みなさん、 こんばんは。私の手紙です。読んでください。 じゃ、また。
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みなさん、 こんばんは。先週の木曜日はサンクスギビングでした。That got me thinking: does Japan have any similar holiday? It turns out the answer is yes, and it's right around the same time! 勤労感謝の日(Labor Thanksgiving Day, pronounced きんろうかんしゃのひ) is celebrated every year on November 23 unless that is a Sunday, in which case it is celebrated on November 24. Labor Thanksgiving Day was established in 1948 as a celebration of human rights as codified in the new constitution. This picture shows children making pictures to thank firefighters and police officers for Labor Thanksgiving Day. The root of the holiday goes back to ancient Shinto traditions, dating to the seventh century A.D. if not even earlier. 新嘗祭（にいなめさい）is a harvest celebration in which the people thank the かみ (spirits) for a good harvest. To this day the emperor still offers the first rice of the year to the gods and eats it himself as a ritual meal. I would love to hear from any Japanese people what their favorite holidays are and how they are c
みなさん、 こんにちは。火曜日のじゅぎょうに書道（しょどう - calligraphy）をしましたから、私のアジア研究のプロジェクトを思い出した（remembered）。My group put together a timeline of the development of writing in East Asia. For my part, I focused on the development of Japanese writing, which starts with the introduction of Chinese characters and goes on through the evolution of kana (both hiragana and katakana) and the integration of kanji. Take a look: 私のプロジェクト じゃあ、また！
みなさん、 こんにちは！Now that we're halfway through the semester, it's time to re-evaluate my goals for Japanese learning. I posted earlier that I wanted to learn ひらがな and カタカナ as soon as possible - mission accomplished! Now it's just all about かんじ, and I'm making good progress using WaniKani to help me study. My progress in speaking is a little bit harder to gauge: 1. Fluid speech - I want to sound as much like a native speaker as possible. This is difficult when we are learning the formal register of the Tokyo dialect first, but that doesn't mean I can't work on fluidity and speaking speed. I have gone to a couple language tables, but I have decided that I want to go once a week from now on so that I can improve my speed and ease of conversation. 2. Rhythm and intonation - It's one thing to sound "fluid" in my opinion, and another for a native speaker to think I sound right. I want to improve my rhythm and intonation by shadowing a full scene from an
金継ぎ（きんつぎ）
みなさん、 こんばんは。I would like to introduce you all to a lovely bit of Japanese culture. Ceramics have millennia of history in Japan, but the art form has grown and transformed as a result of Buddhist and Chinese influence throughout that time. Kintsugi (金継ぎ) is the art of mending cracked pottery using gold resin so that the damage that has been done to a piece will become part of its story and, ultimately, make it even more beautiful. Check out this explanation:
Goal Statement: 1. Fluidity of reading: Currently, I have difficulty translating what I see into speech even though I recognize all of the individual hiragana. By using games like KanaMind and WaniKani for twenty to thirty minutes a day, I will improve my recognition of kana and kanji. 2. Natural speech recognition and reproduction: As a non-native speaker, it is hard for me to parse a series of syllables at conversational speed and recognize them as discrete words. I will shadow a scene from an anime once a week and attend a Japanese language table once every two weeks for conversational practice with other learners. 3. Intonation: Some of the subtleties of intonation are lost on me. I will converse with native speakers and advanced learners and incorporate their corrections whenever possible.
こんにちは! Brown です. I am excited to learn Japanese so that I can directly interact with one of the great cultures of the world. That includes consuming media like anime and video games and reading original novels by the likes of Haruki Murakami, but also (hopefully) traveling abroad to experience a new sense of place through interactions with a thoroughly modernized but foreign people. I am also taking East Asian Humanities this semester to build a foundation for understanding Japanese philosophy and traditions. I want to use my Japanese to further that understanding. After the first couple days of class, I am primarily worried about the writing system. I'm not quite sure how to go about studying hiragana and katakana, let alone kanji. It is a daunting task to grasp three scripts and integrate them all into the same sentence. I have heard repeatedly that Japanese grammar is starkly different from that of English, making it especially hard to translate and learn as a native English s