November 2009
23 posts
2 tags
Nov 29th
1 note
3 tags
Nov 24th
6 notes
2 tags
Nov 24th
2 tags
Japan's lack of daylight savings time
means the sun is down by the time I get home from work.  That is a major downer.
Nov 23rd
4 tags
WatchWatch
My girlfriend just turned me on to this Japanese web series called “The World of GOLDEN EGGS”, which is basically a whole bunch of nonsense, but I’ve been laughing my ass off watching it.  It’s a series of short ad-libbed sketches that 2 guys recorded with a microphone and then made animations to go with it.  It is subtitled in English, although I can imagine that having...
Nov 23rd
2 tags
Nov 23rd
3 notes
2 tags
I have to prepare a one-to-two-minute monologue for an audition this coming weekend and I’ve got nothin yet, although I was thinking of doing one of Bateman’s from American Psycho. Any other suggestions?
Nov 22nd
2 notes
2 tags
How our half of the conversation almost always...
Teacher: Moshi moshi, sakurai chuugakkou desu. (Hello, this is Sakurai Junior High School)
pause
Teacher: Eh (yes)
pause
Teacher: Eh (yes)
pause
Teacher: Eh (yes)
pause
Teacher: Eh (yes)
pause
Teacher: Eh (yes)
pause
Teacher: Eh (yes)
pause
Teacher: Eh (yes)
pause
Teacher: Eh (yes)
pause
Teacher: Wakarimashita. Shitsurei shimasu (Okay, got it. Goodbye)
click
I hate when the phone rings because I know the next 45 seconds or so are going to be really annoying.
Nov 22nd
2 notes
3 tags
Nov 21st
6 notes
3 tags
Nov 21st
3 notes
2 tags
A note on onomatopoeias
One of the things that fascinates me the most about the Japanese language are Japanese onomatopoeias. They use them in regular conversation in such a variety of ways that I’ve never seen before.  First of all, they are most often (though certainly not always) a repetition of the same sound twice.  And they do have basic ones like we have in English, for example “gan-gan” is...
Nov 21st
45 notes
2 tags
Japanese lesson of the day:
earwax in Japanese is called 耳くそ (pronounced “mimi kuso”), which quite literally translates as “ear shit”
Nov 19th
9 notes
3 tags
A sad day
Today I went, as I do every Wednesday, to Maezawa Elementary School and was told right away in the morning that my students may not be themselves today.  Over the weekend one of the first-graders had gone to Tokyo for a kidney transplant.  His body, however, rejected the kidney and he passed away shortly after the surgery.  The entire school attended his funeral yesterday. Being only here a few...
Nov 17th
5 notes
4 tags
Nov 12th
5 notes
2 tags
Nov 10th
2 notes
1 tag
Nov 8th
4 notes
3 tags
Nov 7th
2 notes
4 tags
A selection from one of my students' homework...
“I want a big cake.  I like cakes. Cakes are delicious.  Who doesn’t want cake? When I grow up, I want to eat cake. Do you have a cake?  I don’t have cake.  Can I borrow your cake? … Where is your cake?  It’s in my stomach.”
Nov 4th
3 notes
2 tags
Listen「キセキ」by GReeeeN One of the most popular songs of...
Nov 4th
1 note
2 tags
"Die Hard" will be on TV here tomorrow
and I’m really looking forward to hearing a dubbed Japanese Bruce Willis say “Yippee-kai-ay Motherfucker!”
Nov 4th
1 note
3 tags
Nov 2nd
2 tags
Nov 1st
2 tags
Nov 1st