Re.Muriel's last post, this makes me wonder, if we don't know how old someone is, even if they look 12 or so, we would still call them '[surname]-san' just to be on the safe side, right? Or is there an official age limit when one becomes a 'san' instead of a 'chan' or 'kun'? /too lazy to google at the moment/

6 minutes ago, Danibellerika said:

It carried over from the prior page, but it looks like they were surveying people from different countries about how looking at certain types of pictures of facial expressions makes them feel.  

 

Ooooh, interesting! Still, I could grasp just like 50% of the kanji there... lot of work to do.

 

7 minutes ago, surimi said:

even if they look 12 or so, we would still call them '[surname]-san' just to be on the safe side, right? Or is there an official age limit when one becomes a 'san' instead of a 'chan' or 'kun'?

 

Think about how many times people would have said Yuzu-kun if they had to guess his age 

To clarify a little more, they were showed facial expressions and then they describe what they think the facial expression is.   It looks like they give you a little box of some of the kanji at the beginning, so if you need it, it's there.   I can read 700 kanji on my own give or take (I still got work to do too), but it's a never-ending job. Just keep at it.

 

Well, I recognize only about 15 kanji so far. I'll be the 'glass is half-full' peson and say I have a lot to look forward to. 

I prefer slow introduction of kanji in textbooks, and welcome the furigana - when concentrating on vocabulary and grammar, I like it when I don't have anything else to take in. When I want more natural Japanese, I go to the Japanese Wiki to do some reading (at this point: a game of 'what words can you recognize' is more like it). Or here.

 

Btw I'm worrying my Japanese summer course won't open. All the other languages at the school already have a minimum of people enrolled, even Turkish or Finnish - only Chinese, Japanese and Danish still haven't got the minimum required number of students. And there are only 11 days till the first class. So worried.

I hope it fills up! I just checked my 202 class (they have a minimum requirement as well). On the site it says 7 spots remaining, but I was worried if it was 7/10 or more. Apparently it's 12 max, so that meets the 4 person minimum requirement.  

 

Grammar is just as important a kanji. That's why it's a little frustrating for me because I'm trying to get my grammar up to the level of my kanji. I can tell it's an imbalance because I know the kanji of Genki II through the end, but I don't know all the grammar.  And then I have instances where I'm reading Japanese out in the wild and I may know all the words I'm seeing in a sentence, but I don't know exactly what's being said. 

Meanwhile, my University published the date of the entrance test for Oriental Languages. It has 460 spots in total (including every other First Language course, so Chinese, Korean, Tibetan, Farsi, Hindi, Arabic, and Japanese), and still, it gives me a little anxiety to think about the entrance test. It's general culture, plus italian grammar, english grammar and few questions on logic. I an ace the english questions, but everything else? Those Italian grammar questions are a bitch, I tell you. I'm gonna have to study everything a few days before the test, or I'm gonna have to guess most of the answers. 

 

Just to give you and idea, yesterday I looked up a past test, and one of the italian grammar questions was "finding the grammar mistake" in 4 phrases which all had a "è" or "é". They wanted you to remember whether that specific word had the grave or acute accent. I don't even remember which one is the grave and which one is the acute, but they want me to remember specific words?? And I wasn't bad at grammar at all, my grades were all top in Italian, but we stopped studying grammar after the first two years of high school! It's all old stuff I have to study back again! 

 

I don't know how many people want to enroll in the course, but it's Rome, so I don't wanna risk it. Maybe we'll be more than 460 and some are gonna be left out. I don't wanna risk it. 

Two quick questions. I've taken to comparing my favorite picture dictionary against the Japanese Wiki (not yet in love with the jisho site so much, it's a little confusing for me), and 'leek' and 'electric kettle' don't seem to correspond. The dictionary says 'negi' and 'yakan', but the Wiki says 'riiki' and 'ketoru'. Are the first two wrong then?

Interesting video.  Sorry, if you have seen it somewhere else.

 

Why I Study Japanese -Kevin Reynolds

 

 

As Kevin said, it's really good to know you have improved in your study.

On 8/7/2017 at 6:05 PM, SuzyQ said:

Interesting video.  Sorry, if you have seen it somewhere else.

 

Why I Study Japanese -Kevin Reynolds

 

 

As Kevin said, it's really good to know you have improved in your study.

 

I totally didn't know this about Kevin! He's so cute and inspiring! 

5 hours ago, Murieleirum said:

 

I totally didn't know this about Kevin! He's so cute and inspiring! 

 

Actually, I met him at Worlds and we chatted a bit in Japanese. He was surprised . He, and the Japanese ladies off in the corner eavesdropping if their "へええ"  responses while looking at us were anything to go by .  A lot of Japanese fans were talking to him and he was super polite.

Attended my first class yesterday, it was fun. Nice teacher, and nice coursebook. Yikes, now I sound like Gollum I had to laugh when the teacher asked us why we decided to learn, I answered that I loved watching FS and had a few major favorites from Japan and China, and she gave me a knowing smile saying "Ahh, so you're a fan of  Yuzuru Hanyu then?"  He's so well-known.

Just now, surimi said:

Attended my first class yesterday, it was fun. Nice teacher, and nice coursebook. Yikes, now I sound like Gollum I had to laugh when the teacher asked us why we decided to learn, I answered that I loved watching FS and had a few major favorites from Japan and China, and she gave me a knowing smile saying "Ahh, so you're a fan of  Yuzuru Hanyu then?"  He's so well-known.

I can't help but thinking that if he knew how many people have taken up the study of the language and love for his country, he would feel really happy

Yes, it's a nice cycle, and the fans also play an important part in it. Being generally interested in Japan, its people & language -> becoming a fan of YH -> participating in his fan thread -> meeting fans who quote and learn Japanese -> realizing 'wow, this actually is doable!' -> getting oneself one's first study materials (that's how I got to Japanese) -> becoming massively interested in many things Japanese. I'm now in the "I wish I can go there one day, if only  to practice speaking" phase.  ^ ^

26 minutes ago, surimi said:

and she gave me a knowing smile saying "Ahh, so you're a fan of  Yuzuru Hanyu then?"  He's so well-known.

 

I swear, this keeps happening to me as well. I love it, I don't even know why. I'm like a proud sister 

2 minutes ago, Murieleirum said:

 

I swear, this keeps happening to me as well. I love it, I don't even know why. I'm like a proud sister 

 

Yes, there's something heartwarming about the 'wants to learn Japanese and watches FS -> must be a fan of YH' deduction.