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Kuji’s Krazy Log II

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
Joined 5043 days ago

2237 posts - 6731 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

 
 Message 73 of 706
08 February 2013 at 2:47am | IP Logged 
Hey Kuji, sorry to hear about what happened to you at your work. I don't know how I would deal with such a monocultural place after being accustomed to living in the very multicultural Caribbean. Good luck with setting this kid straight. It's an important lesson that this student needs to learn.

I'm glad to know that you are continuing with your Portuguese. I have an idea for you to practice both your Portuguese and Japanese at the same time with Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon- legendado on youtube with Portuguese subtitles. You can find the English subtitles for download here: Rashomon- English subtitles from subscene and the Portuguese subtitles from subscene to download here. I don't have a clue if the Japanese subtitles are available. If they are, I can't find them.

Edited by iguanamon on 08 February 2013 at 2:49am

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kujichagulia
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4628 days ago

1031 posts - 1571 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Portuguese

 
 Message 74 of 706
08 February 2013 at 3:01am | IP Logged 
@iguanamon - They probably are available somewhere. I'll look around for it. Thanks for the Rashomon links! I actually have Rashomon somewhere in Japanese in my house, but it's too high-level for me right now. The video might help.

Yeah, I'm enjoying Portuguese, but I need constant motivation to keep it up. I guess I feel guilty for having a little fun. :)

Speaking of the Caribbean, I envy you.   I cannot wait to go there someday! Too many islands I want to visit, and the VI would have to be high up on my list. Now I know it's not all "everyday Paradise." I used to live in Hawaii; I heard from the locals about how they want to "escape" the islands, when all I wanted to do was live on an island forever. But hey, it would be nice to visit.
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kujichagulia
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4628 days ago

1031 posts - 1571 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Portuguese

 
 Message 75 of 706
08 February 2013 at 2:15pm | IP Logged 
My Half Super Challenge is a mess. I haven't done anything with it for months, since the summer. I can't even remember what the goal was. 50 books and 50 movies? Is it even worth re-starting up at this time? I think I was frustrated earlier because I tried to read a children's book, and I had to look up like 20 words per page.

I suppose since the finish line is December of this year, I still have some time left to dedicate to the Half Super Challenge. It should be quite easy in theory to watch enough Japanese TV to get the 50 movies portion out of the way quickly before I tackle the 50 books. Of course, I need the motivation to sit down in front of the TV for an hour and watch a drama.

EDIT: re-starting

Edited by kujichagulia on 08 February 2013 at 2:16pm

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kujichagulia
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4628 days ago

1031 posts - 1571 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Portuguese

 
 Message 76 of 706
11 February 2013 at 1:43pm | IP Logged 
KUJI'S WEEK IN REVIEW: 4 February - 10 February 2013

This review will not follow the usual format; I'm going to "switch it up" a bit and just talk about something that happened to me last week Wednesday.

Every year the library of the high school where I teach puts out a yearly end-of-year newsletter for students, teachers, parents - anybody who is connected to the school. This year, the librarian asked several teachers to write essays about how books or libraries have affected their lives. She even asked me to do an essay. Actually, she didn't ask me directly, but rather she asked the other English teachers (the Japanese ones) to ask me to write an essay. I was told that it was perfectly okay for me to write it in English; the Japanese English teachers would translate it for me.

So, when I had some free time at work, I wrote up a one-page essay in English. It took me only a few minutes to do so. When I finished, I looked at what I wrote and thought, "You know what, let me see if I can write this myself in Japanese."

So I did. And the amazing thing about it was that I hardly needed a dictionary to write it out! It almost came out naturally; words were popping in my head almost as fast as I could type them!

I did need to refer to a dictionary when I got to the part about spending time in a university library when I was on the debate club in high school. I had to explain what a debate club was, because they don't debate in Japan. (Debating and having opinions are valued American traits, while in Japan harmony and reaching agreement is more important.) I had to look up the words for "debate", "judge", and "decide on a winner". Every other word of the one-page essay came straight from my noggin.

Of course, there must have been some grammar mistakes. But when the Japanese English teachers realized that I made their job a lot easier for them, and all they would have to do is correct my grammar, they were extremely happy. And I was extremely happy also.

Now, this may not seem like a lot to some of you more advanced language learners, but hopefully you can appreciate how happy I am with this small victory. I get depressed because it seems like I'm learning very slowly, but then I do something like this, and it motivates me a lot. I'm on a high as I go into this next week.
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g-bod
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5763 days ago

1485 posts - 2002 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 77 of 706
11 February 2013 at 7:13pm | IP Logged 
That's not a small victory at all. It's a very big one. Your Japanese is getting published!

Well done for pushing yourself to not take the easy option, and well done for doing it so well!
2 persons have voted this message useful



Brun Ugle
Diglot
Senior Member
Norway
brunugle.wordpress.c
Joined 6401 days ago

1292 posts - 1766 votes 
Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1
Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish

 
 Message 78 of 706
12 February 2013 at 9:15am | IP Logged 
Definitely a great victory. I rarely have more than a paragraph that comes out relatively easily.
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Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 4947 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 79 of 706
12 February 2013 at 3:20pm | IP Logged 
Congrats! That's something I can't think of after studying Chinese daily for 15 months.
Now I encourage you to do the same in Portuguese! It will be a lot easier for sure, maybe
after you've finished your first book you'll feel like doing so with the help of a
dictionary.
2 persons have voted this message useful



kujichagulia
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4628 days ago

1031 posts - 1571 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Portuguese

 
 Message 80 of 706
13 February 2013 at 2:29am | IP Logged 
g-bod wrote:
That's not a small victory at all. It's a very big one. Your Japanese is getting published!

Well done for pushing yourself to not take the easy option, and well done for doing it so well!

Thank you, although I don't think I did it well. Today I noticed a Japanese English teacher looking at my English draft while correcting my Japanese, so I must have not made myself understood with some parts of the essay.

Brun Ugle wrote:
Definitely a great victory. I rarely have more than a paragraph that comes out relatively easily.

I find that hard to believe. I'm sure you are as fast (slow?) as I am. :)

Expugnator wrote:
Congrats! That's something I can't think of after studying Chinese daily for 15 months.
Now I encourage you to do the same in Portuguese! It will be a lot easier for sure, maybe after you've finished your first book you'll feel like doing so with the help of a dictionary.

Obrigado! Yeah, I think I will reach that point a lot faster with Portuguese. I feel like I'm progressing faster than I did when I was a beginning Japanese student. I can't want to be able to write like this in Portuguese!


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