Thursday, December 13, 2012

Writing assignment

Letter to Tanaka-san, a fictional Japanese friend

 


で   ゆ そ   た せ   び 私   ひ   田
は   っ れ   い ん   っ は   さ   中
、   く か   へ げ   く 今   し   さ
ま   り ら   ん つ   り 日   ぶ   ん
た   し 、   で に   し 本   り   へ
。   た 今   し ハ   ま 語   で   、
い 週   た リ   す を   す    
で は   よ ケ   か べ   ね    
す と   。 |   。 ん   。    
。 て     ン     き        
も   で サ     ょ   お    
い   も ン     う   げ    
そ   、 デ     す   ん    
が   今 ィ     る   き    
し   と が     の   で    
い   て あ     で   す    
で   も り     、   か    
す   だ ま     日   。    
。   い し     本        
 じ た     語   私    
で   ょ 。     で   は    
パ          も   ぶ       こ   げ    
タ          、   で 4     の   ん    
ラ          ら   す 日     て   き    
ギ          い   。 間     が   で    
ワ          週     で     み   す    
ニ          か     ん     を   よ    
ッ          ら     き     か   。    
ク          ふ     が     い        
ゆ     あ     ま        
休     ら     す        
  み     な     。        
で     い              
す     の              
。     で              
、              

Monday, November 12, 2012

PE2 Reflection & PE3 Goal

PE2 Reflection
- The double consonant (especially double-s sound) that I found difficult last time is much better with practice. The key to this is to read ahead to know what sound is coming next.
- The anime watching part is going well. Too well in fact. Maybe I should get some real work done too.

PE3 Goal
- I realized from shadowing, that speaking fast can be quite difficult, especially for certain combinations of sounds. I will concentrate on this for PE3. I think shadowing tongue twister will help.
- Also I will keep watching anime, but will pay more attention to trying to analyze the language and see how much I can learn without reading subtitles.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

あらし!!

せんしょうは あきやすみです。
わたしは ここにいました。
サンヂーあらしは げつようびに ここにありました。
つよいかぜは たすさんありました。
わたしのうちのローレンスアパートで でんきは ありませんでした。
ネットも ありませんでした。たいへんでした。
 きんようびのばんに でんきがありました。
よかった。。。




Last week was fall break, and it was supposed to be nice and relaxing, until the hurricane Sandy hit us hard. And according to this picture my friend caught off google crisis, we were in the middle of the storm at one point! Thanks goodness everything recovered fast enough...

Sunday, October 21, 2012

すばる

「すばる」はぼうえんきょうのおなまえです。
すばるぼうえんきょうはハワイのマウナケアさんにあります。
すばるはおおきいです、それからとてもすばらしいです。
わたしのせんこうはてんもんがくだからすばるがいきたい。
このしゃしんはすばるのしゃしんです。



それから、「すばる」もほしのなまえとくるまのなまえです。








Well, now let's write something in English too, just to convey those information I don't know how to say in Japanese yet (hopefully this situation is not going to last very long though).

Today I write about a telescope called "Subaru" on Mt. Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which is a big thing, especially since I am an astronomer. This telescope is owned and run by the Japanese astronomical community. It is very big and absolutely amazing. I can go on forever telling you how great it is, but I will spare that for now.

The word "Subaru" is the Japanese word for Pleiades, which the telescope is named after. Incidentally, the car brand Subaru is also named after the same thing.

Monday, October 15, 2012

PE1 reflection & PE2 goal

Reflection from PE1

- I think the tone and pitch part are okay. At least for the words I know I can speak and sound natural. Obviously I still have to keep learning pitch pattern for new words I learn. But for now I think the progress is satisfactory.

- I found that some sound are actually harder to make than others, especially when speaking fast. Double consonant is definitely one of them especially when the consonants are 's'.

- The anime watching part is going well. Too well actually. But this should keep going.


Goals for PE2

- Double consonant should be the goal for now. I hope to get double 's' sound correct.
- And keep the anime going of course...

Monday, September 24, 2012

P. E.

My goals for the P. E. are the following:
1. To be able to listen better and understand more.
2. To be able to speak with similar pitch and tone as a native Japanese speaker. (I hope I can get to the point that I can speak to a random Japanese person and he/she think that I am indeed a native speaker.)

Activities:
1. Speaking and listening practice from the textbook.
2. More anime!! Of course now that watching anime is considered "learning", and not just slacking off, why not?

おはよう!

はじめまして。パタラギワニックです。タイからきました。
だいかくいんせいです。 天文学のせんこうです。
どうぞよろしく。

(By the way, 天文学 (read てんもんがく) means astronomy. Yes, I'm an astronomer.)

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Welcome!!

Hi everyone. Welcome to this blog.

Since this is the first post ever, I guess I might introduce myself here. My name is Petchara Pattarakijwanich. I am a grad student in astrophysics department in Princeton. And since my name is long and difficult for everyone to remember, I usually go by a nickname "Pete".

This blog, as you can tell from the name, is about my new adventure in learning the Japanese language. I started taking JPN101 at Princeton this semester just for the fun of it. The class has started for a few days already and everything is good so far.

The reason I want to learn Japanese? Well, it all started from my interest in those Japanese manga and anime, and I want to be able to understand them without relying on someone else to provide translations or subtitles. So that is my main goal for now. Of course the Japanese culture seems pretty interesting and I would like to explore that a bit too.

Well, I think that's all for now, I will see you guys later...