Japanese Study Group Discord

hi guys ^-^ if you’re wondering about the discord I made a little while back, it’s still up and running! all that’s left is finding some more japanese learning fanatics to join.

of course it will be a constant work in progress, but the dream is that maybe someday it will be filled with a variety of people with the same common goal, all trying to help each other out in the process of helping themselves.

Join the 勉強会 Discord Server!

We are currently accepting staff applications and are offering special roles to certain active or more advanced learners. We hope you consider joining! Having a sense of community is so important when it comes to taking on huge goals such as learning Japanese.

I’m also working on getting native speakers to join, so although for now it will be mostly english speakers, hopefully we can change that soon! I look forward to you seeing the server grow into a flourishing community of positivity, motivation, and belief in one another!

2019/01/26

History, it’s always history. History class keeps me hopeful for the future. One day kids will just learn about things we can’t even comprehend yet.

終章 - The final chapter 

辿る - たどる to follow (road), to pursue (course), to follow up 

めく - to show signs of 

テーゼ - thesis; statement 

啓蒙主義 - けいもうしゅぎ; illuminism, enlightenment 

連携 - れんけい cooperation; coordination; link 

文明 - civilisation; Bunmei era 

万能 - ばんのう all-purpose, almighty, omnipotent 

打撃 - だげき 1. blow, shock, strike, damage, 2. batting (baseball) 

終焉 - しゅうえん demise 

かげり - shadow or cloud over one’s happiness 

思潮 - しちょう；trend of thought 

皇国 - The Japanese empire 

史観 - historical view 

抵触 - ていしょく conflict (with the law) 

丹念 - たんねん diligence, application 

実証主義 - じっしょうしゅぎ positivism 

排外主義 - はいがいしゅぎ; anti-foreign 

対外 - たいがい external/foreign 

侵略 - しんりゃく aggression; invasion; raid 

依拠 - いきょ dependence 

様相 - ようそう aspect 

化身 - けしん incarnation; impersonation; personification; avatar 

為政者 - いせいしゃ statesman 

蔓延る - はびこる to spread; to run rampant; to grow thick; to become powerful 

権化 - ごんげ incarnation; avatar 

疑念 - ぎねん；doubt 

脱構築 - だつこうちく deconstruction (Jacques Derrida) 

助長 - じょちょう；promotion 

蠢く - うごめく; to wriggle; to squirm; to crawl like a worm 

ユダヤ - Judea 

従軍慰安婦 - じゅうぐんいあんふ；comfort women 

先述 - せんじゅつ The aforementioned / above-mentioned 

実証 - じっしょう actual proof; demonstration 

担保 - たんぽ security; collateral (mortgage) 

君臨 - くんりん；reigning, controlling, to reign, to dictate, to control 

趣向 - しゅこう a device; a plan, an idea 

新機軸 - しんきじく；innovation; new departure; milestone; breakthrough 

隠蔽 - いんぺい concealment; suppression; hiding 

白日 - bright sunshine; broad daylight 

嶋 - island [alternate]; territory of an organised crime gang

力作 - りきさく； literary or artistic masterpiece (on which much labour was spent) (labor) 

自虐 - masochism 

侵撃 - しんげき； invading and attacking 

真摯 - しんし；Sincere/Earnest 

紛争 - ふんそう dispute, trouble, strife

2019/01/25

Whenever I’m in classical Japanese class I always wonder why I bothered taking it but when old Japanese men tell me how cool I am, that’s how I know it’s all worth it.

古文授業中にいつも取らんかったらいいなって思うねんけど、おじいさんたちが偉いなって言ってくれたらすっごい喜ぶ！

How I learned Japanese - Speaking

I’d like to briefly explain how I got to a point where I can take Japanese university classes in Japanese without too much of a language issue.

This post will be about speaking, probably the most fun and rewarding part of learning a language is when you don’t realise you’ve been speaking a language you weren’t raised into. Questions are always welcome! 愚問がない！

Speaking

Actually speaking Japanese is the best way to learn how to speak Japanese. If you don’t live in Japan it might be more difficult but even back in my hometown I was able to find friends and people to talk with though language swap, tutoring and so forth. I had the most success with “HelloTalk” and even after not using it for over a year, I still talk with the friends I made there. Mimic what and how Japanese people say things and step out of your comfort zone

Pronunciation 

I can’t stress how important it is to learn proper pronunciation. You will feel so much better about speaking if you know how to say what you’re saying. Knowing proper pitch accent is made all the more important with Japanese since there are so many homonyms in Japanese. Pretty much every Japanese learner at some point said something the wrong way and the message got lost entirely. The best resource that I’ve found in terms of practicality is made by “Dogen”.

 Just today I said the word 意外 but with the pronunciation of 以外 and had I not known that pitch accent exists, I would not have been able to quickly correct myself

I highly recommend recording yourself speaking and listening to it back, if you immediately cringe at hearing yourself, do it more. I’m know that people hating the sound of their own voice is a real thing but, getting used to hearing yourself talk and identifying things that sound very non-Japanese-like and improving on them will get you so far. Pleaserecordyourself.

A Few Thoughts on Speaking

Japanese learners are notorious for their ability to read and write but not being able to put a sentence together when speaking. And then when we do speak, it sounds like we’re reading off a script. Speaking isn’t tested in the JLPT which is probably a big reason that not many people learn it. Please learn how to converse in Japanese 

When I first started learning Japanese, I would go to conversation class and feel that some days my Japanese game was right on, and some days my game was way off. I’d start class feeling pretty good, but after a while, I would have a harder and harder time understanding so that by the end of class, I’d leave feeling completely overwhelmed and thinking I was never going to get the hang of this.

Things were like this for a long while. I’d feel like I really got the hang of something one week, but then the next week I’d find that I had mixed something else up completely and was back at square one when it came to the conversations.

I started pre-studying, reviewing the next lesson prior to class so I’d have at least half a clue during class. For the most part, this worked out great and I had a much better grasp on things, but then I’d run up against a bunch of vocabulary that I didn’t have time to review and would have to ask sensei to please explain  just about every other word.

Since finally getting Lolli into hoikuen (daycare) twice a week and signing up for the JLPT N4 test in December, I’m making a much more concentrated effort to study and I feel like it really shows. I get to study for a few hours in the afternoon twice a week and I focus the studying on vocabulary, kanji writing/reading, and verb conjugations geared towards the test.

The vocabulary is always the most important to me. I find that I know how to create the basic sentence structure, but I just don’t know the right word to use. When I used to take French in high school, my teacher always said that my weakness was my limited vocabulary, but my strength was being able to explain what I needed using that limited vocabulary. I find myself doing this in Japanese all the time, which makes for quite awkward conversations sometimes!

It’s always so embarrassing when sensei compliments me on Japanese skill because I still feel like I’m floundering most of the time. There are plenty of times when I need to ask for help or just resort to checking my dictionary instead.

But at least, it seems like those times are happening less often than it was at the very beginning. If I can understand half of the conversation, I feel like I really got somewhere.

Ha.

今週末大阪に行きます。待ちきれますん！たこ焼きやお好み焼き等食べたいですよ。街をぶらぶら歩いて写真を撮ろうと思っています。

おすすめがあったら、教えて下さい！

This weekend, we are going to Osaka. I can’t wait! I want to eat takoyaki, okonomiyaki, and other foods. I plan to walk aimlessly and take photos.

If you have recommendations, please tell me!