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Brun_Ugle flies again (TAC 2012 team い) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes  Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 129 of 276 11 May 2012 at 8:38am | IP Logged |
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FUN FACTS?
While reading Harry Potter I’ve come across some interesting phrases. 蛙の子は蛙：かえるのこはかえる： “The child of a frog is a frog.” This seems to mean something like “Like father like son” or “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” I thought the expression was so much fun. I guessed (correctly) at the meaning, but I then looked at the English version to be sure. 脳みそ：脳味噌：のうみそ：”Brain miso.” This one made me laugh. It was always written the first way, with the miso part in hiragana. I kept thinking “brain miso? Miso like you make soup out of?” So I got out my Wordtank Super because if there is a way to write something in kanji, it will tell you. And it really was “brain miso,” just like the soup. Anyway, the meaning is of course “brains,” but what a funny way to say it. 唾を飲み込む/唾を飲む：つばをのみこむ： つばをのむ：”To swallow/drink one’s spit.” Yuck! This one is absolutely disgusting and makes me a little nauseated. I always try to read quickly past it without think too hard about it. In English, we would just say “swallow.” It is used in situations where someone swallows out of fear or nervousness. Of course, it is quite true that you are swallowing spit, but it’s really one of those “more than I needed to know” things. I really prefer not to think about what someone is swallowing. 息を呑む：いきをのむ：”To swallow/drink one’s breath.” Another example of swallowing, but not quite so disgusting. It means “to gasp,” as in gasping in horror or fear. I never realized how much gasping the characters in Harry Potter do until I read it in Japanese. Of course, I suppose I would gasp too if I met Voldemort or some of the other scary creatures that seem to turn up on a regular basis. Anyway, since my frogs, I mean folks, weren’t very good at studying languages, I’d better squeeze another couple of scoops of miso into my head, and get back to studying. Edited by Brun Ugle on 11 May 2012 at 8:40am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4798 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 130 of 276 12 May 2012 at 10:42am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the fun insights! I can't wait to getting around to Harry Potter.
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| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 131 of 276 20 May 2012 at 8:50pm | IP Logged |
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Log for 2012.05.06 - 2012.05.19 inclusive
Now that the rules for the Super Challenge have changed, it should be easy. Harry Potter #3, which was the first thing I read, counted as 2 books by the old rules, but 6 by the new rules. Now I’m reading #4 and I’m about halfway. Harry has just fought the Hungarian Horntail. This book will count as 10 books!!! I think I will still try to get as close as I can to 100 books by the old rules, though I’ve never really expected to make it. Reviewing the Kanji: Time = 1:48. Added 15 new kanji. I believe I said something about trying to finish the RTK supplement and RTK3. As you can see, I haven’t gotten very far. It’s not even as if I don’t like it because I’ve gotten over that and think it’s kind of fun again. I don’t know what my problem is. I just never seem to get around to it. Reading: Time = 61:29. Listening/movies: Time = 3:16. I need to get working on this area. Some people have 30-50 movies already. I should actually probably try to do more listening that the challenge calls for since I’m so weak in that area. iKnow: Time= 14:45. Writing: Time = 00:38. I haven’t done much of this either, but I figure I’ll get started soon. I suppose I’m just too tired to do anything that requires an active effort. Maybe that’s my problem with RTK too. Total for period: 81 hr, 55 min Total since start of TAC 2012: 539 hr, 59 min Total since I started keeping track (2011.11.06): 734 hr, 22 min Only 1754 hours, 8 minutes and 28 seconds to go ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 132 of 276 22 May 2012 at 10:54am | IP Logged |
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Don't you love when Heisig gives you one of those weird words you've never heard of and you look it up in the dictionary and you still don't know what it means?
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5829 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 133 of 276 28 May 2012 at 11:43pm | IP Logged |
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I love your phrases from HP! I added them to my deck, I really need to get more idioms in there. I'm about to
embark on HP myself (I made a brief foray today but it was only 3 or 4 sentences, more of test run really). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 134 of 276 30 May 2012 at 11:11am | IP Logged |
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SHAPES
It’s always important to keep in shape and here are a couple of kanji-based shapes I learned from Harry Potter. 大の字に倒れる（だいのじにたおれる） -> If hit by the Avada Kadavra curse you will not only die, you might also do this – fall down in the shape of a 大, which interestingly enough is pronounced だい, which sounds an awful lot like “die.” Not that that means anything, I just thought it was an interesting coincidence. 十字架 (じゅうじか) -> the shape of a cross 指を十字架の形に組んで祈る（ゆびをじゅう じかのかたじにくんでいのる）-> crossing one’s fingers (for praying/wishing for something) Edited by Brun Ugle on 28 August 2012 at 9:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 135 of 276 03 June 2012 at 10:46am | IP Logged |
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It occurred to me that I never posted this review here, and I did promise reviews so here it is. It is the same as is on my blog, so if you read that, just ignore this.
魔女の宅急便 (Majo no Takkyūbin, Kiki’s Delivery Service) I watched another movie, 魔女の宅急便 (Majo no Takkyūbin, Kiki’s Delivery Service). I watched it twice, once with subtitles and once without. I am still a little disappointed in my listening comprehension. I do understand a bit, but I guess I feel I should understand more. Anyway, here’s my review: The story seems to be set in Europe. The buildings look kind of German or Swiss to me, but I don’t really know. It’s probably some sort of pan-European thing. Kiki is a thirteen-year-old witch and according to tradition, witches are supposed to go off on their own to a new city when they turn thirteen in order to prove themselves. They are supposed to support themselves using their magical powers, but the only thing Kiki can do, is fly a broomstick, and she is pretty clumsy at that. At the beginning of the story, Kiki leaves home along with her talkative cat, Jiji, to find a new city. She settles in a large city by the sea, but at first she isn’t really accepted by the inhabitants. Although, a rather annoying boy called Tonbo, who is obsessed with flying also seems to be obsessed with her. A kind baker woman lets her stay in an unused apartment over the bakery and lets her use the phone in the shop for her delivery service in exchange for some help in the bakery. Her delivery service starts slowly, but gradually she gets more customers. One day Tonbo invites her to see an airship, but while they are there, his friends who haven’t been very nice to Kiki earlier, show up and Kiki gets upset and leaves. She then loses her power to fly as well as the ability to understand what her cat is saying. She goes to stay for the day with an artist friend who tells her that it is just some kind of block and that she has the same problems drawing sometimes. On the way home, Kiki stops at one of her customers and sees an accident on TV. The airship has been caught in a wind storm and Tonbo is hanging from it on a rope. She rushes out to help and borrows a push broom from a street cleaner and regains her power to fly so she can rescue Tonbo. Unfortunately, she never regains the ability to talk with her cat, which is sad, because I love that cat. He’s fabulous. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 136 of 276 03 June 2012 at 10:48am | IP Logged |
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Yet another entry for blog-readers to ignore:
ハリー・ポッターと炎のゴブレット (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) This is the fourth Harry Potter book. It took me a bit longer to read than expected since for about a week I was so stressed that I spent 20 minutes staring at a page before reading a paragraph or two and then staring some more. So my average reading speed has dropped considerably. One really notices the small inconsistencies and cracks in the logic when reading so slowly. I’d noticed them before, but they become much clearer when reading so slowly. For example, in the first three books, it is fairly reasonable that the resolution of the story comes at the end. However, in this one, I see no reason for it. Barty Crouch could have turned anything into a port key, a book for example, and invited Harry into his office the first week of term. Then he could have just casually said, “Harry, can you hand me that book over there?” And zap, Harry would be in the clutches of Voldemort. Of course, that would make for a very short book. I feel that she should have made a reason for it to be that particular day. Maybe it could have been Voldemort’s father’s birthday or something, and the spell had to be cast on that day. Any reason would do. And then, there are the port keys themselves. They don’t work in two directions at the Quiditch match at the beginning, so why to they do that at the end of the story? Is it something the ghosts have done to them? It might be so since they told Harry specifically that the port key would take him back, as if that was not the usual way they worked, but it wasn’t made very clear. And then there are the invisible horse things, (I forget what they’re called). At the beginning of the fifth book, Harry can suddenly see them for the first time. Why couldn’t he see them on the way back to the train in the fourth book? They did take the carriages, so he should have seen them then. Also, you can only see them when you’ve seen someone die. So why couldn’t he see them to begin with since he presumably saw his mother die. Of course, maybe he’d been looking away, or had his eyes closed, or maybe she was in the next room. But it says specifically in the fourth book that he had his eyes closed when Cedric died. Of course, all authors have inconsistencies, especially when writing a long series like that. And she does have some interesting historical parallels: American slavery in this book, and WWII in Europe in the later books. In terms of slavery in this book, she clearly shows how it was acceptable at the time that certain people should be slaves. Even otherwise enlightened people simply accepted it. If it was pointed out to them, they would just say, “But they’re black,” as if it was a matter of course that black people were made to be slaves. In this book, almost everyone accepts that house elves are basically slaves as if it is perfectly natural that they should be. And she raises some important philosophical questions. For example: What is freedom? One’s person’s definition doesn’t necessarily correspond with another person’s. And if you “give someone their freedom,” are your really giving them freedom if it is freedom after your own definition and not theirs? If someone doesn’t want to be free, isn’t forcing freedom upon them, taking their freedom away? The house elves don’t want to be free. In trying to give them freedom, maybe Hermione is really taking it from them. Western countries often seem to do this. They have their own ideas of freedom and impose them on others. Of course, in some cases, these people want that freedom, but not always. There is the question now in many European countries of whether women should be allowed to wear a hijab. We say they are oppressed, but many of them don’t feel oppressed. They want to wear it. Well, I should stop now before this begins to look like a term paper for English class. Or maybe it’s too late already. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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