Quick China Update (and pics!)

Hello friends, family, and animals that can somehow access the internet.

Here is a long overdue update about what I did in China! It's right here, in the next paragraph:

In my 5 days there, I think we saw everything you could possibly see in such a short amount of time. I really liked the Summer Palace, which blew my mind. The fact that one person could be so powerful, have so much land, and have such beautiful buildings created before the technology we have today is astounding. It was my second favorite place, next to the Great Wall. The palace has a lake in the middle, and all around the lake are temples, palaces, and building architecture. From the middle, there was a palace on the other side that was sort of misty, like it was perfectly placed- it was the type of thing you only see in movies.

The Great Wall was also awe-inspiring. Although the wall itself isn't all that high, it's all on mountains. It's more of the scope that got me. As I walked further and further, there were always more towers in front, always more that you could see on the mountains ahead, and always more to get to. Realizing how far the wall stretched just made it amazing. Unfortunately, the pollution of Beijing even reached out as far as the Great Wall, so there was smog in the air- but it wasn't nearly as bad as the city itself. There are no words that can really describe the wall, and the pictures you'll see really don't do it any justice. I never thought I'd go to the great wall in my life, so this was just an incredible experience.

Today is Thursday

Huge Rainbow. Outside the window. 3 or 4 leprechauns must live there. Must...get...the...gold. So much gold, probably at the end of the rainbow. Why...does it keep...moving...when I....get...close? Gold...leprechauns...pumpkins...

Ok, whoa, whoa, let me get back from my brain-dead zombie state.

It's Friday now. The day of Fri. I'm in the office again. Help me, I'm going a little stir-crazy. I've been sitting, and sitting and sitting. I'll get up in 5 minutes to go to the bathroom, that's my break. I think, if people can have smoke-breaks, I should be able to have a "stand outside" break. They should institute that.

Institution. Did you know that the old President, Taro Aso, is OUT of office. His single digit approval ratings probably did him in. Yeah, he was that bad. Sorta like Bush, if we didn't have a #### ##### ##### ##### part of the country. Your software automatically blocked out what I wrote, so please use your imagination to enter whatever you think fits.

I'm going to China in a little more than a week. YES! See the great wall, Tienanmen Square, the Summer Palace. I can't wait! One more country off the list. I never thought that I, in my lifetime, would go to the great-wall. At least not until I retired and then was too old to enjoy it. But I'm actually doing it, and it's an amazing feeling. I believe that we should be able to travel a lot more when we are younger, and work it off when our reduced mobility makes us perfect office workers.

I've been reading the Dragonball manga (comic book). One of the groundbreaking manga's, and one of the few well-known ones in the US. It's interesting, and it's stretching my Japanese, for sure. It's good practice, and I can relate to my kids with it. "Hey, remember that time the kid with the monkey tail lifted the tortoise and brought him to the ocean. Yeah, that was good chapter."

I have been scootering around on my new old scooter. It's wicked fun! I can only go up to 50 or 60 km/hr, but that's all I need. I can explore all of the areas that were previously inaccessible. I drive between rice fields, up small mountain paths. I follow rivers and cross shallow streams. There is something so much more visceral about scootering than driving a car. Driving a car, you don't notice the beautiful scenery as much. You don't feel the wind pushing your body, it's ever-present pressure feebly trying to stop your movement forward. You can smell the air around you. Freshly-cut grass, rice, nature. Your body feels the drop in temperature when you increase in altitude, and the refreshing pocket of warm air when you get back to ground level.

Also, a tank of gas costs $5.

-Out.

The nicest present

I'm in my office as I type this. I should be getting a few more kanji reviews under my belt, but... Anyways, I came back to a coke bottle filled with sake on my desk. It reads Takko-town garlic sake. I never expected to have alcohol just sitting on my desk, let alone in a half-filled plastic coke bottle. I'm not a shady kid, and neither are my coworkers, I swear!

I also had a review today. 5 of my coworkers came and looked at my class. I think it went well, it was a normal middle school class at Shingo. I also reviewed my students' English speech contest performance...they aren't going to win this year, that's all I'll say. 2 days away and they still haven't fully memorized their speeches! There's only so much I can help with if you don't memorize your speech.

I can't go to the contest though, I will be teaching at an elementary school instead. When I asked if I could go to the contest when I finished, I was given the "well, I'll have to ask so-and-so, because it is considered a business trip..." which means no. Too bad, but maybe next year?

Ok, that's all ya get. Suck it up or go to another blog! Once I finally get these stupid kanji reviews done, then you'll get a proper list of updates. Be strong, for me.

Mundane, ennui, meh.

I have a confession to make. I've been collecting all of the papers I've been handed since the beginning of the year. I used to put them in the recycling bin or trash, but now I save them. I either put them under my laptop to increase it's height because it was too low and hurt my neck, or use them as scrap paper for practicing kanji.

RtK- I did that too.

I'M DONE! I FINISHED REMEMBERING THE KANJI! IT'S OVER! This is my replacement for screaming in the office, which would probably confuse my coworkers.

I did it! I learned 2042 Kanji, all of the "necessary kanji" for daily life in Japan. Oh yes, I see and understand Japan.

Well, sort of. I know all of the English meanings associated with the kanji. But, really, when I see 今日, and my brain says (今=now, 日= day), I fully understand it means "today," and further, since I have around 2,000+ words in my vocab, I can read it as "kyou." Most importantly, from here on out, learning Japanese will go much quicker.

I'm going to regale you with my story. I started last winter, when Weldon told me about these books. I originally didn't even want to learn kanji, I just wanted to learn how to speak. But, anyways, he told me about these books which make kanji learning a breeze, and even help you increase your vocabulary and reading speed. So, I gave it a try, and really liked it. I got more and more into it, and more and more separated from other Japanese study, that it became the only thing I studied for the past two months. I just had to finish this before getting back to grammar and vocabulary. And, now I'M done! Woohoo! Only about 6 months, not too shabby for a writing system that is supposed to go from years k-12.

Well, now I suppose I'll celebrate a bit more, and LEARN it up.

Greg, over and out.

Fuji- I did that.

Fuji Fuji Foo-ji. San.

I did climb Fuji-san a few weeks ago. It was sort of a "last friend adventure" type thing. We started climbing at 9:30. Spirits were high. People were happy. The stars were beautiful, and so clear. We could see the lights of Tokyo from far away.

It got colder and colder as we ascended, though. The oxygen, too, was thinning out. Even after a couple of steps, we were breathing heavy. The higher up we got, the more the girls were having trouble. Tina was getting dizzy easily, Natalie wasn't doing too well either. Luckily we brought some oxygen, which was very helpful.

I was about 50 meters from the top when the sun started rising. Seth and Tina were about a ridge-back down, and Natalie and I were so close to the top. Natalie, who had been struggling beforehand, and always complains about how bad a hiker she is, was actually in the front! At about 50 meters away, I couldn't keep up the pace, and I sat down. Natalie joined me for about 1 minute, then "I have to pee."

"Ok, I'll meet you at the toilet."

I saw the sun rise from near the top of Fuji. It was beautiful. I've never seen it rise so clearly. The red tip of the sun peaked over the horizon, and it climbed at a very steady rate. "Bonsai, bonsai, bonsai!" I heard.

At the top, there were a few "restaurants" (a nice term I use for the refugee food tents that they actually are). I'll never forget Natalie and Tina sitting next to the toilets, me going up to them and saying, let's go somewhere warm and get food. Natalie looked up at me, wide-eyed and with blue lips, and she stammered questioningly "warm?" I held her hands and walked her and the group to the food area. In actuality, it wasn't warm, it just wasn't as cold as outside.

We all struggled (except the chipper Seth), to get some food down.

On the way down, it was much easier. People were getting more lucid, and more able to walk and talk. Natalie burst into tears at how beautiful the site was on the way down.

All in all, it took us about 7-8 hours up (mostly due to the huge lines of people, Fuji was crowded, man!), and about 4-5 down.

When we got down, we took the bus and then the train back into Tokyo. We really didn't have much time, so we stayed around Tokyo eki. Got some food, relaxed, then boarded our Shinkansen (bullet train) home.

We went to Disney Sea the day before, which was really awesome. I highly recommend it, it was like stepping into another world. I don't even like roller-coasters, and I highly suggest it.

I'm a bit tired and lazy, so all you get is this uninspired writing. Deal with it!

This weekend I'm headed to Tokyo. With all of the old people that just left, the new people coming in, and my recent break-up (yes, I hid it from you, I had a girlfriend for a little while), I need a break, gotta get out of this crazy city! So, I'm off to Tokyo tonight. I'll night bus down and shinkansen back. It'll be good to get out, forget for a bit, and come back refreshed and revitalized!

So, that's about it for now. Told you, smaller pieces more frequently. I'm trying to sate your hunger.

RaNdOm JaPaN:

Did you know they sell square watermelons? A friend alerted me to this fact. Yes, square watermelons. I really want to eat one now. I know they taste the same as regular watermelons, but there is something so satisfying about how they look, how we could probably maximize the amount of watermelon eaten, from each watermelon.

Goodbyes, Learning Japanese

Hello one and all,

As of last week, I am officially 23! Can you believe it? Not me. I got my cane and wheelchair ready. I think I've started to emit "old man smell." Naw, just kidding, 23 has been eerily like 22 so far...

Ha, so much for my plan of writing short, sweet little blog-notes to you. Well, I have good reasons, ok, and you can rest assured from now on you'll be getting your fix again. Lately, I have been to more goodbye parties, dinners, and tearful train leavings than I care to recall. Today we lost Natalie to the great maw of "non-recontracting."

Well, I just recently sent an email to a JET who is teaching about learning Japanese to all of the new JET arrivals. I think I wrote some interesting stuff, so I decided to write it and share it on this blog. So, without further ado, here is what I wrote (I would also like to give thanks to Weldon, because both his advice and his research were invaluable in helping me realize the many paths available to language fluency outside of textbook-only approaches).

So, here's the wisdom I have to share concerning Japanese learning, get ready, this might take awhile.

1) The traditional method. You know it, everyone knows it. Get some textbooks, memorize vocabulary, do exercises. Boring, and most importantly, NOT EFFICIENT. You can do it and get good results (Hey, I did it and made it to intermediate in a short time), but it either plateaus too easily, or it's just simply not as efficient as other methods. Which brings me to...

2) Non-Traditional methods. Ok, the hardest part about using a non-traditional method is the social stigma against them because people haven't been using them for the past 200 years. If you can overcome this, you'll be fine. Here's the, (in my opinion), best way to go about learning Japanese.

a) Learn Hiragana and Katana
b) Learn ALL 2000 Joyo kanji! The best way to learn them all (in my opinion, at least) is to use Heisig's method. Depending on how much effort you put in, you can learn all of them in 1 month, though I think 6 months might be the average. You MUST supplement his method with flashcards (outdated and maa maa at best) OR an SRS (spaced-repetition system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition), which is the best possible thing you can use. More on SRS's later.
If you choose the Heisig route, the website http://kanji.koohii.com/ is a great SRS and community that is made specifically for Heisig.

Here is a snippet that Weldon wrote about Heisig that is great at describing it:
"The basic premise of Heisig is outlined in his introduction (which you should definitely read). Learning a kanji can be thought of as the following: differentiating it from other kanji upon site, knowing how to say it outloud, knowing it's meaning(use) in Japanese. As a bonus you can also know: how to write it by hand, it's meaning (individually) when paired with other kanji. There are two current academic trends for learning kanji. One is to not learn them because they are too hard; the second is to learn them by drilling them, similar to the Japanese style. Many people believe this is the "pure" method because it is the "same" method that Japanese use to learn their own writing system. This idea is 100% false. Japanese people already know Japanese before they learn the Kanji. As a result, they know how to pronounce a kanji singly and in compounds and only have to learn the writing and recognizing of the characters. Foreigners learning via drilling often drill five things at the same time: recognition, writing, on yomi, kun yomi, and meaning. With the Japanese learning 2 facts vs. our 5 and spreading it out over 10 years you can see why kanji learners struggle so much. Heisig proposes spliting up this drilling process. First, learn the writing (by attaching it to the meaning in English). Next, learn the true (Japanese) meaning and the onyomi and kunyomi. At first this appears to be more work, but thanks to mnemonics it ends up being much much less. He also skips recognition completely. The reason being, if you can correctly remember how to write a character, you will always have 100% recognition, period.

Heisig takes all the parts that kanji are made up of (260ish) and names them "primitives" and calls them an "alphabet". Now you just have to memorize the spelling of 2000 "words" (Jouyou kanji) spelled with 260ish "letters". Here's an example. 女 is the kanji for Woman, and the primitive meaning is woman. 子 is the kanji for child, and the primitive meaning is child. 好 is the kanji for "be fond of" and it's mnemonic is "a woman is fond of her child". Now you know the kanji for すき, and you've most likely never written it once. On top of that you'll probably never forget it. Tomorrow when you see a sign that says "りんごが好きですか？" you'll read it as "ringo ga suki desu ka?" and not "ringo ga fondki desu ka?" because your brain won't let you do something so silly. The keywords never get in the way of learning the Japanese, they only assist; and you now can produce that kanji from scratch. Heisig's first book covers all the 2042 base kanji and you can try the first 250 for free. The first day I went home and wrote 50 kanji from memory (always practice from the keyword to the kanji so that you practice production, not recognition) and was completely sold."

Ok, that's the deal about Heisig and kanji. The most important part about learning kanji first is that you can immediately go to reading books, manga, etc. etc. These are the best way to learn words, and get a feel for grammatical structure. Using textbooks along with them is most important for supplementing your grammar, so you understand the why of what you are reading. As you read these things, you make sure they have furigana, that way you learn the readings of the kanji as you go along. In essence, you are killing two birds with one stone.

c) MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF INPUT. Output too early is, frankly, dangerous. For example, I always used the word すごい, whenever I saw something that was cool, or something good happened- basically when I should have been using よし、よかった、かっこい。 No one corrected me (come on, the Japanese are just happy if you can say "おはよ"), so after saying that over and over again, it got stuck in my head, and here I am still struggling to switch it with the right word. It's akin to a dancer practicing the wrong steps for a few months, and then realizing too late he/she made a mistake, and has to go back and put forth a lot more effort to fix it. It's terribly inefficient.

Honestly, do whatever makes you happy. If you like manga, read manga. If Harry Potter is your thing (for some reason EVERYONE reads harry potter when they are studying Japanese, I don't really know why...), read HP. Eventually you can get to listening and watching TV. Throw that in the mix too (but NO subtitles, it's too easy to just read those and ignore the nihongo).

There is a website called AJATT (http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about) about a guy who just did all japanese all the time. His method worked for him, and it has many good facets. Just keep in mind that it isn't all psychologically sound. For example, listening to Japanese while you are sleeping does nothing for your learning. However, his method seems to be about acclimating (なれる-ing) the same way a child does, which is great if you have the willpower to do it! Since we don't have caring Japanese mothers and fathers to correct us every time we make a mistake for the first 10 years of our life, this is the closest we can get to なれる-ing. In fact, I'm going to use his method of putting sentences into an SRS and see how it works for me. Oh, speaking of SRS's, I suppose it's time we had that chat.

SRS's are NECESSARY. If you want to learn the most amount of information, and keep it in Long-term memory, in the most efficient manner, you will use one. Psychologists first figured out the memory curve in the 30's and 40's, but sadly, it never caught on. Basically, they found the rate at which memory decayed and when the optimal times were to test and remind information for the best retention rates. As is common in psychology, no one outside actually uses what they discover (maybe I'll be doomed to a life of obscurity...should I really stick with psych?!). Luckily, some people created programs that take advantage of the learning research. I use anki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anki), it's free and easy to download, though using it is hard at first. It's a very flexible program. For instance, you can insert clips of Japanese dramas and test yourself on what they are saying.

What else is necessary? Getting rid of your silly-foreigner accent. You need to imitate what you hear. It's like when you are trying to teach your students the TH sound. They might do it until the end of the activity if you can force them, but they don't do it nearly long enough to retain it for every time they see a TH word. You need to be better than them. Practice, speak, repeat. Here is a website of people in Poland who did something similar to the AJATT guy (in fact, they came before him, it's where he got many of his ideas): http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc.htm. That's their article on pronunciation.

Lastly, MAKE IT FUN. If those Minna no Nihongo books are dragging you down, you can learn grammar from something like Japanese in Mangaland, by Tae Kim. If you can't stand to read another newspaper article, pick up a dragonball manga. The stories you make for your kanji boring you to death, take a break and think of something crazy fun (shredder attending a lecture on abuse, taught by Mr. T, for the kanji for abuse).

A few last notes. Classes and tests are good for a variety of reasons, but taking them alone will NOT get you fluent in Japanese. Some people use classes for motivation, others for clearing up hard to figure out grammar, others to provide competition for themselves if they can't handle just solo study. Tests are the same way. They are great tools, but you will need a lot more than just a once weekly class.

If you are unsatisfied with the above, but aren't resigned to traditional learning methods, here is (another) method for you to use. Find famous polyglots, and research their method for how they learned multiple languages. Many times, you can find a common thread, which is what you want to take and use for yourself.

Some useful websites:
Journal writing, language exchange:

lang-8.com

A website that teaches vocab with audio, pretty good, even if the SRS isn't optimal. You can learn kanji, be tested on just audio, text, learn lots of vocab (they have lists of the most used words, the kanji for JLPT level x, etc. etc.).

smart.fm/

Ok, that's about it. If you like learning languages, take this and use it as you will.

See you soon, when I write about my CONQUERING MOUNT FUJI.

-Greg

And really, what would my blog be without RaNdOm JaPaN:

A few days ago I was walking from my car to the office as usual. Though it was cloudy, it wasn't raining, but I saw a man with an umbrella open in the corner of my eye. Because I was surprised, I turned to look, but the man quickly brought the umbrella down to cover his face. Ok, sorta weird, but, I have this weird feeling. I decided to wait in the lobby area to see who it was, standing slightly out of the way. Well, in comes the boss of my office! Why didn't you want me to see you, sir? Why not say hi, boss?

Oh also, Paul's girlfriend, Maki, says that gaijin (foreigners) smell like butter. Yum?