flemmings: (Default)
flemmings ([personal profile] flemmings) wrote2006-11-21 10:05 am

Happy Camping

ETA: Not so happy camping. Why does bloody lj stick certain posts from abroad in among the FL entries I've already read? [livejournal.com profile] radiofreebanri and [livejournal.com profile] jttr show up a day later than they should have. It's pure accident that I saw the latest gaiden ep at banri. Sheesh. (Goes to change FL page to show=50)

The new Bleach illustration album on amazon.jp is advertised as BLECHイラスト集. It really *is* called All Colour But The Black, yes with that u in it. I am consoled for all the times I've confused my radicals (性 牲, 精 請) when reading too fast, as likewise my inability to tell is it wa or is it ga.

Otherwise I want to read an mjj story and am still tripping over the fact that if I want to read it I have to write it first. Surely there's a mistake there somewhere?

Otherwise the vagaries of broadband keep me running winipcfg, to which my mind always remarks 'twoipbyc.'
incandescens: (Default)

[personal profile] incandescens 2006-11-21 04:28 pm (UTC)(link)
I am having similar thoughts here. What sort of world is it that demands I write the story I want to read?

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2006-11-21 04:36 pm (UTC)(link)
One where someone is falling down on the job. If good fic by Me is a necessity of life- as we all know it is- then it should arrive promptly in the mail at the beginning of the month.

[identity profile] petronia.livejournal.com 2006-11-21 04:45 pm (UTC)(link)
In the same boat. And do it once too often for one too many fandoms, other people start assuming you're a faucet. *g*

*grins*

[identity profile] i-am-zan.livejournal.com 2006-11-21 04:57 pm (UTC)(link)
...
I would also love to read an mjj story. The last one I read was the S7 one...and there is a dearth of good fic lately anywhere! The good thing about such a situation is that I get to go back and read old favourites. Hee!

And is it so wrong to spell Colour with a 'u' in it. I get people telling me that I spell colour incorrectly all the time! As with favour and armour and well you know...Here on LRD *aherm, cough splutter* 30 years ago more or less, we were taught 'Queen's English'. I know better now. So I still say 'zed' instead of 'zee' and my children say 'zee' and its all very complicated. ^__^ all such fun I tell you.

On another note: I know I'm bad for it, sorry...b. but...would it be to nosy if I asked if it was easy for you to learn Japanese or how you picked it up...cos at the moment, sometimes I think I know enough to get me through and then I get to a section and I haven't a clue.

*slinks away feeling like a complete dunce*

Re: *grins*

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2006-11-21 07:34 pm (UTC)(link)
It's not wrong at all to spell it colour. Most English-speaking countries do. But Japan teaches American English (and I'm sorry to hear LRD does too these days) so it's odd to find non-American spelling in a Japanese product.

It wasn't easy to learn Japanese at all when I was doing it by myself. Virtually impossible, actually. I *need* an outside stimulus and didn't get it until I finally enrolled in a university Japanese class. Then when they said Learn this, I learned that, because there was a test on it on Monday. That's how I got hiragana and the first two hundred kanji into my head (and katakana theoretially except that my resistance to katakana was and is enormous.) After that I was able to study on my own and went through the rest of the grammar book and the next several hundred kanji just fine.

It still wasn't easy, but that's because I'm a lazy sod with no memory. I'd study in spurts and then goof off, and really I've been doing that ever since. The big breakthrough was when I learned to read and then found something I desperately wanted to understand. But that's a ways down the road from where you are now, I suppose.

Hiragana is the basic thing, though. With that and a dictionary you can start reading manga, just going from the furigana. I like studying kanji, but the big kanji breakthrough was Remembering the Kanji (http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/4889960759), because it gives a meaning for all those arbitrary kanji elements and thus makes it easier to memorize them. There's a Learning the Hiragana (http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kana-Hiragana-James-Heisig/dp/4889960724/sr=1-1/qid=1164137495/ref=sr_1_1/002-0919476-1015209?ie=UTF8&s=books) book as well if that's what's giving you problems?

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2006-11-21 07:37 pm (UTC)(link)
My biggest fan knows I'm not a faucet since she's the one writing the things, and luckily my other fans have been cowed into silence on the subject. Writer's block and fannish expectation of More sounds more lethal than I care to contemplate.
ext_3743: (Gojyo ' . . . ' (brainfuneral))

[identity profile] umadoshi.livejournal.com 2006-11-21 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)
. . . there was a new Gaiden? *blinks* *backtracks*

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2006-11-21 11:59 pm (UTC)(link)
radiofreebanri dated Nov 18 but to be found among the entries for the 17th. Fortunately the commentary is minimal this time, but I'd be annoyed to have missed it.

Thank you for ...

[identity profile] i-am-zan.livejournal.com 2006-11-22 12:53 am (UTC)(link)
the advice. Its good to know that it is ok to have to struggle.

The hiragana and even now the katakana isn't too bad. I managed to read Bus Gamer before I started classes. Although it ... did.. take . a looonng time. Sigh.

Thank you also for the links. It will be an uphill but fun struggle. I know I sound like I'm complaining , but I do enjoy learning.

Re: Thank you for ...

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2006-11-22 03:36 am (UTC)(link)
If you managed to read Bus Gamer you're way above the introductory level of the Japanese Ability Exam. Maybe I'm confused? I thought you said you were going for lowest level, which is 4.

So what do you find hard about Japanese at the level you're at? Kanji, grammar, or just the slog part?

Re: Thank you for ...

[identity profile] i-am-zan.livejournal.com 2006-11-22 08:33 am (UTC)(link)
The main thing that gets me confused is the grammar. There's just so much to remember...it is level 4 that I am sitting the exam for. The language school I signed up with told me that I should do one level at a time. Also the slog part is difficult. It's fitting it round the running of the home as it were!

...and when I said I 'read' Bus Gamer, it was only because I was armed with a dictionary, and she was kind enough to have the hiragana along side the kanji. And of course I wouldn't say that it was perfect reading. There were gaps, I'm sure. And I did not have a clue about the ins and outs of the grammar then. And now that I know that there is such a thing as the grammar part, I'm less confident about embarking on anything. I haven't looked at the Tokyopop version to see how I did actually...maybe I should. >.<

The feeling I got was that I'd achieved something amazing. So yeah it was pretty cool.

It probably does sound a little strange. That I'm less sure even if I know more. Its a zan thing I think.

Re: Thank you for ...

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2006-11-23 04:01 am (UTC)(link)
and when I said I 'read' Bus Gamer, it was only because I was armed with a dictionary, and she was kind enough to have the hiragana along side the kanji

Yeah, that's how we read- look at the furigana, look it up in the dictionary, try to make sense of it. I see level 4 has gotten harder than in my day- coupla hundred kanji and grammar- but you can't be into things like passives and causatives yet, surely? Japanese grammar is surprisingly simple all things considered, and passives and causatives are probably the worst of it. Once you realize -i adjectives are actually a kind of verb you're over the worst of that; and you never *will* get wa and ga straight.

Oh, and your Christmas cover came today and it's beautiful! I should buy a cushion to go in it but I'm more tempted to frame it. It's the red I like, actually less orangey than [livejournal.com profile] paleaswater's invitation, which only looks orangey in comparison to the material. Right now it's draped over the back of Pipang's chair, clashing hideously with his old rose skin colour, but a reminder of happier days. Such richness as it is... Thank you.

You're most welcome. ^__^

[identity profile] i-am-zan.livejournal.com 2006-11-23 06:26 am (UTC)(link)
..
Ooh! Framing it would be a good idea. Never thought of that! I am glad you like it. Really these cushions jumped out at me and I was mulling over which one to give to who, and I thought that one could only be yours! ^__~

It is the longest I've known our post to take...and it isn't even Christmas proper yet. I'm glad I posted it when I did. two weeks ago!! It really surprised me. Normally it would take 7 working days at most. But I'm glad it arrived intact.

There is something about the colour red, that I love. and Pipang is *heart*

"Japanese grammar is surprisingly simple all things considered,"
Aah, you forget you're talking to someone who has problems with grammar in English as well, let alone in a third language. ^__^. It has never been a strong point of mine.



Re: You're most welcome. ^__^

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2006-11-23 01:07 pm (UTC)(link)
I did wonder about the date on your letter and figured maybe you'd mailed it a lot later. Two weeks and change is what packages take from here to the US. (By air. Truly.) Early Christmas rush, I suppose, meaning I should get cracking on my own cards.

Red is such a happy colour. So *felicitous*.

I've been through the grammars of languages that decline their verbs, nouns and adjectives. Sticking particles after every noun didn't bother me and the verb endings got familar once I'd written every verb out in the form I needed to remember. Taberareru- yomareru- hanasareru....

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2006-11-23 01:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Called 'spinning out a story' and hoping for 4 volumes.

And no, I could not. ^_^ I looked at it and backed away slowly. OK- it's the usual high-flown bombast that starts her stories. You could probably get away with saying this in French, but English just taps its forehead and exchanges significant glances with German.

Doubtless no one would take a second look at this dirtied whiteness, withering and dying in so ugly a way. True. No one but me.

The flowers seem perfectly healthy to me, but hey.