Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 201 of 232 03 September 2009 at 9:41pm | IP Logged |
I was sitting down, gettin all set to write my little report for work when I got a message from Mariko. She wrote a lot including some stuff about the latest political elections in Japan, and she wants me to give an opinion *cringe* -- writing about politics is not my strong suit -- in any language, let alone one I'm trying hard to learn.
Here's a bit of what she wrote. (I was writing about mosquitos, of all things)
We often write 我が家, but we often say 私の家. You can say 我が家, and you can write 私の家.
When you want to write about animals or living things, you had better write it in Katakana or Hiragana.
There are Chinese writings for each, but some of them are supposed to be phonetic equivalents.
ひどい!日本では、その問題がありますか? 蚊とか迷惑な虫とか、...(perfect Japanese)
→蚊がたくさんいます。私の勤めているオフ ィスは近くに川が流れているので、蚊がたく さん入ってきて本当に大変です。
(Yes, we have also been bitten a lot by mosquitos. The office is located near a river, so a lot of them come into the office. That’s really terrible.)
ドイツでは学校を始まりました。→ドイツで は学校が始まりました。
私は木金の夜にチュターの学校に勤めていま す。(Perfect!!)
Your writing is very progressive!! She means "progressing well" ^^
This is my first REAL compliment. I've been writing to Mariko for a few months now, and her comments have graduated from "you use 私 too much" to this. I'm pretty satisfied with myself, I have to say... Even if I wasn't doing a reportage on the political instabilities of our times -- I was only writing about bugs -- it's a compliment any way you slice it. ^^
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 202 of 232 04 September 2009 at 3:12pm | IP Logged |
seems such a shame to come in about 20 hours after my last post (the big "200" mark) and say that I've done nothing.
this new semester is proving terrible for my language studies. There is a profession that I spend many hours doing but it's not one that I get paid for .. taxi service. the whooole family. The mornings start at 6:00 am and I'm constantly going back and forth. Right now I have to go jump in the car and pick my husband up from work. Then I have to get ready for work myself.
I'll have to TACkle tomorrow.
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 203 of 232 05 September 2009 at 3:29pm | IP Logged |
Mariko's email is keeping me busy. I went through the Japanese Wiki pages this morning to find the names for the German political parties. I ended up jotting down more words than I used in my email, so I'm making a new word list of plitical terms, mostly relating to the Japanese, German forms of government. The Japanese system was built with influences from the French, British and German, so the terms are almost directly translatable.
I have some new links to share. These are of "Mr. Children"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9hEv2cVrh8&feature=related (the title:sign)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48vZ6yEpmI4&feature=PlayList& p=3E02959188CDD701&index=20 (the title:君が好き)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEX8DPstE4A&feature=PlayList& p=3E02959188CDD701&index=21 (the title: any)
I found the lyrics for "any" http://www.allguitartabs.com/t/111818 7/mr-children--any--lyr ics EDIT See next post.
I don't expect anyone to be that interested, but if I'm wrong then just say the word and I'll make the links better. Right now I'm in a hurry. Don't want to spend too much time here.
Tomomi wrote me back already.. I haven't even looked at her mail yet. She was the one I used all my "supermarket" words on. I wonder how I did.....? Let me take a quick look at the email...
oo, look they have a "gelato store" ジェラート屋 in Shinjuku! oh well, okay, here's the first paragraph...
スーパーマーケットのお話して下さってあり がとうございました!外国の色々なことを聞 くのはとても興味深いし楽しいです♪新宿区 にスーパーマーケットはありますが、とても 数が少ないし、値段が高いです!なので私は 家から1kmくらい離れたところに大きくて安め のスーパーマーケットがあるのでそこに行く ようにしています。 駅の近くに大きなデパートがたくさんあり、 そこで食材や惣菜、パンやスイーツなど何で も買えます!ただ、スーパーマーケットと違 って庶民的ではなく、やはり値段が高いです …。 他にも服や靴、アクセサリーなど何でもあり ます!私はISETANというデパートの地下にある 、ジェラート屋さんのアイスを食べるのが好 きです。特にショッピングに疲れた時に食べ るとおいしいです(^q^)
ehmm....just looking at this... she's responding to my question whether there are any large supermarket stores in Shinjuku and she says that there's not many. There are plenty of department stores, but food prices in Shinjuku are high and therefore not for the (middle class). There is one that's 1 km from her house (only 1 km? but I suppose without a car that's a bit tough.) She goes on to talking about what's available where she lives.
well there's more but I'm still working on Mariko's email. Mariko wants me to explain more about indirect speech and after that she wants to know what I think about human relationships in general. She asks in reference to a childhood friend that she's told me about. I have a rough idea of what I want to say, but it will still take me forever to get a good paragraph written. I may have to continue tomorrow and work on vocab...
Edited by Sunja on 05 September 2009 at 3:54pm
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 204 of 232 05 September 2009 at 3:53pm | IP Logged |
Here's a much better link for the Mr. Children's song "any". I assume this site does other songs. You can't beat romaji/kanji/ English all in one.
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 205 of 232 05 September 2009 at 9:46pm | IP Logged |
This is great... I'm going over the rest of Tomomi's email. Like I said, I wrote her a mail using all of the supermarket words from my list. There are so many words for "store". I imagined the Japanese language having different words, like how the Spanish say "gran superficie" and "supermercado del barrio". Anyway, here's what she wrote about Japan.
商店→そうですね、スーパーマーケットほど 大きくなく、ほとんどが小さなお店で個人が 経営する自営業が多いと思います。売ってい るものも限られている店が多いです。(工具 門、乾物専門、日用品専門等)
商店 (store), it's not really big like a supermarket, it's mostly small stores (which are most often) individually-run independent businesses. There are a lot of stores which are limited to selling certain items. (stores that specialize in tools, stores that specialize in dried items (interesting!), and stores that specialize in everyday items.)
市場→中には一週間に一度の所もありますが 、平日毎日やっている所も多いです。また、 魚、野菜、肉、花、などそれらを専門とする 市場もあります。色んなものが買える市場も あります。市場の中には、買った食材をその 場で調理してくれて食べることができるお店 が中に入っている所もあります!市場では日 本で"せり"と呼ばれている、お店の人が市場 ものを仕入れるために購入金額を競いあう とが行われています。
惣菜→ごはんのおかずのことで、レトルトと 呼ばれている出来合いのレディーメイドとは 違います。レトルトは真空のパックに詰めら れ、通常長期の保存が利きますが、惣菜はお 店が手作りで作ったおかずをプラスチックの 容器に入れて売るので、保存が利きません。 通常すぐ食べたいときに買います。レトルト は保存食です。
市場The market -> it's common to have a place to go one time during the week or every day during the week. In addition to that, fish, vegetables, meat, flowers and so on each have their own specialized market (stand). There are also markets where various things can be bought. There are also places that cook the food that you buy and you can eat it right there! (may need help with that translation) Japan calls these markets "seri"**, where stores vie (per auction) for the purchasing amount of the products sold at the market.
惣菜The side dish -> goes with rice (the main meal). It's different from the ready-made dishes which are vacuum-sealed in plastic bags. The vacuum-sealed side dishes usually take longer to expire. Since the side dishes are sold in plastic bags (not vacuum-sealed, rather just wrapped in a bag,) the time of expiration is considerably shorter. You usually want to eat them soon after you buy them. The vacuum-sealed products are "the retention food".
I hope I got the translation right. If anyone has any suggestions as to how it can be better, please let me know..
** 競売 seriuri is what she was referring to. It's translated as "auction" by Wiki.
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 206 of 232 06 September 2009 at 4:35pm | IP Logged |
I've been going through my upper-beginner's book 合格できる 3、4級 ...trying to make sure I don't have any gaps in my Japanese. I have to keep revising my skills because I forget the stuff if I don't use it. Here's a good example
I took the (JLPT)4級 section -- yes, the one everyone thinks is worthless -- and I missed all the ones with numbers! For example,
三百年 I checked さんひゃくねん instead of さんびゃくねん
八時九分 I checked はちじきゅふん instead of はちじきゅうふん
I made a couple of mistakes with grammar that I urgently need to correct: I missed 広いと思います (I tried to throw a だ in there)
I missed それから
and I missed いってそのあとで I've never seen this one before.
Thankfully those were the only ones I missed out of that section.
3級 is a bit more disappointing. I can allow myself to make mistakes with number pronunciation because I don't speak the language, but
漢字読み方 How to read kanji. Here's the ones I missed.
素直 すなお
大丈夫 だいじょうぶ (*wince*)
待って まって (*wince*)
漢字書き方 How to write kanji. Some of these words either I didn't know, or picked the wrong kanji. There's quite a few, but there were 112 points in this section, so I think I still passed. (I think....)
都会
自然
関
不満
両親
五階
手前
結論
夫婦
成績
暖かい
家賃
語彙 適語の選択 Vocab sentences where you have to pick the right word. These were all in KANA and not kanji.
I put "rain" instead of "wind" for つめたいかぜがふいている。 If this had been in kanji, 冷たい風が吹いている I wouldn't have missed it.
I got confused between ふっている 降っている and ふいている 吹いている
りんごのかわ I thought this was "kawa" 革 "leather" but it's "kawa" 皮 "skin"
who knew! I didn't undertstand the sentence and thought it was "apple leather" so I checked the wrong answer
That was 40 pages and I'm still working on it. It goes up to 60 pages then I get into the listening comprehension part...
Edited by Sunja on 06 September 2009 at 4:40pm
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 207 of 232 06 September 2009 at 6:22pm | IP Logged |
I've moved on over to TheJapanPage.com. hmmmm. Looks pretty goooood....^^
may have to consider whether I want to continue this log. The grass certainly looks greener over there....but.... they don't have a place for language blogs like this forum does.
I read some of my earlier posts from this year. Is this TAC-thing really helping =B
Sometimes I wonder.....
where's the incentive?
maybe this is a waste of time...
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 208 of 232 07 September 2009 at 11:09pm | IP Logged |
I'm doing a 40-day "Kur" with This Kanji Odyssey Thing. I really like the worksheets. I've gone over the first 7 chapters this evening. Tomorrow will continue. Can I be consistent this time? what a ponderous question..
I've been shadowing the intermediate dialogues from the Meguro Language Center -- I REALLY like those "tara" ones.
I also sent emails to Mariko and Kyamina. I still have to translate Yuka's email (received today)
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