End of Semester Blog Entry Revisions!

こんにちは！

I found a few mistakes in my previous blog posts:

1. The past negative form for い adjectives is くなかった not くないかった.

2. Connecting nouns require usage of と, such as in my self introduction post from the beginning of the year.

3. On my post with the guitar tabs, when indicating "like" for a song, the proper particle to use should be が: 私はこの歌が好きですから...

I fixed some other mistakes, but these were the major ones.

良いお年を!

秋休みにニューヨークに行きましたよ

みなさん、こんばんは！

この秋休みに両親と一緒にニューヨークに行きました。授業がありませんから両親が僕に飛行機で行きましたよ。テキサス州からニュージャージー州まで飛行機で3時間半ぐらいかかります。このマップを見てください。

ニューヨークはとても賑やかでしたよ。私たちは美味しい食べ物を食べにここに行きました。だから晩ご飯後に日本のレストランで食べました。あのレストランは日本式に料理をしましたよ。それを食べましたね、いわしと酒とイクラどんですよ：

とても美味しかったです！「あぶりやきんおすけ」に行って見てください。

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秋休みは早く終わりました。でも、両親と会って嬉しかったです。クリスマスの休みまで会いません。

じゃね〜

進歩の評価

My goals for this years were simply put:

1. Speak like a native in terms of fluency of tone, speed of conversation, as well as plenty of confidence.

2. Improve my handwriting.

3. Be able to get around in Japan.

I am halfway through this semester, and so it is important to evaluate my progress.

1. Even though this may sound overly ambitious, the point here isn't that I become a native. But rather, as I have put it above, the point is to simply speak as if I am very comfortable with the language. Considering I still have about 6 weeks to realize this goal, I think I am on the right track. My PE exercises have been getting good feedback, and my speaking feels more and more natural. I have not found enough time to listen to Japanese via other mediums outside of class, however, so I will need to find time to do that.

2. My handwriting improved a lot. It is actually already much prettier than my Korean, so I am happy with my progress. My Chinese is still prettier, though, but I think I can change that by the end of the semester. Maybe then I should work on the other languages. It is important to have good handwriting!

3. I am planning to study abroad in Japan this summer, therefore this is especially important to me. I have never been there and so I want to make sure that when I finally find the chance to, it will be an experience where I can get the absolute most out of it. One small additional effort that I am attempting is to skip out of year one 2nd semester + year two 1st semester, that way I enter spring semester as a second year student. This, however, will be difficult, and so I am just trying my best. I am making good progress, though.

Here's to another 楽しい 6 weeks!

自己紹介

こんにちは (　＾∇＾)ノ

それは僕の自己紹介です！どうぞよろしく〜

https://soundcloud.com/jsohn-23025810/self-intro/s-pqxlI

一緒に練習しましょう

前前前世 - RADWIMPS

この時にテストがたくさんあります…
でもこの歌が好きですからギターを練習します。難しくないですよ。

TABLATURE をダウンロードします〜

じゃ！

好きな歌 #1

Back Number - 花束

...
それなら何回だって
何十回だって
謝るし感謝の言葉も
きっと忘れないから
君とならどんな朝も
夜も夕方だって
笑い合って生きて
いけるんじゃないかと思うんだよ

どう思う?これから2人で
やっていけると思う?
んんどうかなぁでも
とりあえずは
僕は君が好きだよ

How many times, how many many times?
I can't forget all the thankful, regretful words
If I'm with you I can live smiling
every morning, night and evening
That's what I think

What do you think? Can we be together?
Mmm dunno anyway for the moment
I love you

Notes and Resource on い and な 形容詞 (Adjectives)

Covered い adjectives a few lessons ago.
Here is the general conjugation list for both い and な adjectives:

-い adjectives-

Nonpast Affirmative (い)
高いビル。
Nonpast Negative (くない)
高くないビル。
Past Affirmative (かった)
高かったビル。
Past Negative (くなかった)
高くなかったビル。

-な adjectives-

Formal:

Nonpast Affirmative (な＋です)
きれいな人。
Past Affirmative (な＋でした)
きれいな猫でした。
Nonpast Negative (な＋ではありません)
犬はきれいではありません。
Past Negative (な＋ではありませんでした)
人はきれいではありませんでした。

Causal:

Nonpast Affirmative (だ)
魚が好きだ。
Past Affirmative (だった)
魚が好きだった。
Nonpast Negative (じゃない)
魚が好きじゃない。
Past Negative (じゃなかった)
魚が好きじゃなかった。

Adjective Vocabulary:
Practice the most common 62 い adjectives and 23 な adjectives here.

Happy learning!

Students from Kanazawa! 歓迎(かんげい)する!

みなさんこんばんは、

Yesterday, I had a really cool opportunity to meet Japanese high school students from いずみがおかこうこう,  or Izumigaoka High School, from いしかわ、かなざわ (Ishikawa, Kanazawa). Before the meeting, I looked up where their high school was located:

I hope I got the school title correctly! It seems to be in the southern side of 金沢市, western coast of Japan.

There were about 40 students in total, and after a brief talk given by Makino sensee, we had a short time to converse with the students. I ate all my received snacks now (I regret not taking pictures), but they were so good and the students were so kind and easy to talk to despite the language barriers. Their abilities in English was really good to hear, and I was inspired to work harder on my own progress with their language. I wish the time to converse had been longer.

However simple the topics were, the conversations made me happy because in a short time of 4 weeks I have gained a new ability.

ラーメンが好きですか？

This blog is slowly getting taken over by food posts already...
ごめんなさい！

This 10 minute long documentary of a ramen business in Japan is very cool to watch:

日本の料理(りょうり - cuisine)が大好きですよ。私はラーメンを食べたい...

食べましょう！

こんにちは！

One of my closest friend really loves Japanese food, and he recommend I check out this Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/tastemade_japan/?hl=en

Some entries (click to zoom!):

And some more...

And some more...

If you have an Instagram and love Japanese food as much as I do, definitely follow it for daily recipe and tasty Japanese foods~

On another note, we learned a few verbs for the first time in class today, including:

• たべます -- to eat
• ねます -- to sleep
• のみます -- to drink
• よみます -- to read
• おきます -- to get up
• べんきょうします -- to (do) study
• きます -- to come
• いきます -- to go

among others. With the introduction of verbs, we can say so much now~

---

The title of my post 食べましょう has a kanji 食 (meaning food) which replaces the た in たべます. The latter part, ましょう translates to "Let's..." in English, so together, we have:

食べましょう！＝Let's eat!

Hence the content of the Instagram page~

(Realistic) Goals!

For my first year of Japanese at Princeton, I have a few goals! By the end of the year, I would like to...

1. speak like a native. This does not mean I have the vocabulary nor the grammar level of a native per se, but rather that when I speak, the phrases and sentences I do know come out as if a native said it. This means accurate rhythm, pronunciation, speed, and also grammar. This can be done by paying greater attention to all parts of the homework, especially the eNunciate as well as the Shibata sensee's feedback on my speaking. I will also attend Japanese table 3 times a month; I really enjoyed it.

2. improve my handwriting. I have been told many times in this class that in Japan, handwriting is very important, to the extent that "one's personality is shown through one's writing". While I'm sure that reality is not that drastic, having a beautiful handwriting will help me appreciate Japanese even more. A few ways to do this is to take a few minutes to practice everyday, whether that be taking greater attention writing every character in the workbook, or even have individual writing practices on my own. Once I reach a higher level where I can write more than just a few phrases, I will start writing in person.

3. learn enough Japanese to be able to get around in Japan. Not only in the language but also culturally aware as well. Certain anime might help with this, plus weekly watching of Japanese movies.

Self Introduction

おはようございます〜

はじめまして、わたしは「Jae」です。わたしはプリンストンだいがくのがくせいです、にねんせいです。わたしのせんこうはけいざいです。わたしのにほんごのせんせいはさとうせんせいとしばたせんせいととくますせんせいです。

I wonder how I can combine independent sentences using conjunctions? That would help my introduction reduce its clunkiness.

One full week into the class now-- so far really enjoying it. We have finished learning all of the ひらがな, and although I knew them already, it was still nice to see しばた 先生 write them out on the board. The workbook exercises are simple but useful; my handwriting has improved considerably already. It has been ages since I've watched any anime, but maybe it's time to start again so I can practice listening. Any suggestions?

Besides basic greetings, we have also learned numbers, the time, various majors, as well as particles. I have had the same thought years ago when I started self-studying, but the similarities between Japanese with Korean and Chinese is truly astounding, as my teachers have told me. Particle-by-particle I can match up Korean and Japanese, and obviously looking at various kanji (Chinese characters) I am able to know the meaning (although the pronunciation is different). For example, the particle は in Japanese seems to match up perfectly with the usage of the Korean particle 는. On the other hand, the particle が seems to be 가, and か seems to be 까. The last two example, they even sound similar: ga/ka, ka/gga. As for kanji, the Japanese word for student, 学生 (gakusee), derives directly from the Chinese word for student, which is also written as 学生 (xue2 sheng1). So seeing a new kanji, I can roughly figure out the meaning, although the pronunciation is unknown. It's amazing to see such connections, and I'm sure I'll come across much more through my studies!!

じゃ、また

にほんごのクラス

私はジェイです、初めまして！

I am starting a Japanese course (JPN 101) this semester as a second year student at Princeton University. As a Korean who grew up in China, I have always been interested in Japanese culture as well as East Asian culture as a whole. I am really excited to start learning a new language, although the little bit of past knowledge will surely help me. Also, I hope my proficiency in Korean and Chinese will make this even more interesting and help me "connect the dots". I am juggling 5 courses at once, so it will be a lot of effort for me but I am sure it will be worth the time.

どうぞよろしく！