The Great Spook Nerd Out

I thought I’d have much more to say when I started this blog. Sorry it’s gone fallow.

I have some serious blather I need to unload about learning Japanese. Nihongo. 日本語。

日本語 – isn’t that a thing of beauty? “Nihongo” or Japanese language. Japanese is a beautiful language that, while very different from Western languages is not as difficult as some people may fear. There are 2 irregular verbs (unless there are more hiding somewhere that they spring on people much later on in the learning process). Conjugations are quite regular and predictable.

Anyway, I’m a beginner hobbling my way toward intermediate in the language skills. I’m trying to learn it on my own, and I’m utilizing a diverse lot of resources in my quest to learn Japanese. I never would have thought this, but there is no shortage of help out there for people who want to learn the language.

My biggest problem is I have little patience for the learning process, especially because I want to know it NOW. I have my Cowboy Bebop books I want to be able to read, you know? I just want to stick that pike into the base of my skull, “Load the Japanese language program, Tank!”

I’m trying to find an approach where I can learn it as efficiently as possible – I don’t want to waste time or money, know what I mean? I was using the Pimsleur method and am more than halfway done with Unit three, but while it’s an awesome resource to get you up and running quickly in a variety of situations, I feel like it’s skimming the surface. Now that I’m hooked….

Some great web sites I use:
http://japanesepod101.com – Learn the language, spoken and written, at the same time. Plenty of audio and video resources, and, if you get their highest membership, even live help from a tutor.

Want to look up a kanji but don’t have it in a form you can cut and paste in JEDict? No problem, http://jisho.org/kanji/radicals/

Have a word and want to know what the kanji is? http://www.jp41.com/kanji/

I’ve purchased quite a few apps for my Mac and iPhone, Kotoba! is a wonderful dictionary. Very powerful, you can hunt for kanji by picking out the radicals. Type in an english word and get a list of translations, type in the romaji and get the kanji. It’s beautiful.

Human Japanese is also very good. You can get it for pretty much any computer platform you happen to use as well as iPhone. There is an intermediate level Human Japanese coming out soon (I want to say sometime this summer), and I can’t wait for that.

I also went and bought Japanesepod101.com’s Learn Japanese Complete Audio Course. From rank beginner to advanced, learn the language and the kanji at the same time.

I’m no doubt putting my cart in front of the horse in trying to read it now. I know I need to beef up my vocabulary before I tackle reading it, but I figure if I can do both at the same time, it’s a win.

Some books I have that I really like:

My favorite by far has to be Barron’s Japanese Grammar. It’s not a large book, but for someone like me who slept their way through grammar classes, it’s not extremely technical. That is, when they are going through a particular verb form (WTF is a ‘gerund’ for crying out tears?), they give a brief explanation or example. “Ooooooooh!”

The Kanji de Manga series I think is good. There are six of them, which I’m presuming will take us through the first six years of primary school kanji. That’s a good start. The drawings are very cute and it’s a fun read.

250 Essential Japanese Kanji Characters (2 volume set). You learn the most frequently used kanji first as opposed to how it’s taught in primary school. Each lesson introduces 10 to 14 kanji. You’ll see a notice posted in a college dorm for an upcoming ski trip for example, or restaurant menu. Plenty of places to practice writing them out.

I also have Heisig’s “Remembering the Kanji” books 1 and 2.

Also books about sentence structure, a handbook of verbs, grammar, etc which tend to be pretty dry and technical. STill good to use for vocabulary building.

I expect I’ll be able to get some use out of all these resources, and have gotten some help out of all of them. This won’t take the place of actually being able to talk to someone though. There is no shortage of language sites that assist in matching up people who are learning a language with someone who is interested in helping. Or maybe I’ll meet someone around here who wants help with their English and can help me with Japanese? It’s a pain in the neck trying to get in and out of EPCOT, so I probably won’t be bothering the students working there.

Anybody reading this also learning Japanese? What approach are you using and how is it working out? Got any resources that you’d like to share? Please DO let me know!

I’m proud to be Irish every day, but St. Patrick’s day is when we can shout it to the world in a special way.

The Irish are good with blessings, and to you, my dear reader, I offer this to you:

May there always be work for your hands to do;
May your purse always hold a coin or two;
May the sun always shine on your windowpane;
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain;
May the hand of a friend always be near you;
May God give you good health and fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!!!!!!!

I am still in shock and mourning over the twin disasters that struck northeast Honshu island this past Friday. My love, thoughts and prayers are with them along with whatever I can donate to help pay for humanitarian efforts that are now underway.

I’ve written here before that I am learning Japanese, so have been listening to the voices and learning the language (and trying to learn to read it) for almost a year now. I almost feel like it’s a second home and the more I hear about the Japanese people, the more I love them.

One thing we have to be wary of is what we see and hear on the news regarding the situation. We’re getting reports from the area, but what about the rest of the country? Someone tweeted a link to this blog that I have to share: kalzumeus.com, Some perspective on the Japan earthquake.

I have friends in Japan, and some of what he writes I already knew, but the rest of it is good information and something to keep in mind.

I love books. I LOVE them. I was reminded of this fact earlier today, out running some errands. I drove by a nearby Border’s Books and there was some poor kid standing out on the street near the entrance to the parking lot with a big sign “This location only. Store closing. Everything 20% off.” Awwww. Went into my next stop, conducted my business then turned around to go back to Border’s to see what they had.

I felt like a vulture picking at the bones of another corpse of a store as I went in there. The shelves looked to be still fully stocked, so it wasn’t a remnant sale. Pretty good crowd too, so it I didn’t feel quite so vulture-like. Found the foreign language reference section and picked up a book of Japanese verbs, a book of 250 Essential Kanji and even a book with short stories by contemporary Japanese writers. THIS looks great, the kanji has the furigana with it and the opposite page has it translated. Very nice! The little bit that I read in the store looks fantastic.

My love affair with books started when I was quite young, pre-school, in fact. My mother tells me I was sick. She went to the drug store to get me medicine and just for the hell of it, picked me up a Little Lulu comic book from one of those free-standing rotating racks that I for more than a decade since began to haunt. She said I wouldn’t put it down and laughed at it, ‘almost as if you were reading it.’ I think I was reading it.

Frankly, I don’t remember learning how to read. It’s like it’s something I’ve always done. I may not have known what all the words MEANT, but I could read them. Comic books graduated to novels. Novels to technical manuals to anything else I could get my hands on.

Nowadays, I do most of my reading on the computer. If I want news, I hit the web. If I want opinion and socializing, I hit the web. But not even the web has dimmed my love for the book. I love how they feel in my hands, I love how they smell, I love turning the pages and feeling the paper on my fingers. I think that’s why I love libraries and brick and mortar book stores to much – they smell of books.

If they could bottle that smell, I’d wear it as a perfume.

The Kindle and other eBook readers are nice and all, but it’s just not the same. It does what it needs to do, puts the published information in front of your eyeballs on its way to your brain, but it lacks the rest of the sensory experience one gets from bound paper.

I’m really sorry that Border’s is closing that store. Not only because it’s the loss of my closest bookstore, but its building will be one more empty building that litters the landscape. I just hope they put something else in there, but it won’t be the same.