LINGUATHON!

Tomorrow is the LINGUATHON! :D And I am sooo excited!

The Linguathon is pretty much a language (learning) marathon where you pick your language to focus on and a target to reach at the end of the month. You can even find a study buddy to help you along.

Soo... my target language will be JAPANESE and I'm going to learn 80 "1st grade" characters in a month. I've had this book for, really, EVER and I've kept it until I thought I could understand how to properly use it because... it can't be simple. With the kanji -or the chinese-based, fancy script- you have to learn the individual meaning, how to pronounce it by itself, then in a compound, and then you must learn a couple of compounds.

The goal seems both reachable, but challenging... and incredibly exciting :)



Above is what the schedule looks like. The quizzes are after six kanji, and the test go over the last three quiz material. And then there's a finally review @.@ Obviously, I'll be rather busy for awhile on just this, but I'll pop in every now and then~ :P

Just to tell you all the new stuff I find, LIKE!

My favourite actors names translated XD
Robin Williams's name in Japanese reads Robin Uiriamusu - ロビン・ウィリアムス
Johnny Depp is Jyoni Deppu - ジョニー・デップ
And Jackie Chan is Jyakki Chen - ジャッキー・チェン - but his Chinese birth name was Chan Kong-sang (陳港生) , but, of course, he goes by Jackie Chan (成龍) now x)

Well, then, that's all for now. I'm going to go relax and play me some Neopets! :D

Update - Much Sooner than Expected

Yesterday, I worked on Japanese vocabulary and verbs.

Today, I read Spanish kids books.

-Le oruga muy hambrienta (The Hungry Caterpillar) by Eric Carle
-Huevos verdes con jamón (Green Eggs and Ham) Dr. Seuss

Interestingly enough, it's not "Sam, I am" or by any translation in the Spanish version, but it's that the bugger is Juan Ramón and the line is "No, no me gustan nada, Juan Ramón. No, no me gustan nada los huevos verdes con jamón" or "I don't like them, Juan Ramón, I do not like green eggs and ham." Hum...

I feel.. accomplished :)

flibabläsuuu NO MORE NUMBAS

-The above is only a word in the dictionary of Mad Girl-

I said I did another ASL language video right? See, I did that. And many other things that I'll never post up here from sheer laziness.

At the library, I snagged some Spanish books. The first was a romance novel - beyound me why I chose that. I was thinking it would be simple - but having no motivation for that, I checked out some children's books instead. (Seuss and that hungry caterpillar fellow)

And, recently, a friend of mine offered to give me Japanese lessons and we will be attempting to converse in Japanese ONLY.

As for today:
JAPANESE ONLY!

*I learned that my dog's name would be ローザ in Japanese. How cool is that?

*亜米利加　is The United States of America, but it is mostly written in kana (アメリカ). I was greatly amused by what each individual character read as: Asia / rice / profit / increase. Hmm...

*米人, by the way, is American, but pronounced べいじん　or Beijin. One letter off of Beijing... interesting... but it's probably more common to see アメリカじん or Amerikajin. The "jin" ending, by the way, shows nationality. :)

~ I also started a flashcard set from Anki with 1st grade Kanji and came across　阿　which essentially looks like the letters "BAJ" (if I have the right kanji ._.;;) Looks like it means Africa...

AND FOR SOME GOOD NEWS~
I just realized that I'm totally rocking Kanji with my stroke order and general appearance. Seriously... fucking beautiful x) It's not perfect, yet, but I feel like it's definitely not too bad for never having a formal class.

JAPANESE STUDENTS! Bookmark Tangorin, a comprehensive and free Japanese dictionary that I just found <3

IN FUTURE POSTS
Apologies!
Crying!
Narcissism!
And most importantly... LINKS!

Toodles and kisses and luff and hugs!

-sigh-

Okay, seriously, I couldn't even log into this account for awhile because, it... just... ARGH! DAMN YOU, GOOGLE!

But now is the time to atone for the sins of neglecting this blog. So, to catch you up...

I bought a book on Turkish food /with cultural notes/ and a book on Thai Grammar. A few weeks ago, I also picked up a cheap guide to the Arabic language. So off I go, now adding in Arabic, and trying to also commit Hindi into my brain. I also watched another Signing Time video today... apparently the library has the entire set ^o^

And! GOOD NEWS! I took a last minute Spanish placement test - and scored into class 201! Yush! For studying a day beforehand, not too shabby, eh? (And I had to relearn even the present verb endings, not to mention preterite, imperfect and present progressive - YAY ME)

So, to make a nice little list, I'm pursuing:
-Japanese //I know the kana alphabets, I'm learning kanji and grammar
-Spanish //reviewing, perfecting
-Arabic //the alphabet
-Hindi //the alphabet here too
-ASL //whatever I can get out of those kids' videos.
-Italian //through IM sessions with an Italian friend

I also intend to learn a little bit of Russian [pretty much the alphabet], Swedish -I want to visit my friend in Sweden, and stay for 3-6 months-, and, well, I guess Thai, and I definitely want to learn the Greek alphabet... And maybe even Croatian, because I even have a book on THAT. Someday, I plan to brush up on the year of French I have, just so it doesn't go to waste, but I'm not really interested in it. And as for Portuguese, the one romance language I seem to have neglected of the group, I don't have much of a pull for that one, but... we'll see.

Toodles!
[And thanks to Layla for her kind comments! When I learn how to reply back, I shall!

007

Thought you'd catch me with my pants down? Well, HA! I did something today, too!

I checked out a DVD on ASL - we seem to have the first three volumes in our library.

Words I've learned~
Volume One
eat, milk, water, ball, more, bird, cat, dog, fish, car, airplane, want, shoes, flower, mom, dad, baby, sleep
Volume Two
friend, play, train, bike, bear, please, share, your turn, my turn, thank you, book, read, socks, yes, no, thirsty, drink, dirty, clean, potty, wash hands, bath, hurt, sorry, stop, go, wait, grandma, grandpa
Volume Three
hungry, apple, cookie, cereal, banana, bread, cheese, cracker, ice cream, candy, help, full, hot, cold, wet, dry, like, don't like, day, sun, night, moon, stars, happy, laugh, sad, cry, boy, girl

YAY :D

Also, this is how you say Happy Birthday according to Winnie the Pooh:
HIPY PAPY BTHUTHPTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY.

006

Whew! I've been so busy studying that I couldn't post (._.;)

Well, seriously, I've (secretly) printed out more Japanese song lyrics:
-"Teru Teru Momiji" (Fruits Basket)
-"Shining Collection" (Gravitation)
-"Sleepless Beauty" (Gravitation)
-"Soramimi Cake" (Azumanga Daioh)
-"D-technolife" (Bleach)
-"Silent Wind" (Argentosoma)

The Drill:
1. Pick songs from Anime Lyrics that don't annoy me.
2. Print them when no one is looking
3. Mark in highlighter in the romaji where HIRAGANA is used, where KATAKANA is used, and where ENGLISH is used. Assume all else is kanji.
4. Mark a dot over words that are familiar. Look up the rest.
5. In blank space, attempt to draw the newly learned kanji; label with romaji and meaning.

That's not all:
I've *secretly* printed out my kanji chart; kanji/english/hiragana to study on the go.

And then I rented a couple of movies~
01. Aitraaz/ ऐतराज़ ((I can only recognize the word "dostana" and "aitraaz", but immersion supposedly helps, so there...))
02. All Thing's Fair/Lust och fägring stor ((Swedish. Immersion always counts.))
03. Whisper of the Heart/耳をすませば ((one of those Studio Ghibli movies))
[note that it's the English title first, then the original. #2+#3 are not direct translations]

As it so happens, one of the phrases I've got down pat in Japanese is:
此れは猫のステエです。
This is a cat steak.

But that's just one of them ;D

~Séthe

005

I've accomplished nothing more, but read French subtitles for the movie I'm watching (<>) BOO!

004

I'm starting an informal online course, which has a layout that I was looking for - sentence formulas, and examples that look equally useful - for Japanese, btw. (Except the sentences aren't in Japanese, but the romanization.) And, well, okay, I started it at one in the morning, and I spent the rest of the day sleeping, eating, then listening to my friend speaking in Swedish over Ventrilo. (Immersion. It counts.) But this Japanese and Swedish makes for a somewhat successful report.

The Japanese Lessons: http://www.japanippon.com/japanese/lesson_1.htm
The Swede: -n/a-

~私わセイシです。
~これわブログです。

~Séthe

003

So many Japanese movies and dramas I want to watch, but ironically, no time during Spring Break! Family's coming down, a friend moved in, etc. etc.

However, I *did* start studying some songs I used to listen to by finding the kanji version, the romanji, and the English translation. Then noting when I see the frequency of hiragana, katakana, or just plain English and if I can recognize kanji, or figure them out with the translation. (I printed these lovely copies at school. Bad me.)

So far I've found and noted~
-"Vanilla" by Gackt
-"Kiseki no Houtei/Court of Miracles" [From The Hunchback of Notre Dame]
-"Goddo Herupu/God Help The Outcasts" [from The Hunchback of Notre Dame]
-"Tenshi ga Boku ni/Tsumi no Honoo//Heaven't Light/Hellfire" [from The Hunchback of Notre Dame]
-"Boku no Negai/Out There" [from The Hunchback of Notre Dame]
-"Catch You, Catch Me"[from Cardcaptor Sakura]

I also have~
-"Tsuki no Uta" by Gackt
-"19 sai" [from xxxHOLiC]

I've highlighted instances of English (YELLOW!), Katakana (BLUE!), and Hiragana (PINK!). And I'm starting to recognize the kanji for anata/you and boku/I. I also learned to not use Gackt as a teacher... but you take what you can get.

That's totally not slacking.

002

Idag är tisdag.

Which is about as much learning/practice that I got today. I'm also watching Higurashi: When The Cry on Hulu (for Hulu is one of my gods), but, alas, the animé is the English DUB.

Which makes this mostly a fail post.

._.;

-Séthe

Report 001

Today, I ignored the fact that I was supposed to finish a book for English and jumped onto Hulu. I watched the latest for Scrubs - and used Spanish closed captioning, which makes it all a learning experience. (Yeah...) And then I jumped over to Destination: Bollywood, which is an up-and-coming Bollywood American Idol sort of thing. I mean, they have their own, but this one is hosted in America and it's low-budget... but very educational for Hindi learners. (Or people that really like music ._.;)

Then, because I'm not swamped in emails enough as it is, I set up a thing on a linguistic community (link to come later) that lists International artists in one post - for neatness. And since I made it, I have to work with it. It's rather fun ~ I even learned a new term: Nederpop (Dutch popular music). I didn't know that term existed, because I assumed Europe's pop all went under Europop. And then there's JPOP and KPOP that I can recall, and just pop here in America.

Old habits die hard also today. I tried watching an episode of an animé today- デュラララ・ Durarara. Not sure if I like it - but hearing the familiar babble in Japanese was relaxing. A friend referred me to the site so I could watch Weiss sometime (and, therefore, understand her fanfiction)*

Well, the site has a sister site that hosts Japanese dramas, and let's just say:

だぃ すき... キミ7ぺット ! ! ♥

Because they have KIMI WA PETTO!

I wonder if those dramas will become my next addiction? This is totally not a waste of my time - It's all about the Immersion and the Japanese and I'm totally learning things. Sure...

And, hey, do you see my Japanese kana writing? I'm fairly certain that the second bit doesn't read as "I love... Kimi Wa Petto!!" but you can't blame a girl for trying. And she will. Now that she's figured out how to convert her keyboard into the IME Japanese input system. (It's fabulous) My keyboard, otherwise, is entirely in International setting, dates and all. It's so... lovely.

See you lovelies later! =(-.^)=
Séthe

*I'm amused by the mere fact that Flagfox says the website is from the Netherlands. First that, then Nederpop? I see a trend...

This is My Blog

This is my blog, and I'm mad enough to believe someone will want to follow it. :]

As an American, I felt extremely sheltered to the rest of the world. So I'm going to catalog on two separate topics:
(1) Culture - and what I learn
(2) Languages - and how far I'm progressing in them

Culture posts will be absolutely random, but the languages may be contained with the ones that I'm actually learning~ Spanish, Swedish, Italian, Japanese and Hindi. (Didn't I say I was mad?) And whilst I am showing off, I'm sure you will learn a few things yourself :]

Onward!