Goals:
-Focus on glides (you know, the や, ゆ, and よ combined with the き,し,ち,に,ひ,み,り) because to me they sound oddly interchangeable with the non-glides and the glottal stops (my approach to glottal stops right now is to abruptly stop speaking and then continue 2 seconds later, which probably isn't the way I'm supposed to do it)
-Intonation will be tricky because it's not something I would naturally do, but I'm hoping my background with music will make this a somewhat less arduous process
Methods
-Start watching anime! I'm going to solicit recommendations from Japanese friends and then try to shadow the more normal characters, so I don't come out of this sounding like a wizard or a villain
-Talk to real people who speak Japanese (I found some! They really nice!) whenever I can
-Listen to Japanese music and follow along with the lyrics (I love music, so this should be relatively painless)
こんばんは。
ReplyDeleteはじめまして。アンビカです。どうぞよろしく。
あにめすきです。
I really liked the title of your blog, that's why I decided to check it out :) I don't actually know who you are. But to be honest, I attempted for a few years learning from English-subbed anime as well. I picked up a few words/phrases, but of course, nothing compares to legitimately learning the language here at Princeton!
It's pretty cool that you speak Spanish. I speak French, which I guess is similar. But both of them are so different from Japanese in terms of sounds and intonations and alphabets and grammar, and pretty much everything! I also speak a few Indian languages, and those are a little more similar to Japanese in terms of some of the sounds and alphabets.
I tried anime-shadowing, it's so much fun, albeit kind of difficult because they speak so quickly and a lot of the vocabulary is unfamiliar. Which ones do you follow? Just a suggestion - Naruto/Naruto Shippuden is great! It's an epic series with a complex plot and excellent character development, though it's very, very long (about 500 or so episodes, not counting the stupid fillers). If you want to try a shorter anime, try Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. It's only about 60 episodes, and unlike Naruto, it's complete! Unless of course, you've already watched/followed these.
That's all for now. I enjoyed reading your blog.
じゃあまた。
^Yessss Naruto is epic let's all watch its epicness!
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you found Japanese speakers! I imagine it's probably the coolest thing ever to talk to them; tell us how it goes!
じゃあ、また！
はじめまして。 アラビエットです。 ノトルダムの だいがくの さんねんせいです。 どうぞよろしく。 となりのトトロを みましたか？ I suggest shadowing Totoro, his lines aren't too difficult. Good luck in Japanese!
ReplyDeleteこんいちわ！
ReplyDeleteActually, something that my mom told me that seems to work for the general pronunciation is that it sounds just like Spanish pronunciation. にほんご, Spanish, and Hawaiian (whose language is close to Japanese) all have the same vowel sounds, so when I try to say something in にほんご, I say it in Spanish. You still have to think about glides and high or low tone though.
Which animes do you watch? I picked up a few phrases from subs but nothing like this language class! I wish I could just shadow music, cause of that I have plenty, but I feel that it would not really be authentic because, ...well they're singing, it's different from speaking, and I do the singing thing anyway!
Good luck with your studies! ばんざい！
はじめまして！ learning from anime is a very good idea! i used to watch a lot of anime back in high school and even though i'm only learning japanese now, remembering the anime helps me with pronunciation. ぼくは アニメが すき！
ReplyDeleteこんにちは！はじめまして。 I would suggest checking out Hulu.com; they have a lot of great anime series with both dubbed and subbed versions. Ouran High School Host Club might be one to check out; sometimes they use school related words.
ReplyDeleteこんにちは！
ReplyDeleteはじめまして。ねこみみです。どうぞよろしく！
I really like your plan for learning Japanese this semester. Not that my approval matters or anything, but it seems like a sound path to your goal!
私もアニメが好きですよ！I like anime too, so I'd love to suggest some - I've seen a lot of really obscure, less known ones in comparison to the stereotypical brand-name ones like Death Note, Naruto, and Bleach.
Ouran High School Host Club is a really, really good one, School Rumble was hilarious, and some other awesome ones are Ao no Exorcist, Maid Sama, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Soul Eater, Bacanno, and Durarara. Just to name a few.
If you ever need a suggestion from some certain genre, tell us so! We all have plenty to share.
じゃあね！
ねこみみ
^_^
The sounds & intonations have been tricky for me too. But look on the bright side - at least it's not an impossibly difficult tonal language like Kantonese. And the pronunciation is relatively easy.
ReplyDeleteGood luck - I wish I knew native Japanese speakers to converse with. I guess there's always office hours...
こんにちは！はじめまして。りーです。どうぞよろしく！
ReplyDeleteAm I supposed to say this even though I've met you in person so many times before? Or perhaps it still counts as a はじめまして because its our first interaction in this medium?...
Anyways, as many others have already pointed out, your plan for studying Japanese this semester sounds pretty great! I've definitely found watching anime to be a huge help to my Japanese and pronunciation, and from shows like 「名探偵こなん」, I'll know exactly what is going on if someone gets murdered :) 「真実はいつも一つ！」For reading, something I've found helpful is playing video games (such as Pokémon) in Japanese. Since most of them are made for little kids, there isn't a lot of complicated kanji, and it's a fun way to practice comprehension.