My other classmates received their letters much earlier than I did, so I got a little worried about whether I actually made a slight mistake in the address field. Thankfully, I was only acting paranoid, and the mail eventually arrived today.
Tag Archive for 'Japanese'
After reading Lupus’ post on watching raws and watching subtitled anime, his listing of reasons prompted me to put on my thinking cap. Why have I been watching raws?
There are a couple of reasons as to why I’ve been watching most of my media raw, as compared to watching with the aid of English or Chinese subtitles. Now, before I get the “Hey, stop showing off that you understand moonspeak” comments, let me assure you that my grasp of the language is by no means proficient, unlike Lupus who understands 83% of what he watches, since I’ve only been studying it for slightly more than a year. My level is probably even lower than that of the average Japanese middle school teenager.
Due to my trip to Japan, I missed 4 lessons and had to attend 4 other makeup sessions. The first session began yesterday. It was my first time entering the new class with a new teacher and strangers as classmates.
My friend had to head to his part-time job again, so I settled dinner at an okonomiyaki shop nearby. It turned out that a surprise was awaiting me.
While I was waiting outside the shop for a seat, there was this family waiting too. A shop attendant came out to take orders, and when it came to my turn, I had to reveal the fact that I wasn’t Japanese. It was really nice of the shop attendant to speak slowly so that I could understand what he was trying to ask.
At the time this post is published, the exchange students from HITP will already be slacking comfortably in their homes back in Hiroshima, so the title’s lagging.
On Monday night, together with our Japanese friends, we left the school apartment and headed for Changi Airport to bid them farewell before they head back home. This is probably the first time I’ve sent friends off at the airport, since I left for my Japan trip in late March before the previous batch of students from Kumamoto did. Most of the time, I’m at the airport either to leave the country, or to welcome someone.
Surprisingly, no one cried. I guess it’s because there were no female Japanese students. Hur Hur.
As briefly mentioned in my previous post, I hosted a Japanese student who came all the way from a Polytechnic in Hiroshima, Japan, over the weekends. It was a rather good opportunity to practice some casual Japanese, as well as to expand my contacts.
It turned out that my homestay student studies Architecture, practices boxing, and loves motorcycles. That’s the exact opposite of what I am. Still, he told me that he was glad that I could speak Japanese, since he was rather worried about communication problems before the homestay began.
This time, unlike the previous exchange program I experienced in March earlier this year, most of the time we spent going out was in a pair of 2 hosts and students, or as a huge group. This time, however, almost all the hosts could speak some Japanese. Most took classes in school, and could manage with asking if they wanted to eat, or what they wanted to do.
This happened last week during the 10 minute break, so I couldn’t exactly recall the whole conversation word for word. Still, the gist of it is there.
Besides my role in the conversation, there are 2 other people whom we shall name as Peter and Mary. Peter’s the guy mentioned in this post, while Mary… I don’t really know much about her except that she reads Claymore, probably watches a crapload of anime, and is a Japanophile.
This one’s to all students who are studying the Japanese Language with the intention of taking the JLPT. Officially announced not too long ago, there are a couple of revisions made to the test.
It was another usual Japanese lesson on Thursday, and we were learning how to use ~とき, where ~ can be either the dictionary form or plain past tense of a verb, an i-adjective, a na-adjective or a noun. After the sensei went through the ways to use it, we had a verbal practice. There was one particular sentence that we had to complete.
「こどものとき、。。。」, which tranlates to “When I was a child, …”. Everyone gave rather standard answers, such as they played a lot or they were very lively.
Then, it came to the other otaku who was sitting at the last row. How do I know he’s of the same species? His handphone rang a couple of times during previous lessons as he somehow forgot to switch it to silent mode. A Clannad fanboy it seems, with his ringtone set as Dango Daikazoku.
Anyway, when it came to his turn, here’s what he said.
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