Japanese study 2013 recap

So another year has gone by which means I’ve been studying Japanese for around 13 years now. In 2013, I encountered a little over 400 words I didn’t know while playing games, reading books, and watching TV shows. That’s more than 1 word a day! The highlight in my study materials this year for me would definitely be 逆転検事2, one of the best games I’ve played in a while. There’s still a few weeks to go before the year ends so I’m sure the list will grow a bit more before 2014 arrives but here are some highlights from my #JWOTD (Japanese word of the day) tweets.

Some funny gifs with Japanese captions
Song by popular Korean Pop group
A really good Anime series
Really racy girl’s talk
Cool song about losing touch with cellphones
Cats (of course, it’s the internet after all)
The truth behind “Heros” stealing your stuff in RPGs
Tense relations between China and Japan as usual

And here’s the full list which is pretty much useless to anybody else since you’re not seeing it in context but whatever. If you already know these words, congratulations, you knew more Japanese than me! But don’t slack off, I’m catching up!

手ずから
甲羅干し
順列
苗床
誓約
招集
陣容
たわわ
常春
餞別
簒奪
与する
素行
不埒
おためごかし
ひたむき
神々しい
潮干
へっぽこ
うわばみ
ひもじい
てんやわんや
くすねる
木箱
お払い箱
厚かましい
画期
人海戦術
要領がいい
曰く付き
ちゃんばら
方舟
見栄を張る
遠征
たわみ
灯台下暗し
錠前
希少種
えり好み
太っ腹
紆余曲折
上の空
優男
王太子
大目玉
縮図
果報
泣きじゃくる
空母
虐げる
早とちり
みそっかす
血眼
たらし込む
あだ討ち
晩酌
通せん坊
あぶれる
手向ける
運気
気弱
やっかむ
甘露
蹂躙
あか抜ける
慣わし
温床
矢先
不毛
硝煙
下戸
あしからず
くすぶる
口下手
力説
目まぐるしい
手酌
訝しい
熱りが冷める
直談判
鼻をあかす
かくかくしかじか
片手間
真っ只中
ねちねち
十把一絡
俄然
モルモット
受胎
見すぼらしい
味気ない
血縁
没個性
けばい
無理強い
空調
ゆめゆめ
灯火
謁見
尻ごみ
ほっぺたが落ちる
貞淑
臥薪嘗胆
おつむ
ほぞを噛む
端折る
尻に敷く
氾濫
雪崩を打つ
徐に
疎開
身ぐるみ
毛皮
黒点
中洲
童顔
潤ける
強か
一揆
謀反
処断
かたどる
内通
処世術
一心不乱
品評会
おあつらえ向き
報復
勝手口
お裾分け
焚火
落ち葉
どんより
洋梨
側近
いかだ
勇ましい
不躾
めげる
腰ぎんちゃく
宣う
勅命
据え置き
側近
山間部
物欲
速記
大詰め
布施
一房
ミーハー
ひがむ
住職
難聴
所作
気品
歪曲
さいなむ
品行方正
動悸
虚弱
仮初
茶々を入れる
切磋琢磨
切望
断裁
ひっぺがす
男女兼用
際限
耳年増
弾圧
倹約
相容れない
為政者
侮蔑
不仲
無節操
ないがしろにする
座右
淫蕩

嫡子
奸計
がさつ
卑猥
慟哭
お熱
誑かす
言い負かす
大儀
所以
法度
時化
結納
こき下ろす
ひしゃげる
空前
復元力
ずらかる
試供品
デッサン
釘を刺す
あらまし
ほのめかす
袋小路
耳打ち
うなじ
風見鶏
知能犯
根絶やし
メリハリ
玉の輿
舞踏会
異な
そこかしこ
おめおめ
悪食
眷属
馬子にも衣装
筆舌に尽くし難い
発破をかける
殊勝
きな臭い
唐変木
逆上
破魔矢
蟷螂の斧
古今東西
しきたり
生き字引
首っ丈
見掛け倒し
とんぼ返り
ひづめ
抵触
背に腹はかえられない
朴念仁
猫を被る
憂さ晴らし
不本意
放心状態
しからば
シュプール
好敵手
あやかる
不適合
万遍なく
ピアニカ
背徳
一家言
清々しい
猿ぐつわ
鎌をかける
阿鼻叫喚
藁にもすがる
癒着
ほのめかす
諸説
玉砕
おもむろに
たぶらかす
ジト目
これみよがし
聞こえよがし
蛇足
虫の息
どぎまぎ
満身創痍
ほの字
ひとりよがり
無知蒙昧
いまわ
とび蹴り
荒くれ者
鼻息が荒い
手負い
かんざし
ふてぶてしい
あっぱれ
かいつまむ
うらぶれる
むざむざ
大甘
極めつけ
腹をくくる
ほざく
素知らぬ顔
不承不承
居直る
絵空事
のらりくらり
オウム
紙ふぶき
恩恵
堂に入る
闇夜
顔負け
上げ底

日の丸
ふさぎこむ
したたか
活路
殴り書き
謝辞
反古
弘法にも筆の誤り
息急き切る
変質者
見境ない
肺活量
こそすれ
狩猟
ひた走る
よじ登る
踏みしめる
四肢
鋭角
非対称
ちぐはぐ
光沢
目測
優に
然とした
夜目
件(くだん)
まやかし
初夜
波及
せしめる
爆散
親和性
重き
触手
顛末
湿る
宮仕え
醸成
帳消し
亘る
触腕
無量大数
挿絵
円錐
えげつない
反骨
わりかし
通信簿
食傷気味
醸す
魂胆
海千山千
老獪
わきあいあい
痴れ言
好事家
爛々
眼福
目の正月
かぶりつき
じゅるり
去来
面構え
詮無い
淡白
咀嚼
まがりなりにも
僥倖
鉄アレイ
美味
一縷
比肩
鑑別所
辛気臭い
もこもこ
勘ぐる
のろし
ならず者
裁量
咽び泣く
すぼめる
河岸を変える
悦に入る
胸中
患う
見境
にわかじこみ
あべこべ
間隙
野方図
捻れる
長大
木霊
声帯
起死回生
謄本
坪数
覿面
炸裂
のたうち回る
根性焼き
陰湿
墨汁
賭する
琴線
年端も行かない
みぞれ
たゆたう
移ろう
輝度
凄む
無窮

A year and 300+ words later…

Wow, it’s been over a year already since I started tweeting a new word a day (almost daily minus weekends). So 300+ words later, let’s take a moment to reflect.

Looking back, it’s kind of shocking how many words I didn’t know. But then again, I’ll probably feel the same way looking back at the next 300 words I learn. For example, I tweeted 「処方」 back in 2011/11/2 and I had a Skype conversation (via mixxer) recently with a 「薬剤師」. I can’t believe I didn’t know those words till last year.

I also recently remembered 「男尊女卑」 and I see that I tweeted this way back in 2011/11/11 so I’m pretty happy about that.

I always learn new words in context and so I got to catch up to quite a bit of culture by searching for additional usages online. These words originally come from books I’m reading (huh? you mean on dead trees?), chatting locally and online (wha? like with… people?), games, shows online (Hulu/Youtube), and various podcasts.

For example, I learned the expression 「二進も三進も」 while playing FF13 (I used my phone to save the word). Much later (in this case several months), I look for other stuff online from my list that uses the same vocab like this.

Catching up on culture

Here are some highlights from my Twitter feed.

そばかす – Song from the 90s
(Lots of) Vocaloid and 東方 music
SKE48, AKB48
ニコニコ
Minecraft
Anime
Manga
TV
Weird commercial
Politics
2012 was a leap year

Looking back, 300+ words is actually a pretty small list. I still have over 600 stocked up that I have learned to various degrees in the last year. Us language learners have to do a lot of memorizing. 🙂

I feel sorry for those learning from just flash cards, classes, and textbooks. Real life is so much more interesting.

Word of the day

If you’ve been following my twitter account, you may have noticed that I’ve been posting a new word along with an example sentence and a link to the source material every day for the past few weeks. I wanted to see if I could keep up with it before I blogged about it. So far, it’s been really easy to take a few minutes out of the day to pick a word, search for something using that word, and post something on twitter every day.

What I haven’t mention yet is that each word I pick is a word I just learned personally. Usually, I pick a word from my dictionary history, which has things I looked up recently while reading books or listening to podcasts and then search around for something online that uses that word. It’s actually more for myself than anything as it allows me to review a word I just learned in a different context. At first, it annoyed me that I couldn’t just add a bunch and schedule them to appear later on twitter. But it’s actually helping me to memorize the word because it may be a few days after I learned it that I actually post it. As fans of SRS know, it’s best to not think about a word for a while before conjuring it up again.

If you’d like to try your own WOTD on twitter, post a link to your account in the comments so I can follow you. Don’t just post the word though (which is same as looking it up in the dictionary). Try to find a sentence that uses the word and post a link to the source.

What I’m listening to now

Want to feel dumb? Then listen to this podcast where a middle-school student discusses a diverse range of topic such as 電力自由化, the electricity market (PX), derivatives, M&A, and LED. I especially liked vol94 and learned a lot about the electricity exchange. Check it out!

http://itunes.apple.com/jp/podcast/id291600295?l=en

When I was in middle-school, all I remember doing was fooling around and play games. Not to mention trying to survive through middle-school.

What I’m watching now

I found this fairly interesting video podcast the other day. It’s a Japanese cooking show about Korean food. Talk about being multicultural!

I already learned a new word: 「長蛇」. I had no idea that the on-yomi of 「へび」 is 「ダ」. I love how Japanese TV shows emphasize things said by showing it in large text on the screen. Makes it real easy to learn new words.

What I’m reading today

So while I have a physical book to read in convenient locations around the house (such as certain locations where I get to sit undisturbed for a few minutes *ahem*), I like to have something online to read as well in case I don’t happen to have a book on me. I figured it was finally time to start reading some of the more famous Japanese literature works. I tried to read 「こころ」 before but it was too depressing for me to get very far. Now, I am reading 「吾輩は猫である」 and I’m enjoying it a lot more.

I also got the Android app to get these ebooks from 「青空文庫」. Unfortunately, the mobile version doesn’t seem to have the handy furigana text, which is too bad because this is fairly challenging reading even with the modern kana and kanji conversions (such as いう instead of いふ). There’s tons of Kanji I’m not familiar with, too many to list here but here’s an interesting sentence:

吾輩の尊敬する筋向(すじむこう)の白君などは逢(あ)う度毎(たびごと)に人間ほど不人情なものはないと言っておらるる

Apparently, 言っておらるる is the equivalent to 言っておられる. I’m not too far into the story yet but I’m enjoying it so far. I like cats and this book doesn’t seem as depressing as 「こころ」. I’ve got a couple novels I’m going through now so this will probably be my last blog post on what I’m reading for a while. But I think I’ve introduced a number of resources with tons of reading material so please share interesting things you’ve read or are reading in the comments!

Difficult: 4.5/5 (with 新字新仮名)
My Rating: Will update later

What I’m reading today

So apparently, while I was busy with life (new job, new family member, etc.), the next Haruhi book came out over a month ago. For those of you non-anime fans, 「涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱」 has been the hottest thing probably since Evangelion. Actually, you don’t have to be an anime fan because the stories originally come from novels.

I bought the latest volume: 「涼宮ハルヒの驚愕」, which has finally come out after 4 years of delay. So actually, I’m going to be reading the previous book again just so I can remember the story. To give you a taste of what the books are like, here’s the first sentence from the first volume. The sentence is so wordy it’s also the first paragraph. So that should give you an idea of the writing style.

サンタクロースをいつまで信じていたかなんてことは、たわいもない世間話にもならないくらいのどうでもいい話だが、それでも俺がいつまでサンタなどという想像上の赤服じーさんを信じていたかと言うと、これは確信を持って言えるが、最初から信じてなどいなかった。

The anime starts off the same way as well so you can hear the first couple lines of the book.

If you don’t happen to have a Japanese bookstore handy nearby, it looks like you can order it online. I haven’t tried ordering from the site myself so that’s for you to try.

I personally really enjoy the books. It has a nonlinear narrative, which I always like (my favorite novel is Catch-22) and it’s further complicated by the time traveling bits. Plus, with 11 books in the series so far (last one is split in 2), there’s plenty of reading material!

Difficulty: 4/5
My rating: 5/5

What I’m reading today

Lately, I’ve been spending some time trying to improve my writing skills in Japanese, which definitely needs some more work. What’s the first step to improving writing skills? By reading of course! So I’ll be sharing with you guys what I’m reading right now on the internet.

I’ve been trying to find some interesting short stories on this online literature magazine called 「破滅波」. I just learned a new expression today: 「音を上げる」 and here 「音」 is read as 「ね」 not 「おと」. It’s from a story called 「僕はガードマン」:

ガードマンという仕事は肉体的にも精神的にもとても疲れる。アルバイト情報誌で時給の高さに惹かれてやってはみたものの、あまりの過酷さに音を上げる毎日だった。

Unfortunately, it’s in Flash so I’ve been using the IME drawing pad to look up Kanji.

One word I thought might be tricky is on page 8:

これは対応を誤ると大事になる。

Here, a group of yakuza is approaching the guardman. By context, 「大事」 doesn’t mean “important” and instead should mean “a big matter” so it should be read as 「おおごと」 and not 「だいじ」.

It’s a fairly short story in an ordinary everyday life setting about how the supposed best people in society act in the worst way and vice-versa.

New Kanji (for me): 憤
Category: Everyday life observations
Difficulty: 3/5
My rating: 3/5 stars

Feel free to share any interesting reading you’ve come across.

話題の重要さ

レッスンを始めてから、最近より効率よく日本語を教えることについてよく考えている。生徒のレベルと習い方がバラバラで、やはり個別のレッスンにしてよかったと再確認した。レベルによって教え方は当然変わるが、最終目的は変わらない。それは、もっと色んなことについて話してもらうことだ。

「こういうことは、日本語でどう表現しますか?」日本語を勉強するには、それが一番重要な質問だと思う。自分の思いを表現しようとして、どのように言えばいいかわからない時、日本語が出来る人からすぐに教えてもらう。これこそが、日本語能力が上達している時だ。しかし、一般的な日本語の授業では、そういう質問をする機会がほとんどない。(まったくないと言ってもいいぐらい。)なぜなら、授業では習っている表現や単語があらかじめ決まっているからだ。「こんなことを教えるから、それを練習する」というやり方だ。

「ケーキは好きです?」と生徒に聞いたら、答えはほぼ決まっている。「はい、好きです」と「いいえ、好きじゃありません」と答えるしかない。クラスでは複数の人がいるから、もっと自由な答えをする時間もない。そうやって練習してきた生徒は始めて本当の会話で自分の思いを浮かべようとしたら、何も出てこない。適切な表現と単語と文法を知っていても、どれを使えばいいかわからない。授業では、そういう練習を全くしないからだ。

だから、私のレッスンではもっと自由に話をしてもらうようにしている。「ケーキは小さいころ好きだったけど、大人になってからは甘すぎてあんまり好きじゃない。でも、日本に行った時、そんなに甘くないケーキがあると知って、また好きになったよ。また日本に行って、ショートケーキを食べたいな。私が住んでいるところの駅の近くにすごいおいしいケーキ屋さんがあった。そういえば、その隣のパン屋さんのメロンパンもおいしかったな!」と、そのような話を聞きだせるようにレッスンを構成している。

そのためには、常に会話が盛り上がれるような話題を考えている。それは、もちろん生徒によって違うから、やっぱり個別レッスンにしてよかったと思う。

Breathe… relax… you don’t have to know it all

A short post today since real life is starting to be more demanding and clamoring for attention.

Today, I learned a new word: 【準える】

I’m always surprised to see a completely new word based on a Kanji that I’ve probably known for well over 6 years. 「準備」 was probably one of the first few words I learned with Kanji (it helped that the same word in Korean sounds identical). I later picked up other words such as 「基準」、「水準」、「標準」、and 「準決勝」. Later on, I even picked up more advanced vocabulary such as 「準じる」 and the older style: 「準ずる」. And now, after over 8 years since I started studying Japanese, I just learned a completely different word based on the same Kanji.

Another similar example happened to me several years ago with 「集う」, which as far as I can tell is virtually identical to 「集まる」 except used like almost never. At that time, I came upon the word at a local community event at 「川口市」 called 「新年の集い」.

The moral of the story is: don’t worry about learning everything about a given Kanji at once. Relax, give it time, and learn things in context as you go. And whatever you do, DO NOT try to remember all the readings at once. You’ll eventually get to all the various readings and associated vocabulary in time. It might take over 8 years but hey, I’ve been using Japanese happily all these years without knowing 「準える」 precisely because it’s so rare to see it used anywhere.

As an interesting aside, 「なずらえる」 seems to have 3 possible kanji: 「準える・准える・擬える」 but the 「なぞらえる」 reading seems to only accept 「準える」. Probably a modern upgrade, as indicated by older usage of 「ず」 (similar to 「生ずる」、「準ずる」、etc).