O hisashiburi!

It’s been a really long time since the last Japan Blog Matsuri hosted by Nihongo Up (They seem to have a new address ) The theme back then was drinking in Japan.

Now that the hangover’s cleared I felt it was about time that we revived it.

If you are completely unfamiliar with the Matsuri you can read a bit more about it here.

But in short, I’d like to invite you to write a blog post about a certain theme and I’ll link to all of the contributors.

So what’s the theme?

Learning Japanese in Context

We have all spent time going through our flashcards and poring over our textbooks but that’s never where the best learning happens.
Our memory gets supercharged when we are forced to figure things out for ourselves on the platform of a Japanese train station.
We hear a word hundreds of times before finally understanding it when it’s used in an episode of pokemon.
Or we make sure never to forget the meaning of the word said in anger by our significant other ( That’s for survival value alone! )

That’s what I want to celebrate.

Ignore the grammar levels, the JLPT and Kanken and tell us a story about the kanji or word or phrase that suddenly clicked in your mind and became a permanent part of your vocabulary.

Even if it happened 10 minutes after making a fool of yourself by misunderstanding.

Learning by immersion means getting more than your toes wet.
What event, person or story cemented a new word in your mind, never to be forgottten?

To enter your post in this blog matsuri

• just leave a comment below with a link to your entry
• or email me the link at Declan [at] KanaKanji.com

Drop  me a comment or an email if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to help out.

Looking forward to your posts.

It’s been over a year since I’ve been in Japan and it’s great to be back.

Oden, Ramen and Okonomiyaki.

Washlet toilets and overly polite shop staff.

Futons and Tatami. Terrible daytime TV.

One thing I haven’t missed is the feeling of confusion I get when I’m in a country where I don’t speak the language. I get the gist of some conversations but I really struggle with reading. We went to a bookshop today, normally one of my favourite places to spend a few hours but I was quite frustrated by not being able to even figure out the titles.

So it’s time to study some Japanese.

I’ve brushed the dust from Anki and started adding sentences. Best to try and find sentences / content from interesting sources and stave off any boredom for as long as possible.

Let’s see what we can pick up from context.

The theme of the Japan Blog Matsuri this month is Japanese Drinks and one drink in particular sprang to mind …

We were staying in a nice little hotel opposite a fire station.

On out first night there we went looking for someplace nice to eat. My wife had read about a good gyoza restaurant nearby.

I had eaten gyoza back home in Ireland and paid a small fortune for the privilege. Good Japanese food is not cheap once you go outside Japan.

We found after just a few minutes walking, it was quite close to the hotel.

gyoza restaurant

And I had worked up a thirst. I didn’t want a glass of wine ( even though I often enjoy one )
I needed a beer. I wanted to start with (at least!) half a litre of nicely chilled Japanese beer and a huge plate full of fried gyoza ((焼き餃子).

Frying is better than boiling or steaming because it feels more unhealthy and is therefore much more pleasurable.

This restaurant was gyoza heaven.

We were the only people there and it already seemed half full. There were only 4 or 5 tables in total, so when my wife mentioned that there were frequently queues outside at lunch time it was easy to believe.

She studied the menu like a military commander and ordered what seemed like one of everything – prawn, vegetable, pork, all handmade behind the tiny counter that the 2 staff worked at.

I took the opportunity to flex my puny nihongo muscles and ordered my beer. I wasn’t picky. In fact I don’t even remember
what kind of beer I asked for. Something Japanese I’m certain. The waiter / chef / owner asked with hand gestures if I wanted a large or small.

Could he not see the sweat on my brow? The only way I wasn’t getting a large beer was if they had an option for “huge” on the menu.

At first I was a little frustrated that he didn’t come back immediately with the beer. The sizzling tray of pork gyoza was first to arrive and as thirsty as I was, the power of those savoury parcels could not be undone.

Boiled and fried gyoza along with some veggie side dishes

We tucked in to crispy delicious food and before we had eaten more than 1 or 2 each another tray arrived sizzling enough to drown out the mouth-full mumbles of “Oishii”
And then I saw the beer.

A tall heavy glass with a handle and what looked like a strange design on the outside of the glass.

Ice cold in Tokyo

It turns out the only thing on the glass was a beer company logo and a crisp layer of ice.

They had not only chilled the beer but had left the glass itself in the freezer, allowing a frozen coating to build up inside and out.

Even my non beer drinking wife was impressed.

I tilted my glass and poured some of this ambrosia down my throat. The meeting of the frozen glass and the beer had left tiny invisible ice crystals that melted the instant they reached my mouth.

Worth waiting for

Beery rapture. Ice cold bliss.

I relished eating my way through ギョーザ after gyoza just to build up the need for a refreshing drink.

This is one of the greatest, most refreshing drinks I’ve ever had. But don’t trust my opinion because I did get a little bit drunk that evening

My waifu and I got married officially in Ireland. Just a small registry office ceremony with my family in attendance.
But we also had a ceremony in Japan a few months later. This allowed her family, friends and colleagues to celebrate and in a lot of cases, meet their friend’s new husband for the first time.

We had the ceremony in Ginza, Tokyo and started with a shinto style ceremony and then went on to the reception which involved lots of fancy food and drink.

We had also decided to put on a slideshow about our lives in Ireland.

We even handed out a short questionnaire for our guests so they could try and answer questions about us.

At the time I had been studying martial arts for about a year and since it happened to be a japanese martial art we thought it would be an interesting bit of info for our guests.
I was in a dojo of a martial art called Bujinkan Budo Taijitsu. This martial art was created by Masaaki Hatsumi Sensei and is a combination of a number of different schools of martial arts of which he is inheritor (soke)
A few of these schools are related to ninjitsu and so as a shorthand for people who probably had no interest in martial arts that’s what I said I was studying. Everybody’s heard of ninjitsu, right?

So we went through our slideshow filled with pictures of Dublin and came to the Ninja question.

Declan is a student of which martial art?
Judo
Karate
Jujitsu
Ninjitsu

Genuine photo from my wedding

We revealed the correct answer to an audible gasp of “eeeehhh?”

Now as far as you and I know, ninjas were highly skilled assassins who wore black and killed people with throwing stars and swords and then escaped into the night.
And they came from Japan. This much seems to be historically accurate.

But in Japan Ninjas are regarded as people of somewhat magical abilites, they are said to be able to run up walls, disappear and no doubt kill people with just the power of thought.

And I just told a room full of people that I was training to be one of them.

I might as well have said I was a professional leprechaun.

This wouldn’t have been a big deal until later in the afternoon when one of our guests asked if they could
“Have a demonstration?”

Of my ninja-ness
ninjatude
ninjality

Made up words cannot express how my testicles shrunk back into my lower body when he asked that.
I waited for the inevitable laugh, the joke. But it didn’t come. He seemed quite serious.

My wife turned and asked me if there was something I could demonstrate. A room full of eyes on me, waiting …

I didn’t feel like I could just brush this off, so I racked my brains for something I could do would at least show that I tried.

This is starting to sound like the lead up to a terrible accident in which tables collapsed and 14 people lost limbs but it’s nothing as serious as that. I merely called out a friend who I knew had studied some Aikido and together we re created some basic move typically taught in a beginners class – escaping from someone restraining your wrists.

Cameras flashed as we stepped through this simple move in my rented suit.

I knew they were completely underwhelmed and was happy to get back to something ( anything ) else but they then asked us to do it again as not everyone had captured the event on camera.

If there was a human organ of embarrassment it would have swollen Akira-style to fill the room at this stage. I really felt quite daft.

For everyone else, it was just a harmless piece of fun or their friend’s new husband being unimpressive at martial arts.

We went through a few more non embarrassing questions and then spoke to different groups of people as they wished us well and chatted about old times.

I briefly thought that I should have surprise-attacked the guy who suggested a demonstration to show him what ninjas were really like.

I was starting to get the feeling that this wasn’t that bad. Everyone was actually very kind and while I had felt really awkward it was hardly something that I needed to worry about.

It wasn’t my fault that a plain ol’ system of martial arts training happens to have the reputation of magical levitating killers from feudal Japan.

What really put things in perspective was a kindly older gent who was one of the last to approach. He was an old colleague of my wife’s and didn’t speak any English at all.

He speak to her briefly and then left.

I assumed it was just the general well wishing we’d heard from all our guests.

It turns out that he had come up to tell us that he came from a ninja family, his ancestors trained as ninjas and he said that it was very interesting to see foreigners training in some of the skills that his forebears were using hundreds of years before.

Feeling better, I walked out of the reception hall smiling at the day’s events.

but quietly, like a ninja.

This small book lies somewhere between a phrasebook and  a textbook and is what I’ve been using to study Japanese recently.

Breakthrough Japanese: 20 Mini Lessons for Better Conversation

Keeping up with Kanji

I dove back into Heisig’s remembering the Kanji today. Armed with a notebook for practising writing I went through some Kanji that I had left queued up for weeks ( months even )

I was surprised that some of them actually seemed really familiar, although some were completely baffling. I didn’t spend long practising, I’m just hoping to do little and often from now on.

Heisig Keyword 'Pierce'

Finished on this one. More to come tomorrow.

I’m pretty lazy and inconsistent when it comes to updating this blog.

*tumbleweed*

But I do have a big motivator because I’m going to Japan for a holiday at the start of March.

I’ve been really impressed with Chris Gaunt’s efforts recently as he’s been posting every day about his Japanese study. I know I probably couldn’t keep that up indefinitely  but I’m going to post something everyday about Japanese study until I leave for my holiday.

I’m not going to spend too much time on any one thing – I’m going to use AJATT’s resources and some of the books and manga that I’ve got lying around and I’ll season well with some Kanji study via Anki.

If I don’t make a post here I’ll tweet about it.

I’ve only been to Japan once before and loved it.

In March of this year I’m going for a short holiday again and I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m only going for 11 days in total so I won’t have enough time to see everything but I’m looking forward to simple things like restaurants, going to see Mt. Fuji and hopefully meeting up with some friends.

Because I’m such a newbie in Japan I’m finding it quite difficult to plan what I’m going to do there. My Waifu and I are going to an onsen and we’ll be spending some time with my in-laws who are within commuting distance of Tokyo in Kasukabe.

Since I’ll be staying with my in-laws I would like to able to speak and understand a bit more Japanese so I’ll be making an effort over the next few weeks. AJATT,  Anki and Anime.

Spending income on input

I’m thinking of buying a new laptop while I’m there – the conversion rate will be in my favour and it’d be nice to have kana on my keyboard.  I might even try a macbook pro – the trackpad allows you to write kanji with your finger and the software will recognise your scratchings. This seems like a great way to get some kanji practise while I’m in front of my laptop all day.

The other things I’m hoping to buy are manga and DVD’s. Last time in Japan I bought a copy of The Matrix and I think I’ve almost worn a groove in it by having it on in the background listening to Morpheus’ dulcet tones ( in Japanese of course )

Anyone know where I could pick up some cheap Manga? Ideally I’d be looking for someplace that has some of the most popular older stories like Nausicaa, Ghost in the Shell, Planetes or Death Note.

What would you recommend?

What things would you recommend in the Tokyo area?

Anyone know anything worth checking out in Kasukabe itself?

Anything unusual? Anything free?

Sights, Sounds, Tastes? Let me know in the comments.

I had the great pleasure of taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test this year for the first time.

It was actually the first time ever in Dublin, until now people wanting to take the test have had to go to another country, typically travelling to London. I think interest in Japanese has been steadily growing over the last few years and across all the levels there were over 100 people taking the exam in DCU ( Dublin City University )

I went for 3 kyu – Levels start at 4kyu and go all the way up to 1kyu and given the amount of study I had done ( almost none ) it was probably a bit ambitious.

I’m not a big fan of learning a language in order to be able to pass an exam, conversation and your ability to comunicate are a much better and useful indication of how good you are, but the JLPT can be a useful thing to have on your CV if you’re applying for jobs in Japan.

I’ll get my results in February and I’m not expecting much. The vocab and grammar sections I found really difficult but I thought the audio section was understandable and I think I did pretty well. The JLPT is notorious for having options in the answers thare are close to being correct but aren’t, trying to lead you astray.

The best thing to come from this was meeting some of my old classmates that I studied with and realising that I need to put insome consistent effort in order to improve. Hopefully I’ll get a bit better at sticking with the SRS and Kanji.

One of the people I was talking to at the exam mentioned that they spent a long time learning all of the Kanji “from a book” even though they were only going for 4 kyu which tests you on about 100 kanji.

Heisig?

Yes!

Did you use anki?

Yep, you must have spent some time on AJATT then.

We exchange knowing nods of agreement

Khatz at AJATT isn’t the only person recommending Heisig and an SRS but he’s had some great success with the method and his site is well worth checking out. It’s cool to see that some others are finding that it works for them too.

I’ve already posted about my reasons for never forgetting the word “Irassaimase“. I was basically sorrounded by the word and bludgeoned with it.

As strange as that experience was, it did show me that the best way to learn a language is by immersion and really experiencing it in daily life.

One of the great experiences that everyone has when learning a language is figuring out what something means just from context.

The first time my Waifu and I went on holidays together we went to Paris ( ahhh the romance ) I have only a little French and we were trying to figure out what all the options on the menu were.

I came across a dish
“Les rongnons de boeuf”
which sounded delicious ( everything does in french ) and I decided to order it. The owner, who was taking our order, clearly understod that I didn’t have a clue what I was ordering and emphasised that it was

“Les Rognons, Rognons! de boeuf – D’accord?”

Of course it was d’accord. It was something of beef, it would be delicious.

Some of you will already be aware that Rongnons de Boeuf is beef kidneys. As it happens, they were absolutely delicious and I was delighted to eat them but it certainly wasn’t what I expected.

I’ve never forgotten that particular french word because of the way I got to learn it.

It’s even possible to learn from context through movies or audio if the content is memorable enough.
Kusanagi Tsuyoshi’s (草彅 剛) character in the drama Koi ni Ochitara won a competition for a holiday in Hawaii.

Every enjoyable sight he sees on his holiday is “sugoi”
There’s a montage where he runs from the beach to the hotel to the restaurant etc just shouting “Sugoi!” at everything he sees.

SUGOI!!

Early in our relationship my (now) Waifu and I were in bed together and I was .. giving her a foot massage.
She seemed to be enjoying this foot massage and I heard her mumble something in Japanese. Thinking that it might be useful to know what she was saying in massage related situations, I later asked her what she had said.

Me: What does [my interpretation of what she said] mean?

Waifu: It’s a kind of Korean pickled cabbage.

Me: WTF???? Why did you say that when we were, y’know …

The answer?

Kimochi ii means “That feels nice” / good feeling
Kimchi is the aforementioned cabbage dish.

Unforgettable.

( and I need to work on my pronounciation )

What phrase, for better or worse, has been seared into your brain by experience? Comments below