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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 6618 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes  Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 265 of 276 13 December 2012 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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How odd. I seem to be the only one who's seen it. Or maybe it just struck me as so odd that it stayed in my mind.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5224 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 266 of 276 14 December 2012 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||
The answers are "no*, we don't" and "yes, I do" :) *More on that some other day 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6618 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 267 of 276 14 December 2012 at 8:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I know this is very juvenile, but it struck me as funny. It’s not the word itself, but the Heisig keywords that make it funny. I think it’s because autists are visual thinkers, which makes the Heisig method very useful, but also very funny because I always “see” exactly what the word says. It is the same with figurative speech. I know what the expressions mean usually, but I also see a literal image at the same time.
Anyway, the word is “breasts” (ie those things women have dangling in front). In Japanese it is 乳房 (ちぶさ) (chibusa). And the Heisig keywords for these kanji are «milk» and «tassels.» So breasts = milk-tassels. Just try to picture it in your mind and you’ll see how silly it looks. Don’t worry. Next time I promise to post as a 39-year-old woman and not as a 13-year-old boy :-P Edited by Brun Ugle on 30 December 2012 at 2:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 268 of 276 14 December 2012 at 9:07am | IP Logged | ||
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tassels? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I get an image of a writer who was visiting a red light district when he came up with that one. Only Mr. Heising knows. ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6618 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 269 of 276 14 December 2012 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I’ve got it! I’m sure. It must be!
I’m only about 60-70 pages from the end and so far I’ve suspected everyone except Detective Katayama and the cat. And the only reason I haven’t suspected them is because then they would be in jail and there wouldn’t be 34 more books in the series. But now I know who killed the prostitutes. Only, why would he be so stupid? He set himself up to get caught! And who killed that other guy? And how and why? Hmmm…. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6618 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 270 of 276 15 December 2012 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Studying has been almost non-existent today, so I still don't know who murdered that guy. But I'm pretty sure I know who killed all those girls. I'm exhausted. When I took this job I thought it would mean making lists and keeping track of people, not sorting out squabbles. I've been bombarded with PM's, but fortunately they are mostly pretty positive. I'm still looking forward to doing it next year, but I'm glad there will be a 10 month break before it starts up again. I went out a little while ago to get myself some of my favorite tranquilizer (chocolate) which I am now eating for dinner :) And while I was out, I bought myself an iPhone 4. They are fairly cheap right now. I didn't want to get a 5 because they cost twice as much. We had iPhone 4 at work, but of course I had to give that back, so I've been using an old phone. It's so hard to go back. I'm so used to the iPhone that I can barely use the old one. How ever did we manage back in the old days (2008-2010)?! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6618 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 271 of 276 30 December 2012 at 11:26am | IP Logged | ||
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BOOK REVIEW
Title: 三毛猫ホームズの推理（The Deductions of Holmes, the Tortoiseshell Cat）It is the first book in the 三毛猫ホームズ (Tortoiseshell Cat, Holmes) series。 Author: 赤川次郎 (AKAGAWA Jirou) Genre: Mystery Level: Amazingly easy. I thought this book would be harder than a YA book, but it turned out not to be the case. Both the story and the writing style are straightforward and easy to understand. I think this could be a good first novel for any Japanese-learner ready to make the leap into reading “real books.” Story: The story is set in a girls’ college and begins with the murder of a student who is working as a prostitute on the side. Detective 片山義太郎 (KATAYAMA Yoshitarou) is sent to investigate. The only problem is that he is supposedly afraid of women (and heights), and can’t stand the sight of blood. (As far as I could tell though, he seemed to do reasonably well on both counts, especially the woman part.) He first interviews the head of the literature department, who happens to have a very intelligent tortoiseshell cat named Holmes. Soon after, the department head is found murdered in a locked room. Detective Katayama adopts the cat, at the cat’s insistence of course. Before long there are murders happening left and right. It seems there is a serial killer loose. And to add to the intrigue, there is a prostitution ring and corruption. There is also the mystery of what his younger sister is up to. She is an adult, but has lived with him ever since their parents died, and he is still protective of her. She is often out in the evening and his aunt claims to have seen her together with an older man. This aunt is a pushy type who is intent on marrying him off and arranges for him to meet a potential marriage partner and her family in the Japanese tradition of 見合い (miai = an arranged meeting between potential marriage partners and their families in order for them to decide if they want to get married). At one time or another, I suspected just about everyone except Detective Katayama and Holmes. I don’t want to give too much away, but I was able to figure out one of the murderers about 3/4 of the way through the book. I don’t know that a real Japanese person would have figured it out so easily. It hinged on one teensy tiny linguistic detail, so this was one of the few cases where reading at a rate of 5-6 minutes per page sounding out the words one syllable at a time is actually an advantage. There were plenty of other murders though, and I didn’t figure out everything, so it was still interesting all the way to the end. Certain aspects of the story and Detective Katayama’s behavior seemed odd and slightly unbelievable to me, but if you are willing to go along with it, the story is a lot of fun. Of course, if you’re willing to go along with the idea of a crime-solving cat, you’ll probably believe anything. Throughout the story, Holmes gives hints as to the solution. It’s just a problem of getting Katayama, and the reader, to understand. Recommendation: Light reading. Lots of fun. Great for a first attempt at reading Japanese novels, assuming you like light-hearted mysteries about crime-solving cats. The author has written over 500 novels and about 40 in the Tortoiseshell Cat series, so if you like it, you’ll have plenty to keep you busy. I haven’t yet read any of his other stories, but he has other mysteries and suspense stories. I don’t think his novels have been translated to English and yet he is incredibly famous in Japan. His novels have been made into TV-series, movies, anime and even video games. Edited by Brun Ugle on 30 December 2012 at 11:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6618 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 272 of 276 31 December 2012 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Year in review: I ended up having several breaks in my studies and for the last two months have done very little. I studied reasonably well most of the year though and managed to get in more than 1000 hours. Even so, I actually don’t feel like I’ve gotten very far at all this year. I realize that I completely over-estimated my skills in the beginning of the year, but even if I adjust for that, it’s hard to say that I’ve really made much progress. I’ve still not attempted to speak and my writing has been very limited. I gave lang-8 a try, but at 100 words an hour, writing has been just too slow and frustrating to do very much. I’d planned to do a lot of watching movies and TV to improve my listening skills, but most of the movies available to me are anime and I’m just not all that into that. TV has been very limited. There are lots of great shows to watch on the internet, but my connection has been so bad that it has been too difficult and frustrating to try to watch them. So my listening skills probably haven’t improved that much either. They have improved to the point that the language sounds like words rather than a blur of sound, but I still have a lot of trouble understanding anything. Sometimes I have moments when I understand several sentences in a row, but not often. I really look forward to having my internet fixed so I can try listening to something again. I’ve done a lot of vocabulary work and maybe that will help improve my understanding. Maybe if I actually get the chance to start listening regularly, I might find it easier than before. Reading is the skill I worked on the most, but I’m not sure I’ve made much progress even there. I was reading Harry Potter early in the year and now I am reading YA novels and crime novels for adults, but even though the books are for adults, they are not really at a higher level than HP and my speed is still around 5-6 minutes per page. I’ve done very little actual textbook work or study of grammar. I have studied vocabulary using iKnow and have probably increased my vocabulary by about 2500 words, but that’s still not very much and I have a very long way to go. I’ve also learned about 550 new kanji, but again, I have a lot of work left to do. For most of the year, I kept track of the time I used on studying various things. I’ve continued to do that also these past few months; I just haven’t recorded it here. But the final numbers are in and they clearly show why most of my skill areas have remained so low. Next year I definitely need to find more balance. I will continue to keep track of the time I spend on each thing, but I won’t divide it up as much as this year. I will simply record it according to skill area as below, and rather than worry about what I’ve done each week, keep track of the totals to make sure there is a better balance on average. Overview of time spent: Kanji 127:02:33 Listening 70:24:47 Reading 630:18:31 Writing 17:17:36 Vocab 272:05:04 Grammar/textbook 30:30:53 Speaking 0:00:00 TOTAL 1147:39:24 So, I have made a bit of progress I suppose, but it doesn’t really feel like I’ve gotten anywhere. Perhaps it’s just the “intermediate level syndrome”, but it’s kind of disappointing. But there’s always next year and I will try to have more realistic goals. I knew from the beginning that I wouldn’t do much “real” work with Japanese in 2012. I was too busy battling depression, stress and people trying to kick me out of my job and I wanted to mostly do relaxing activities like reading rather than forcing myself to do hard work. So considering that I didn’t do much more than read HP and other silly stuff, my progress really isn’t that bad. My problem is that I expected to make a lot of progress without doing any real work. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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