はいく：
春だけど
ユキがもうふる
たいへんだ
Sunday, March 31, 2013
日本！
春休みに、私は日本に行きました。３日間、りょうこに行きました。これはしゃしんです。
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| The hot spring at はこね. This one is not for bathing though. |
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| 富士山 picture taken from はこね. I think those brown trees in the background are mostly sakura trees. We were there too early, imagine how nice it would be if all those sakura trees bloom. |
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| くろたまご (Egg hard-boiled in the hot spring). This is はこね specialty. For some reason, after being boiled in the hot spring, the shell becomes black. It kind of taste like normal boiled egg with some weak sulfur smell. |
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| Mt.Fuji from Hakone lake. It was slightly foggy so the mountain is not very clear. I was told that Mt.Fuji is "shy" because you can not see it if the weather is not extremely clear. |
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| For some reason, they had temporary Doraemon exhibition in Hakone this month. There are tons of these Doraemon dolls, each with different tools, all around Hakone. How many of these tools do you know? |
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| The Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. |
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| よよぎこえん (Yoyogi Park) in Tokyo. Sakura already bloomed. It was extremely beautiful, and crowded too! |
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| Imperial Palace Garden. |
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| Asakusa temple. |
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| だいぶつ (Big Buddha) in かまくら. |
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| はせてら (Hase Temple) in かまくら |
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| はせてら |
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| Shopping street in Kamakura. It is very busy for some reason. |
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| うえのこうえん (Ueno Park). This is near where my conference was. We walked around there on the last day after the conference finished. |
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| Ueno park with all the sakura blooming. It is very crowded as usual. |
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| Whole tuna at つきじ (Tsukiji fish market). The knife they use is huge. |
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| Queue for the sushi restaurant in Tsukiji. It was basically full of tourists. |
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| Sushi!! |
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| 東京大学 (University of Tokyo), where the conference took place. |
Sunday, March 17, 2013
PE: Reflection on the 1st half and Goal for the 2nd half
Reflection on the 1st half
- The fluency problem gets somewhat better, but still remains. This will need more practice.
- Learning vocabulary is going steadily.
Goals for the 2nd half
- Improve the fluency more.
- Keep learning more vocabulary.
Activities
- Shadowing.
- Learning vocabulary.
- Visit office hours more often.
- Language table. For some reason, Tuesday has been quite busy this semester, I will go to Monday Forbes table more often.
- The fluency problem gets somewhat better, but still remains. This will need more practice.
- Learning vocabulary is going steadily.
Goals for the 2nd half
- Improve the fluency more.
- Keep learning more vocabulary.
Activities
- Shadowing.
- Learning vocabulary.
- Visit office hours more often.
- Language table. For some reason, Tuesday has been quite busy this semester, I will go to Monday Forbes table more often.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Katakana Analysis (Revision)
The Japanese language has 3 kinds of script: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Kanji, which is adopted from Chinese characters, is used for content words. Hiragana represents the basic sound system of the language and is used for various purposes such as particle, ogurikana and words which do not have corresponding kanjis or that the corresponding kanjis are too obscured or too formal for the given circumstance. Katakana represent exact one-to-one correspondence to hiragana but, however, are used for totally different purposes, some of which are indirect and subtle. Katakana is going to be the purpose of the current analysis.
The popular way many textbooks adopt to explain the uses of katakana is that it has 3 main functions. The first use of katakana is to represent loan words from foreign languages. The second use is for Onomatopoeia which is to represent sounds, movements or feelings. The last common use for katakana is to emphasize some specific words. However there are many subtle uses of katakana that might not fall into these categories. These will be illustrated by the following two examples.
The first strange case of katakana is the word トナカイ which means "Reindeer". This word seems to be commonly written in katakana and not hiragana, even though it has kanji counterpart (馴鹿) with the same pronunciation and meaning. This word was mentioned in the anime "Usagi Drop" in special episode 2. The episode is about Christmas and Santa Clause and the Reindeer was mentioned in that context.
My initial guess is that this word is a loan word from foreign language which is not English. There are many other words in this class such as チャーハン or アルバイト which are borrowed from Chinese and German respectively. However, the search for the foreign origin of this word did not yield any convincing result. Also some readers pointed out that the words for other animals (ねこ, いぬ, etc.) are fairly commonly written in katakana as well. So far, no satisfactory explanation of this case have been found.
The second use of katakana that is found to be peculiar is that sometimes people's first names are written in katakana, while the last name is in kanji, even though the name is perfectly Japanese name. An example of this is 宇多田ヒカル (Utada Hikaru) but this practice is very common especially with singers' and celebrities' names.
One reader speculates that this practice is to emphasize the name of the celebrity herself. Since the use of katakana is sometimes considered fashionable, this might help promoting the celebrity's image or brand. This explains why this practice is less common in normal Japanese people. Another possible explanation is that this might help avoiding confusion in distinguishing the first name and the last name. This is unlikely though, since people with good knowledge of Japanese should be able to read common Japanese names with no problem even if everything is written purely in hiragana or kanji.
These examples have illustrated that katakana has wider and subtler used than can be summed up in 3 narrow categories. Many times the decision to use katakana is totally up to the author depending on the meaning he/she is trying to convey. On one hand this subtlety adds to the complications that Japanese language learners have to overcome. But on the other hand, this increases the flexibility and freedom of the language to add subtler nuances or interpretations to the ideas.
The popular way many textbooks adopt to explain the uses of katakana is that it has 3 main functions. The first use of katakana is to represent loan words from foreign languages. The second use is for Onomatopoeia which is to represent sounds, movements or feelings. The last common use for katakana is to emphasize some specific words. However there are many subtle uses of katakana that might not fall into these categories. These will be illustrated by the following two examples.
The first strange case of katakana is the word トナカイ which means "Reindeer". This word seems to be commonly written in katakana and not hiragana, even though it has kanji counterpart (馴鹿) with the same pronunciation and meaning. This word was mentioned in the anime "Usagi Drop" in special episode 2. The episode is about Christmas and Santa Clause and the Reindeer was mentioned in that context.
My initial guess is that this word is a loan word from foreign language which is not English. There are many other words in this class such as チャーハン or アルバイト which are borrowed from Chinese and German respectively. However, the search for the foreign origin of this word did not yield any convincing result. Also some readers pointed out that the words for other animals (ねこ, いぬ, etc.) are fairly commonly written in katakana as well. So far, no satisfactory explanation of this case have been found.
The second use of katakana that is found to be peculiar is that sometimes people's first names are written in katakana, while the last name is in kanji, even though the name is perfectly Japanese name. An example of this is 宇多田ヒカル (Utada Hikaru) but this practice is very common especially with singers' and celebrities' names.
One reader speculates that this practice is to emphasize the name of the celebrity herself. Since the use of katakana is sometimes considered fashionable, this might help promoting the celebrity's image or brand. This explains why this practice is less common in normal Japanese people. Another possible explanation is that this might help avoiding confusion in distinguishing the first name and the last name. This is unlikely though, since people with good knowledge of Japanese should be able to read common Japanese names with no problem even if everything is written purely in hiragana or kanji.
These examples have illustrated that katakana has wider and subtler used than can be summed up in 3 narrow categories. Many times the decision to use katakana is totally up to the author depending on the meaning he/she is trying to convey. On one hand this subtlety adds to the complications that Japanese language learners have to overcome. But on the other hand, this increases the flexibility and freedom of the language to add subtler nuances or interpretations to the ideas.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
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