn Japanese in own time? Through refutable sources? Online preferred, have busy schedule.

[caramelcuppaccino]

so… i have been learning japanese!!! my german course will start in a couple of months and i’m excited to keep learning it, however learning japanese is in my 2024 goals :] since i started japanese dramas, i’ve been interested in the language. for now i am just learning from and practicing on duolingo. i’m looking for (and have found) some free online books and i’m gonna start studying using them as well. i don’t know why but it brings me so much joy when i remember words or build sentences with what i know. i really hope i can improve my japanese :]

[giapponetvb]

Quando mi chiedono: "Sai il giapponese?" 😅

#ilovejapan

[polyglot-thought]

休憩

きゅうけい

Break; Intermission (of a film)

[redsamuraiii]

Dragon Zakura (S2E3)

Their English lesson is more interesting than my school.

[necromancy-savant]

I went on the podcast, talked like a Tumblrina the whole time, and now they think I'm funny and interesting and my ass is getting a second episode. Tune in next time to listen to Seeking and Straying and discuss my terminal blorbo disease

Fr though these guys are awesome and made me feel like a rock star. AND they taught me all about DC culture and DC-specific AAVE

[chikinan]

im watching the english dub of diamond while working. i missed okuyasu he truly is precious