今日の習字。

Today's shuuji lesson was tripartite: 連綿 (renmen), then 変体仮名 (hentaigana), then 漢字 (kanji). I had an unusually good feel with my kofude today; I needed quite a few iterations of each task, but I felt more in control than I usually do. As last time, I needed more time on renmen than on hentaigana; I have trouble moving my hand down the paper fluidly enough to connect the characters seamlessly and with correct alignment and appropriate width and curve of lines. Today's sets were わけ, あめ, and のし. Had the usual tough time with kaisho; in 寒鳥喧, I had surprisingly little trouble with 右払い but had some line-length issues with 鳥 and was totally at a loss on the spacing of 喧. In 喧 I'm lost from the placement of the first 口. I've been practiving the renmen and hentaigana a bit before bed; maybe I'll take a little suzuri and a kofude to work tomorrow and practice surreptitiously....

今の日本語と習字。

今晩日本語のレッスンがあった。いつものように面白くて楽しかった。来週末は、日本語能力試験の新しい三級だ。心配してるよ。出来るだけ練習するつもりだけど、時間があまりないから、知らない単語と漢字が沢山あり、試験は成功じゃないだろうと思う。Oh, well. At least taking the test will be a good experience.

習字は。。。。　今「寒鳥喧」(カン・チョウ・ケン)だ。　さむい、とり、やかましい。

習字の先生に「秋物感人」の読み方について聞いた。中国語の読み方（音読み）と日本語の読み方（訓読み）は同じじゃ無いんだ。先生によると、読み方はこれだ：　「シュウ・ブツ・ひとを感じせむ」。秋になったら、ひとは秋のものを見て、人生などを考える。書道は、日本語の読み方と中国語の読み方が違うとき、小さいカタカナの字が書いてある、例えば、レ、一、二。この字の意味が僕はまだ分かっていない。「感じせむ」の言葉も。

A while ago 先生 taught me あいかわらず, "as always". Just realized that this is the -らず form of 変わる, to change -- ie, "without changing". Still don't get the 相; seems to mean "inter-" or something, as in 相手 (N3 単語), but still ちょっと分からない.

More on N3 prep (vocab and kanji).

Another run through the vocab quizzer today. These are the ones that tripped me up this time:

ukagau (forgot -- i think this space in my head is occupied by ugokazu, because when the definition comes up i think of movement)

tsukamaru (i said tsumareru, but i got it the next time)

namakemono (i said nakamemono; got it right the next time because i remembered the kana ke)

suisenjou (i had a brain moment and said rirekisho—very silly, especially because just today i handed off a suisenjou)

hikkosu (am getting better with this one because hiku suggests being pulled from somewhere)

sashiageru (i said sashiagaru, like meshiagaru, but i won't do that again)

jirojiromiru (i wrote jirojiro in katakana, like perapera)

jugyouryou (i forgot "ju" and said just kyouryou, probably conflating it with kyuuryou. will think of jugyou in the future)

sawaru (i said samaru)

anzen suru (i said ansen)

perapera (jirojiro had scolded me for katakana, so i did this one in hiragana)

yakusoku (sometimes i unthinkingly say yoyaku when i mean yakusoku)

shiten (i said tenshi, but i'll remember the ten in the future)

kankyou (i said kankyuu)

shingou (i said dengou. maybe i have electrons on my mind)

shousetsu (i had setsu immediately but couldn't remember shou until i pictured the kanji)

zutto (couldn't remember at all; briefly thought of nandomo)

mudadzukai (i had to sound this one out by syllable but said ta instead of dzu)

koukan suru (it'll help to remember kou, criss-crossing)

sansei suru

kokusai kankei

shufu (i always think kanai)

sugu, mousugu, and imasugu (and massugu) (maybe it'll help to remember that it has the same temporospatial duality as in English: "directly", meaning "go straight through this intersection" or "do this before anything else")

keizai (had to think about it, probably because economics occupies a money space in my memory) first i was thinking sai-kin (okane)

atsumeru (i thought ayamaru, though of course i rejected that immediately)

kankou (got it but had to think because the syllables were rearranging themselves in my head)

I also tend to say yoroshikereba instead of yoroshikattara, because asking whether something is convenient for someone (for me) doesn't carry the same sense of "pastness".

とにかく、the list is a lot shorter than it was yesterday, so that's good. And there were only one or two that I really couldn't think of at all; most of the mistakes were in on'yomi. One aspect of this quizzer that's both an advantage and (sometimes) a limitation is that the user's kana entry has to match the database entry exactly. So it's a stickler for long vs short vowels and voiced vs unvoiced consonants (good), but then sometimes when the database entry is off there's no way to get the item right (bad).

Also gathering flashcards per the N5–N3 kanji lists. Studying kanji is definitely a priority.

Wondering about パンクする, having a flat tire. It must be a borrowed word, but whence? (Addendum: it's from puncture.)

Tango (and not the Argentine variety).

So I've finally made it through Usagi-chan's 23-chapter vocab
quizzer. I made a list as I was going through of any word
that took some work to remember. Most of the words below I
now have no problem with, but I want to keep them in mind
as a vocab list:

anzen

atsumeru

boshuu

chikoko suru vs okureru vs osoku naru

chuumon suru

gakkari suru

hannin

hikkosu

hitorigurashi—helps to learn that kurashi means "to live / get by"

houtteoku—weird word structurally! Kotoba says it can be written with 放 and 置

ijimeru (ijiwarui?)

jirojiro miru

jiyuu

kagu

kankou

keikaku o tateru

keizai

kenkyuu

kesshou

kinchou suru

kion

kokusaikankei—same kokusai as in the phone call, so that helps

konnafuu—i kept saying konna *ni* ("in this way")

koujou

koukan suru

kyoujuu ni

majime

makoto ni

ma ni au—i've seen a lot of 間 as ma recently. hmm

menkyo

mezamashidokei—fine with the tokei part

monosugoku

mudadzukai—the quiz doesn't give parts of speech, so this threw me for a while as just "waste"

naguru

namakemono

nandomo

netsu ga aru

nodo ga kawaku

nusumu

ogoru

rirekisho—this will be easier now that i'm associating reki with history, but the ri still throws me

ryoushin—"both parents", but i still have a hard time remembering it. it's one of those that send a bunch of syllables rolling through my head, trying to match up

sakki

sansei suru

sawaru

seiji

seikaku

seizai

shiai—didn't know it, but it makes sense. i think this entry may have been one of the few bugs in the program (ie, the code wouldn't recognize しあい however i typed or pasted it)

shingou

shinseki

shiten

shokudou—another one that i learned long ago but don't often use shoukai vs shoutai—it's helping me to think of the "coming together" sense of kai

shousetsu

shucchou—the little tsu is what threw me in this one

shufu—confusing because in fuufu the wife has a long vowel

shuuden

shuushoku suru

suisenjou

tameru—helps me to think of the "for the sake of" sense of tame—i am saving money *for* something else

tebukuro—te, of course

tokoya—toko?—any relation to tokasu?

tonikaku—this one is super-strange. the quiz says it means "anyway", but what can its origin be? Kotoba gives kanji for it but says they're ateji

tonkatsu—the infamous pork loin or whatever

tsugou ga warui—warui makes sense; need to find out what "tsugou" is

tsukamaru—hopefully i'll never have empirical knowledge of this one (or of chikan)

uchuujin—this makes sense as a spaceman, but it's tough to remember

ukagau

uketsuke

waribikiken

yoshuu—i know both the kanji but keep forgetting

zeikin—kin is fine, but strange to start a kanji with a "z" reading

zutto

Most of them I can define right now, just looking at them, but in the quiz they're still not coming to me as quickly as they should. I'll do some thinking about them; that'll help.

Genki vocab.

A thing I don't love about Genki is its apparently scattershot approach to vocabulary. Sometimes it seems to include words just so it can use them in dialogues. A prime example that keeps coming up in Usagi-chan's quizzer (which I like to play with at work when I can) is とんかつ, a pork cutlet. Why do I need that at this stage in my life? I don't think I know the word for sink or chicken or socialism, but I need to know pork cutlet? Why not beef shank? Why not balsamic reduction?

I'm quizzing on all chapters at once, but you can tell which chapters some of the words come from—eg, どろぼ (burglar) and ちかん (sex offender).

More mnemonics.

It's not so much that I use mnemonics intentionally; it just that I get an image in my head and then I don't miss the word anymore in Usagi-chan's pan-Genki vocab quiz. An example just came up: へんぴんする, henpin suru, to return something to a store. へん means weird/strange, of course, so I got this image of a woman returning a pin to the store because it was weird.

Another mnemonic that happened that isn't really a mnemonic at all: もんくをいう (文句を言う), monku o iu, to complain. The meaning has nothing to do with a monk, but when that term comes up in the quiz a monk appears in my head and reminds me.

And then there's the strange case of びんぼう, poor. The first time I saw that, I associated it with a beanpole, so I got that wrong in Usagi-chan. Now sometimes I have to remind myself that it's binbou, not binpou.

This is a favorite: もてる, "to be popular in terms of romantic interest". S/he will meet you at the "moteru" down the street.

ゆうしょうする (yuu shou suru): to win a championship. You show 'em! (Of course, they may in turn shou yu with soy sauce.)

And an ironic one: せいふ, seifu, government. The government makes one feel so safe!

A while ago I got 犯人 wrong, so I wrote it down, and then when it came up again I remembered the written-down version. I must be a pretty visual learner.

I really need to learn more kanji. That'll make it easier to remember tough ones like 推薦状 (suisenjou, a letter of recommendation) or 割引券 (waribikiken, a coupon). Out of the six kanji, only the third, fifth, and sixth are familiar, and I can only positively identify the fifth as hiku (because it's so pictographic).

What's really tripping me up at the moment is 中 at the end of a phrase, -ちゅう vs -じゅう. "In the middle of" something, "for the duration of" something. 授業中に (ちゅう) but 一日中 (じゅう). Maybe with practice I'll get better at feeling the sound.

Oshieru, oboeru, manabu, omoidasu, etc.

For a while I've been vaguely trying to tease our distinctions among these verbs of putting things into, or taking them out of, the memory.

oshieru (教える): it's a standard "to teach", but it also applies to imparting info, such as a phone number (電話番号を教えてください.)

manabu (学ぶ): feels studious, like a person at school (gaku 学)

oboeru (覚える): usually carries a sense of memorizing, but then in "Chijou no Hoshi" Nakajima sings, "地上の星を / だれも覚えていない", which wouldn't carry that sense at all

omoidasu (思い出す): to remember (from the omoide, combining kanji for thinking and leaving/extracting)

I'm sure there are more. Manabu uses the same kanji as all the gaku variants, so there's a definite sense of study and studenting. Oboeru (to me) suggests effort and intention; the 勉 in 勉強, study, has a tsukuri of 力 (strength) and carries a reading of tsutomeru, to work, a verb that's usually written 勤める, again with 力. Exertion, effort. Manabu 学ぶ might suggest the longer-term process of being in a school environment and learning gradually, as opposed to applying oneself acutely. 今日学校に行ったけど、あまり勉強しなかったから、何も学ばなかった。

So maybe Nakajima isn't saying just that no one knows/remembers, but also that no one makes an effort to remember.

Jisho offers a bunch of neat variants on remembering and keeping in mind. The first entry is 思い出す, of course. The second is the enchanting 思い起こす, omoiokosu, combining thinking/memory and awakening—the active form, rather than 思い起きる. Jisho also offers 偲ぶ, which adds ninben, which may carry that reading of "shi" (but does it carry meaning?). It also offers another kanji for oboeru, 憶える： apparently, 憶 can also be omou, like 思う, and the kanji is the 意 in "meaning" (いみ) plus an additional kokoro (mind/heart) for flavor. 注意 (warning) is particularly interesting because it seems to carry a specific sense of attention—eg, you can use 逸らす, actively diverting/digressing, on it to distract someone from something. (注意を逸らしていただきませんか。) Of course, with sorasu (divert) there's also soreru, to wander or digress (on your own—牛が逸れちゃった?).

There must be nuances among all these verbs; so frustrating to see them all listed as "to remember"! Why can't dictionaries say anything useful?

Addendum: And where does 習う fit into all this? Feathers? It's used in 見習い, young women practicing their dancing &c. Is 習う more physical than, say, 学ぶ?

Another kanji moment.

Another happy kanji discovery (though this is probably obvious to everyone else):

汚す yogosu, to soil

汚れる yogoreru, to become soiled

汚い kitanai, dirty.

I like those connections; they're energizing, and they suggest that there may be some logic here. (It definitely helps that 先生 and I have been working on active and passive verb forms.)

So I'm trying to prepare for JLPTN3. Here's a resource I'm using a lot: Usagi-chan's Genki Resource Page at Sacramento State. Lots of helpful resources for kana, kanji, and vocab, but I've been focusing on the vocab quizzer. The app can quiz on vocab from all 23 chapters of Genki, more than 1,000 words in all, and it removes items from the list once you've gotten them right. I'm in Genki chapter 19, but I've been running the whole program, and I've learned a lot. Trying to gain some familiarity with the kanji, too. These two-kanji する combinations are killing me. Maybe it's just that I grew up with English, but I find on'yomi tough to distinguish sometimes -- しゅ vs しょ vs しゅう vs しょう vs じゅう vs じょう. So as I've been going through and speaking everything very carefully.

It's encouraging to know that I'm improving, though. I can go through hundreds at a time without making mistakes other than typos. And it feels pretty good to look at something, think I don't know it, and then have the correct reading or meaning just float up from somewhere deep in my head. Truly, 思い出す.

Fun to tell myself stories to keep the kanji straight. Like, in semai 狭い, the wild dog (けものへん) is in an alley with that bulky つくり and is being squished -- because the alley is narrow (semai). 絵 is literally threads-together, which Henshall says refers to old paintings on silk. 類 is one I'll have to look into when Henshall is handy. Funny that 輪 means rings/circles/wheels; it's one of the most right-angled kanji out there. (But I guess I can see that the hen is 車, a vehicle, and 冊 in the tsukuri may suggest binding together, as with books. I'm tickled that shoko 職, employment, has 耳, 音, and 戈—ear, sound, and halberd—because, of course, employment (shoku) is a state in which you listen to a lot of noise or get chopped. 働, working, has similar charm: a person, heaviness, and strength/force. Sisyphus.

Of course, I'll have to do a lot more for N3; I have some vocab and kanji lists and am making kanji flash cards. Long row to hoe. But I'm encouraged with the progress I've made so far. 頑張ろうね。

覚えにくい単語 / 「たからくじ」の漢字。

So here's a word that I just can't keep in my head: lottery. I'd give the Japanese version, but I'm determined to fish it out of my tired brain. I know the verb for "to hit the lottery" is 当たる, which makes perfect sense, but the word for the lotto itself is a meaningless jumble of syllables.... like five syllables.... たからくじ! Is that right? 意味はなんでしょうか。 takarakuji. Let's see what Kotoba says.

(If Genki doesn't teach you a certain kanji, it won't use it, so sometimes it's difficult to tell what's habitually written with kanji and what's not.)

So there are two kanji in takarakuji:

宝 takara
and
籤　kuji

Apparently 宝 means treasure, and 籤 in both forms means lottery or raffle. Interesting: although the two forms of kuji both carry the meaning of "lottery", they have some differences in readings: the common-use one is SEN, kuji, and kazutori, and the old one is KYOU and kuji. All the kanji compounds that Kotoba lists for both have something to do with lotteries, drawing lots, luck, etc. Interesting stuff. ヘンシャー先生に相談しよう。。。

(ちょっと待って—ヘンシャー先生の本を探してみてる。。。。)

ヘンシャー先生の漢字についての本によると。。。。

takara 宝 is a gimme: 玉 under a roof. Pretty literal.

籤の漢字は。。。。 見つけられないですよ。 Henshall has nothing to say about kuji or its origins. それでは、部首を調べましょう。。。　おほぅ! Jisho lists three that I can see that are about lotteries: 籖, 觽, and 鬮.

籖: kun: kazutori, kuji; on: SEN. Lottery or raffle. Not jouyou. Looks like we have 竹 as tsukuri, with tsuchi 土, hoko 戈, and this crazy 韭, which Jisho says means a leek (but which has no kun'yomi whatsoever). I guess leeks aren't big in Japan.

觽: kun: kujiri, tsunogiri; on: E, KI, KEI, SUI. Judging by its variants, this one has a sense of ivory or horn (角, which is its hen). (Why is tsuno 角 the same kanji as kado 角, corner?—ahh, なるほど, Henshall says kado came from a pictograph of a horn.) The tsukuri includes yama 山 and the weird 隹, which I've seen interpreted as "feathers", "bird in tree", and "old bird". (Henshall says it's a pictograph.) Also not jouyou. "Giri" is interesting; is it related to this sense of obligation, 義理? Some kind of obligation/debt brought on by a horn that resulted in (perhaps) a chance or death or something. Obscure!

But this one is the real prize:

鬮: This one is a bona fide pictograph! You can see an animal in it. Blow it up if you don't believe me. The outer structure is 門ish, but it doesn't connect; just a vertical on the left and a vertical with kick on the right, and inside two 王. Beneath those there's what can only be a literal interpretation of some kind of animal—perhaps a tortoise? Ah, yes—Jisho says that the 鬥 part ("broken gate") is no longer in use (and lists 0 readings for it) but the 亀 part is jouyou and jinmeiyou and means turtle. (You can see the shell and tail.) Exciting!

There are some other sources that follow up on the on'yomi kazutori (which may have something to do with drawing numbers—kazu 数 and toru 取る?), but probably that reading was assigned way after the fact. Still have no idea what the origins of "kuji" might be.

Bet on the turtle.

日本語能力試験 Ｎ３．

So I've committed to N3級—my registration is confirmed. It's in December. I have a lot of work to do.

So I'm making new kanji flashcards, and at the moment I'm running through a fantastic app (hat-tip to Usagi-chan) that quizzes on all vocab from both Genki books, about 1100 words in all. I figure it's a good starting point, even though right now we're only on ch. 19 (book 2). It's helping me learn the vocab I don't already know (or have forgotten), and it's exposing me to kanji that I'll need to make friends with at some point. 私とこの漢字はいま知り合ってみてる。

But here's something wonderful: the kanji combo for "resume" (りれきしょ). 履歴書. Sho is obvious; the 履歴書 is a 書類. Reki, too, is pretty clear; a history. 歴史. But the first one—履?! Kutsu?! The written history of my shoes? Is this ateji, or what?

Also: I love that you can sing the praises of something/someone with Homeru. Perfect! 理想だね！

日本語能力試験 ３級

ところで、I've registered for the JLPT again this year, 日本語能力試験, level N3. Work has been pretty exhausting for a long while, so it'll take a lot of work to be ready, but 頑張りましょうね。 Already making flashcards. Whether it works out or not, I'm looking forward to trying.

Honorrific!

(Apologies—this needs editing, but I haven't had time.)

日本語の授業 on Thursday. Much fun. We discussed honorific forms, 遠慮, etc. What I'm finding most fascinating about these honorifics is how they can combine: meshiagatteiru, meshiagatteirasshaimasu, meshiagatteirassharu. Tabeteirasshaimasu? Tabeteirasshatta koto ga arimasu ka? Tabeteirasshatta koto, aru? They create interesting possibilities, like おなおしになっていらっしゃったら onaoshininatteirasshattara, something like "if/when you have so kindly been correcting". Such a combination seems possible grammatically, but what would it mean to an actual person? And what about onaoshininatteirasshareba?

This is one of many reasons why I'm glad to have my 日本語の先生 as a guide—he's very, very good at explaining the nuances of meaning. I wish I were as good at understanding them!

すみません sumimasen: presumably from すむ sumu, to feel at ease. 遅くなってどうもすみませんでした (osoku natte doumo sumimasen deshita)—very sorry I was late; I didn't feel at ease about it—or, more literally, i became late and was very uneasy (about it). Interesting question, then, of apologies for things you didn't realize at the time were wrong:

Xさんのりんごをたべてすみませんでした. だれのだったか分からなかったんです。
X-san no ringo o tabete, sumimasen deshita. dare no datta ka wakaranakatta n desu.
Sorry I ate your apple, X-san. I just didn't know whose it was.

That (or something like that) is how we'd probably translate it and how it's probably understood, but funny that from a strict semantic perspective the (-te...verb) construction doesn't work: it's not that I ate the apple and felt bad about it at the time, but that I felt bad only when I discovered that the apple had belonged to X-san. Then again, maybe it does work, as a sequence: I ate the apple and later felt bad about it. ringo o tabete, sumimasen deshita. And presumably the speaker is still in that state (and thus is apologizing for it). So, then, could you apologize for a past action with a present-tense sumimasen? ringo o tabemashita kara, ima sumimasen. Or has that specificity of sumimasen been lost? Is it now a stock phrase of obscure origin? 面白いですね。

There's a kanji that I need to follow up on: it had the same first two strokes as 有る, and sensei said (I believe) that it's pronounced ある, but the tsukuri was 子. I think. I haven't been able to find it anywhere.

ごめんなさい gomennasai: We talked about なさる with the other honorific verbs, so now I'm into that. I've wondered before about the -sai endings in ごめんなさい、ください, おやすみなさい, etc. Now it seems that the -nasai endings may derive from nasaru なさる, the honorific form of suru する, to do. So that got me thinking that in gomen the go may also be honorific, and now I see (from jisho.org) that the men in ご免 go-men does have a meaning of "pardon". So that makes sense. But I'm still wondering about ending all these things with -sai, especially as that's complicated by the more formal -saimase, which I assume must come from the -masu form. I've heard before that ごめんなさい can sound childish; would saying ごめんなさいませ make it more formal/appropriate? Google turns up only six results for ごめんなさいませ in romaji　but almost 24,000 in kana. お休みなさいませ。 Now I'm suspecting -sai is an imperative form; that would make sense. Ringo o kudasai = kindly bestow upon me the/an apple. Gomen nasai = perform your honorable pardon [on me]. Could there be an irrashai, "honorably come on in"?

Aha: the Internet tells me that -sai and -mase are indeed, respectively, informal and formal imperative forms. (まだimperativeを学んでいないんです。) One page says that you can use いらっしゃい to a friend arriving at your house, and of course いらっしゃいませ is for shop clerks to greet customers. "Come on in" vs. a much more polite way. (So where would 食べませ leave us?)

それでは、お休みなさいませ。

Going to 茶の湯 tomorrow at the Japanese House in Fairmount Park!

「キッチン」。

ところで、吉本ばななの「キッチン」を読んでみて続けているけど、非常に難しいよ。知らない漢字がたくさんあり、部首で調べることは時間がたくさんかかるんだ。それに、文字は小さくてスパースがあまりないので、調べた漢字は振り仮名を書くことができない。だから、漢字の意味を早く忘れ、もう一回調べなくちゃ。大変だね！　コンピュータで読めば「理解ちゃん」と言うソフトが使えるから、そのほうが易いと思う。実は、「理解ちゃん」を使いたいし、振り仮名を書きたいし、今本のテキストを全部タイプしている！ばかだね。

Article on executions in Japan.

日本語の先生が日本から帰たばかりなので、「お帰りなさいませ」と言ってもいいなぁ。

Interesting article in 毎日新聞 Mainichi Shinbun on the criminal execution process in Japan, apparently long shrouded (笑) in mystery.

英　http://bit.ly/cGJ1sk
和　http://bit.ly/aAGDTS

Interesting, the ritual of it—purification with salt, and so on. I think this part would infuriate me:

「自分が生きる意味を考えてみてくれ」と諭し続けた。

Killing me would be bad enough, but do they have to moralize, too?!

今日の習字。 Shuuji!

ただいま！ Great to be back in shuuji today after several weeks' absence. First we did some more renmen (連綿), writing characters in continuous lines; we're working with two hiragana at a time, so we did よふ, then はま, then なつ. Then hentaigana: several forms of ni (に), which funnily enough look a lot like fu (ふ); the similarity presumably comes from their kanji origins, as two strokes of fu 不 look a lot like the 人べん radical in ni 仁. After に, back to my current summer kanji combo, 「昼院靜」, hiru in sei. Gyousho. A bit of practice on newspaper, and then some attempts at お清書 on various better kinds of paper: the thirsty yellow one, two other (less thirsty) yellow ones, a white one that seemed not to care for me at all.　I did a few things that worked well, but nothing really good. Still spacing issues, even though I tried to demarcate the paper with two 小筆. I could happily write in 行書 all day, but eventually my arm stiffened up and my 行書 started looking more like bad 楷書. Sharp corners. Yuck. And I still tend to write everything too heavily, as if instead of writing it with good technique I were just demanding it look right. 靜 ends with a beautiful vertical stroke that veers left at the end and that you can pull practically off the page:

Next time I think we're moving on to 草書 for 「昼院靜」, and 先生 has asked us to practice our 書 names. Writing my sho name and 書 (kaku) always worries me, because it's your last chance to ruin your work—you've finally managed to write something that's worth putting your name on, but then you ruin it by writing your name or 「書」 badly. As if, as I said to my friend and fellow student as we left, in signing a painting Rembrandt forgot to write the "d". (Perhaps his patrons would have find that charming, but.)

A few months ago I stamped a piece with my chop but had the angle wrong—ie, the inked chop facing the wrong way. Rookie mistake!

吉本ばなな/キッチン (YOSHIMOTO Banana / *Kitchen*)

日本語の先生が今日本へ旅しているから８月まで勉強に会えないので、僕は面白くて難しい宿題がある。吉本ばななの「キッチン」を買って読んでみるんだ。本はもう買ったけど、まだもらっていない。紙の本だから、漢字を携帯で調べられないし、読みにくすぎるかもしれないけど、頑張るのを楽しみにしているよ。

買ったばかりのカンジについての本！

I'm always looking things up in Henshall's excellent book, so I was pleased to find on Amazon another book exploring the wonders of kanji, Eve Kushner's Crazy for Kanji. I've only glanced through so far, but I'm loving it. Her approach is fresh and irreverent, and she emphasizes the connections among kanji and their sounds, parts, and meanings, as I sometimes have tried (with less success) to do here. She's also saying a lot about the importation of 漢字, the effects that had, and the relationship with earlier 和語 (wago, indigenous Japanese language), an area I've wanted to read much more about.* She also explores more subtle topics, such as what the use of kanji may suggest about Japanese culture and how the Japanese themselves feel about kanji. To boot, she includes a variety of quizzes and games that challenge the perception of kanji as one big, dark room.

I find it all no less daunting, but I'm stoked.

*For Japanese script reform, 国語国事問題, see eg here and here.

On not being able to comment through Y! Japan....

I've tried a few times to sign up for Google Japan to comment on 主婦さん's post on nutrition, but 出来なかった, so　here's what I wanted to say:

実は。。。There are parents here in アメリカ who were raised to leave nothing on the plate—the influence of the Depression of the 1930s, when you couldn't be sure there would be food at all. "Waste not, want not" ですね. (「もったいない」の表現は大体同じだと思います。)But here our nutrition problem is probably about not only education but supply—in some areas, fresh fruits and vegetables are available but not affordable.

ところで, I believe the palate does change as we grow older; 子供 may be more sensitive to some substances (like onion) and reject them as too strong. でも、食べ物は子供の時食べたくなくて大人の時食べたいのがありますね。(?) There are many foods that as children we dislike but as adults we like. 例えば Brussels sprouts—they're the classic child-hated food, but here in フィラデルフィアのレストラン they're served as a delicacy. 美味しいですよねー。

(下手な日本語、どうもすみません。生徒なんですが。)

下さる。

I find 下さる (kudasaru) really interesting. It's polite but informal. I've heard it once or twice in アニメ, and now here it is again in クリストチャン・ラジオ. I suppose it reflects an intimate but respectful relationship.

クリスチャン・ラジオ?！ (Christian radio?!)

外人は会話の日本語が分かるために、たくさん日本語を聞かなくちゃね。だから僕はいつも日本のインタネット・ラジオのサイトを探してる。今日の探しは音楽のリンクはぜんぜん動かなかったけど、クリスチャン・ラジオのが一つできた。だから僕は今聞いてる。僕はアメリカ人で、日本語でクリスト教がちょっと変みたいけど、このラジオの人はゆっくい話してるから、僕は時々分かる。面白いよ。

I really need to practice listening, so I'm always looking for Japanese-language streaming radio. No luck with music today, but I did find a working link to a Christian station. It's definitely a little weird to hear Christian radio in Japanese, but when they read the Bible they pause enough that I can pick up a good bit of it, so works. それはいいことだろう。

例えば: Hearing "Nearer, My God, to Thee" in 日本語. Must must must find those lyrics. 歌詞を見つけなくちゃ成らないよ。

「インタネット・ラジオって、不思議なものですね。」—ひばり美空

歌詞：「おもちゃのチャチャチャ」 ("The Toys' Cha-cha"!)

「元気」の教科書の第１８課の練習問題の中に、
「おもちゃ」の単語を使うのがある—

（女の子が）おもちゃを壊す。
（それから）おもちゃが壊れる。

でも、よく僕はその単語（言葉？）が思い出せない。その時、思い出させるために、先生は「おもちゃのチャチャチャ！」って歌う。子供の歌の歌詞だって。僕は知らない歌なので、調べ訳してみよう。。。。　何分が分かるだろうかなぁ。子供のなので、よく分かるといいよね。

OK, ビデオを見つけて見た:



そらに　きらきら　おほしさま　（チャチャチャ）
　　みんな　すやすや　ねむる　ころ
sora ni kirakira ohoshisama
　　minna suyasuya nemuru koro
when the Stars are twinkling in the sky
　　and everyone is sleeping soundly

おもちゃは　はこを　とびだして　（チャチャチャ）
　　おどる　おもちゃの　チャチャチャ
omocha ha hako o tobidashite
　　odoru omocha no chachacha
the toys jump out of the box
　　and dance the toy cha-cha
(飛び出すは僕の一番好きな動詞に成ってるよ。今日会社でこの動詞の草書をデスクトップの背景にした。おもちゃのように会社員の箱を飛び出そう！）

（繰り返し）

なまりの　へいたい　トテチテタ
　　らっぱ　ならして　こんばんは
namari no heitai to-te-chi-te-ta
　　rappa narashite konban ha
with a "to-te-chi-te-ta", the lead soldier
　　plays "good evening" on his trumpet

フランスにんぎょう　すてきでしょ
　　はなの　ドレスで　チャチャチャ
furansu ningyou suteki desho
　　hana no doresu de cha-cha-cha
the pretty French doll
　　dances in her flowery dress

（繰り返し）

きょうは　おもちゃの　まつりだ
　　みんな　たのしく　うたいましょ
kyou ha omocha no matsuri da
　　minna tanoshiku utaimasho
today is the toys' holiday/festival
　　everyone's having fun singing
(どうして「-ましょ」を使うかなぁ。僕も楽しく歌うはずなんだろう？)

こひつじ　メエメエ　こねこは　ニヤー
　　こぶた　ブースカ　チャチャチャ
kohitsuji meemee koneko ha nyaa
　　kobuta buusuka cha-cha-cha
the lamb goes, "baa!" the kitten goes, "Meow!"
　　the piglets in boots (?!) (dance the) cha-cha
(「ブースカ」って何だろう？ イメージ検索からも分からない）

（繰り返し）

そらに　さよなら　おほしさま　（チャチャチャ）
　　まどに　おひさま　こんにちは
sora ni sayonara ohoshisama
　　mado ni ohisama konnichi ha
goodbye, Stars in the sky!
　　hello, Sun through the window!

おもちゃは　かえる　おもちゃばこ
　　そして　ねむるよ　チャチャチャ
omocha ha kaeru omochabako
　　soshite nemuru yo cha-cha-cha
the toys return to the toybox
　　and go to sleep.

（繰り返し）

ちょっと安すぎるだろうが、役に立つ単語があり、いい練習だね。僕は今「源氏物語」のテキストも勉強しテレので、こんな子供の歌を訳すのが優しい。

I love that they're dancing to a gramophone (グラモフォーン？). And 鉛の兵隊 dances like this kid from Charlie Brown:



Of course, as Cさん says, it's no トマトちゃん.

Whatever ブースカ may be, この可愛い犬はブースカが欲しいと思う:

訳そう。

練習のために、ちょっと訳そう。　例えば、これは今日の「朝日新聞」のテキスト。　エンタメの「BOOK」の何かを読んでみよう。　選んだテキストはこれ：

Time to try translating something small, so here'a bit from the BOOK section of Asahi newspaper online:

第５６回青少年読書感想文コンクールの課題図書、
dai go-juu-rokkai seishounen tokusho kansoubun konkuuru no kadai tosho
the book for the 56th Young People's Book Report Contest

小学校低学年から高校生まで全１８冊を一同に集めました。
shougakkou teigakunen kara koukousei made zen juu-hassatsu o ichidou ni atsumemashita.
18 books have been chosen, for kids from grade school through high school.

今年も気になる作品が勢ぞろい！
kotoshi mo ki ni naru sakuhin ha seizoroi!
once again an army of books have lined up!

あれもこれも読んでみたくなる作品ばかりです。
are mo kore mo yondemitaku naru sakuhin bakari desu.
(this and that work people increasingly want to try to read?! How does ばかり fit in?)

売り切れる前に、お早めにご購入ください！
uri kireru mae ni, ohayame ni go kounyuu kudasai!
buy early, while the sales last!

Je me demande ce que lisent les enfants au Japon. Ça se peut que moi aussi je pourrais le lire, à l'aide du dictionnaire bien entendu. 僕は日本語の小学生の本が読めるかなぁ。

ところで、「朝日新聞」のサイトは日本のサッカー・チームの色に染まったみたいだね。 「本日はサッカー日本代表の健闘に敬意を表し、トップページをブルーにしました。」って書いてある。

The Asahi site has turned blue for Japan vs Paraguay!

漢字： 「翻訳」の「翻」。 (What's the "hon" in "hon'yaku"?)

It's bothering me that I don't know what the hon in hon'yaku (translation) means; I always just use 訳 yaku (訳す、訳する). So let's find out. ちょっと調べてみよう。。。。

Well, that's ランドム. Kotoba gives two kanji, 翻 and 飜, and grays out the former, though apparently only the former is 常用 (Jouyou, common-use: school grade 8, JLPT level 1). Both mean "to flip over", and they share a hen of topped-rice and rice-field; in 翻 the tsukuri is 羽 (hane, feathers/wings), and in 飜 it's our old friend 飛 (tobu, to fly).

Not clear to me how either of these relates to translation, but maybe it's phonetic. I'll check Henshall先生 later.

今年の日本語能力試験。(JLPT)

今年の日本語能力試験は、フィラデルフィアでも受けられる！素晴らしい。僕は新しい４級を受けるといい。沢山勉強すると、３級もできるかも知れない。 JLPT in Philadelphia this year! I may be able to shoot for new-4 or even, with a ton of study, new-3. My bad luck that they changed the numbering on me after last year (when I achieved 4). But　しょがない. 「いい天気ですから、散歩しましょう。」

Uh-oh. The guide to the new test says it features コミュニケーション能力をより重視した試験になります—increased emphasis on communication skill. I don't like the sound of that! 壊い。

ガイドによると、新しい試験の３級の必要な能力（できなきゃならないこと）はこれ:

• One is able to read and understand written materials with specific contents concerning everyday topics.
  
• One is also able to grasp summary information such as newspaper headlines.
  
• In addition, one is also able to read slightly difficult writings encountered in everyday situations and understand the main points of the content if some alternative phrases are available to aid one’s understanding.
  
• One is able to listen and comprehend coherent conversations in everyday situations, spoken at near - natural speed, and is generally able to follow their contents as well as grasp the relationships among the people involved.

That sounds not completely infeasible, 沢山漢字と文法を学んだり、会話を練習したりしておけば. だけど無理かもしれない。 I'll try to read more 朝日.

New favorite verb: 飛び出す.

飛び出す tobidasu combines 飛ぶ　tobu, to fly, with 出す dasu, to get out. Roughly translated, "to get the hell out". 飛び出そうね。

The thing I can't understand (分からない事) is why it's not 出る deru, the intransitive form. It's not like I'm getting someone else the hell out.

Interesting: Kotoba によると, 飛び出る is indeed a verb, but it's more about protruding/obtruding, things that come out of other things, than about extraction. Can 飛び出す tobidasu apply to oneself?

今日の習字. (today's calligraphy!)

Today we "finished" the iroha—that is, we began studying the last six hiragana characters. 先生 gave us hentaigana to look at for next time, and some examples of 連綿 renmen, connecting kana into continuous lines. Just two characters at a time so far, more as we gain in skill. 今度ね。

We took a break from my new 晝陰靜 hiru in sei to do two characters from the last set, 雲 kumo and 飛 to(bu), in new sousho styles on white paper. 先生 and I picked out some favorites from the Masters; I wrote 雲 in the style of 吳昌碩 and 飛 in the amazingly tight and blotchy style of someone whose name I can't make out at all. I also tried this really daunting 飛 by (I think) 楊維—

It can be tough to sound out the name of a Chinese calligrapher. In 吳昌碩, 昌碩 may be shouseki; 吳 seems not to live in Japanese, beyond the name of a harbor near Hiroshima, but may be.... Scratch that. I'm going to go full-on Chinese with it and say his PinYin name is WU Chang-Shi or WU Chiang-Shuo or something else along those lines. And...やった！ *rah* It is. So now I'm savvy enough to figure out that 楊維楨 is YANG Wei-Chen—not this one, but this one—from the Yuan Dynasty, 14th century. Funny, because apparently Wu lived 1844–1927. But I guess variety helps. 先生 says it's good to practice from calligraphers who wrote during the Tang dynasty (7th to 10th centuries) because their work tends to be the least idiosyncratic / the most standardized.

(Ha—this site of the National Palace Museum refers to Yang's "wild cursive script" that "mirrors in many ways the troubled times of the late Yuan dynasty". I guess his 飛 does, too. 先生 wasn't into that 飛 but said I could try if I wanted to, so in some down-time I did. I think I see the logic of the movement, but I couldn't make it look coherent as Yang's does. The thing is, he connects everything and keeps all the lines thin, so his 飛 comes out looking like a Picasso. This history of Chinese calligraphy actually quotes Yang.)

The Unknown Master's 飛 is certainly strong. It enters very lightly but coils the first hook-and-dots into a tight little ball and then condenses the vertical and the swipes into a seriously thick descending line. The second hook also is heavy, but at the end of the low stroke it suddenly lightens and trails up to a powerful ending 点. For me, the last hook stroke in this sousho is difficult because I enjoy it so much: often I drew it out along the bottom and pulled in on the upstroke, as I like to do, and I ended up with something more like 龍 ryuu, dragon. And then one time, somehow, it read as 兎 usagi, a bunny rabbit. 不思議なものだね。

As for 雲: after 先生 corrects, I usually rewrite the page a few times, so of course the 漢字 get darker and darker. Seeing a 雲 on the trash pile, 先生 had the inspired idea to "darken" my 雲—why shouldn't we do it as a storm cloud, with a really bold entrance? So I started doing it that way, with a ton of ink in the opening strokes (雨) and then a subtle trailing-off afterward. Cool effect—total 滲み at the top and then neat 掠れ at the end. 楽し過ぎてやばい！

Once when we were all looking through a book of 書, 先生 pointed out a kanji written along the edge of some examples that meant "in the style of". She read it as リン rin. Wondering what that might be. Per Saiga, there are a few decent candidates, but the best so far is probably 随, which means "following". 僕の一番好きな「飛」は、知らないマスター随だよ。

ところで：　I like it when kanji are their own radical. There's something impressive about it—like they're so unique that there's no comfortable way to categorize them with anything else. You go, 飛.

「お大事に」。 ("o dai ji ni")

Just realized that 「お大事に」, a common "seeya"/"take care" expression, is probably an abbreviation for 体を/気をお大事にしてください [karada o / ki o] odaiji ni shite kudasai, "please treat your spirit/person/self as a very important thing". A form of 「に する」 ni suru. I'm not so familiar with those constructions and was reading about them earlier when I was trying to translate something from Genji. Hmm.

It's great to have Google to test out language constructions.

"お大事にしてください": ~269k hits
"お大事にして下さい": ~683k hits
"お大事にして": ~19.7 million hits, almost every one of them followed by 下さい or ください

So there may be something off with Google's counting.

川柳遊び。 (senryuu poems)

日本語の小中学生のセンリュウのサイトを見つけたー。すごい。 Found a neat site with senryuu poems by Japanese schoolkids. Should be more translatable than the pieces of Genji I've been failing on!

新学期どきどき感が気持ちよい
shingakki
dokidoki kan ga
kimochi yoi

new school term
the heart pounds
it's a good feeling


地球はね青くて丸い愛なんだ
sakkyou ha ne
aokute marui
ai na n da

the Earth
blue and round
love it


生きてゆく長い廊下を一歩ずつ
ikiteyuku
nagai rouka o
ippo zutsu

going through life
under? a long corridor
one step at a time


ふるさとはきれいな星の生産地
furosato ha
kirei na hoshi no
seisanchi

my hometown
is known for producing
beautiful stars


南の島ハイビスカスが笑ってる
minami no shima
haibisukasu ga
waratteru

southern island
hibiscus is laughing


本読んで大きなゆめがうまれたよ
hon yonde
ooki na yume ga
umareta yo

reading a book,
big dreams
were born


牛からの白い素敵なプレゼント
ushi kara no
shiroi suteki na
purezento

lovely white present
from the cow


お城から今日も元気をもらってる
oshiro kara
kyou mo genki o
moratteru

today, once again,
drawing strength
from the castle


さわやかなシュートが春をつきやぶる
sawayaka na
shuuto ga haru o
tsukiyaburu

fresh
shoots break though
the spring