Tuesday, February 14, 2023
"Distinct Tokushima accent"
Wednesday, December 21, 2022
One for the host.
In which I get to speak Japanese.
Sunday, December 18, 2022
Time keeps on slipping, slipping.
Saturday, December 17, 2022
JLPT N3, the useful stuff.
For the JLPT N3, please pay attention to
- rendaku in the second half of the word—ぎょう, きょう
- similar kanji; watch the hen radical
- long vs short vowels; おう vs おお
and LEARN KANJI.
JLPT N3 (personal part; useful part to come).
Personal experience of it:
N3. Wasn't going to go, because I felt unprepared; went anyway. Train as advised didn't match Sunday schedule; took cab with friendly driver, hair blowing in the breeze from the open window. Waited outside; stream of students. Greeters super friendly; directed me to a room. Curious, why there would be computers, when I had a backpack full of sharpened #2 pencils. Angered, as the clock passed the start of the test. Next seat, when asked, had no idea of a Japanese test. Turns out I was in the media lab, not the JLPT test room.
Proctors let me join the second section in the correct room, with the understanding that it won't be scored. All that for nothing.
I wrote a whole thing on learnings, but it's disappeared, so I'll do it again maybe tomorrow.
Thursday, December 1, 2022
Further JLPT panic.
Just taking a moment to freak out. JLPT is this Sunday. My N3 book arrived, and it seems to expect me to understand and speak Japanese. If the test were in Heian, maybe I'd have a chance. I'm good at languages, but only academically; talking with people and getting by in life aren't among my limited skills. I'm going to spend some time with my book outside.
Monday, November 28, 2022
とにかく (tonikaku, "anyway").
The JLPT approaches!
Saturday, October 1, 2022
Momoshiki.
That's the word I was trying to remember: momoshiki. Momoshiki no oomiyabito ha itoma are. The people of the palace.
I've been thinking a lot recently about insider and outsider, us and them; that seems a very Japanese thing, at least grammatically, and maybe that's why I'm remembering his commenting on the people in the palace.
ももしきの大宮人はいとまあれや桜かざし今日も暮らしつ
—YAMABEのAkahito
暇
Monday, September 19, 2022
あなたを永遠に愛します。
Duolingo. (Just hit a 365-day streak, tyvm!)
I put in も—
あなたを永遠にも愛します。
Duo wants 永遠にあなたを愛します, but is も so wrong, when we mean forever? Even until forever.
Why we're using a masu form for someone we'll love forever is beyond me, but, hey; so is を, which tags you as the direct object of my loving. あなたのこと?
(My soft heart loves this song, of a pair of songs, which uses that construction in the context of love:)
大ボタル。
I've received a gorgeous card with a golden dragonfly and am remembering a haiku from 書道 lessons—蛍 is a firefly, vs a dragonfly, but anyway:
大ボタル oobotaru
ゆらりゆらりと yurari yurari to
通りけり toorikeri
(Issa 一茶, Hachiban Nikki / Eighth Diary, Bunsei 2, 1819—I think)
a big lightning-bug is passing by, swaying
Or maybe lurching, right, left, right, left. -keri, if I recall correctly, is continuous; a moment of fireflying along, sort of stumbling along its 通 through the air, as bugs do.
"夏の世の闇の中を大きな蛍が悠々と光って飛んでゆく、の意。" (source, source, source; Issa chronology from the endlessly fabulous HaikuGuy, David G. Lanoue)
A big lightning-bug flies leisurely by, lighting the summer dark.
Monday, September 5, 2022
Is お世話 really བརྩེ་བ?
To be thought on.
A friend has bought a formerly owned book on Buddhist tsewa—very roughly, tenderness/compassion, or openness, of the heart—and discovered inside an inscription from the author, and asked me to look into it. Some success had, but here's my thought: Is tsewa related to お世話 (o-sewa)? The kanji are ateji, used for their phonemes (se, wa, plus o honorific) rather than their meaning (world, speech); this suggests it's borrowed from another language. A prelim look into etymologies (here, here, here) says o-sewa's origin isn't clear; derivation from busyness or from "common talk" isn't convincing. Openness, compassion, and care seem to suit お世話 very well, and it certainly wouldn't be the first instance—far from the first—of imported Buddhist terms fitted to Japanese speech, or maybe to monastic writing.
Or maybe there's no connection at all.
(Maybe it's Guanyin manifesting again; I could use some compassion and self-care. I'll move the pen-and-ink portrait I recently found on my street to a more prominent position. おんあろりきゃそわか.)
Tuesday, August 23, 2022
觀世音菩薩 manifests on my street.
Recently I've been thinking about compassion and, surprisingly, about boddhisatvas; Buddhism isn't a thing I think about much at all, but it's been on my mind. A 19th-century pulley I have from a musty basement has been whispering dharmachakra. My house is peopled with ancestors and saints—including Budai/Hotei, the "laughing Buddha", a favorite for years, even before our post-COVID similarity in belly—and for a while I've been looking online for a statue of Guanyin, bodhisattva of compassion in many forms, to join them.
So today I had to walk across town for this meeting that turned out to be nothing. On the way back, in the rain, I espied in someone's recycling bin this framed treasure:
Of course, task #1 (after hauling it home) was to read it.
From right:
南無観世音菩薩
十三年六月二十五日
And then katakana and one kanji: グリフ、スグリーン芽—glyph, "sugureen" sprout? 芽 me/GA
Or is it a little tsu? Griff's/Griffith's Green?
Carefully lifting to view the back:
謹写—kinsha, copy?
Front again:
南無: namu/namo (kanji are south 南 and nothing 無), but this is a hailing word in Buddhism
観: appearances, observation (KAN カン; variant of 觀?)
世: the world (SE セ, yo よ)
音: sound (ON オン, oto おと)
菩薩: bosatsu ぼさつ, boddhisatva (suffix)
Together, these name the boddhisatva Avalokiteśvara—that is, lotus-bearing Guanyin (观音/觀音)!
十三年六月二十五日: June 25th (that is, 25th day of the 6th month) of the 13th year. Of what? 本地垂迹? Shinto "manifestation theory"—traces of the homeland, manifested forms of the deity (in this case to save Philadelphians?)—that linked page says honji suijaku was accepted in Japan until the Meiji era; if this is Japanese (given the katakana), then the 13th year might be ~1938 (Shouwa), ~1924 (Taishou), or even ~1880 (Meiji).
I have a lot more learning to do, so for the moment I'll be happy that the boddhisatva of compassion 觀世音菩薩 has manifested in my home. Wild-goose chase across town well spent!
Sunday, August 21, 2022
Translating trivia questions.
A thing to try, in the interest of trying things, is translating questions for this app Trivia Crack. Veamos cómo va:
In The Lion King, why does Scar want to kill Simba?
映画ライオンキングではなぜスカーはシンバを殺したいのか。
He's tired of his attitude—シンバの態度にうんざりしてるから
To become king—王になるために
He doesn't want kids—子供が欲しくないから
He is bored—スカーは退屈だから
Or maybe because Simba's bored.
No way to know whether that's anywhere near the mark, but I'll submit it because, hey. On to the next ね.
This next one isn't promising: "What's the definition of ambidextrous?" That works in Eng because the roots are Greek, so you can offer the options "lefthanded" and "righthanded" (although etymologically it's more like "both right", with the ancient connotation that the dexterous right hand is better than the sinister left hand and thus both hands are valid/worthy); but in Japanese the first kanji is literally "both" 両.
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Miscellaneous and trashy (雑).
As I now am committed to JLPT N3 and really need kanji work, I'm paying more attention to radicals. (I find that often I know kanji more by their shape/feel, plus context—some parts just sort of blur out, because from the initial visual impression it's pretty obvious. If I were asked to write the kanji from memory, I would have to piece it out and probably would get only the most salient parts right, the parts that have feeling-weight.)
雑 ゾウ; "miscellany (classification of Japanese poetry unrelated to the seasons or to love)". This last raises the question of a hierarchy of genres; there always is one, in the arts, but here zatsu is all that mess/noise that isn't refined poetry. It's fun to think of a magazine as not only a collection 集 of various documents 誌 shi but also a collection of low-culture noise 雑. (Compare a 週刊誌, a 専門誌, a 論文誌—publications that aren't 雑—vs a 漫画雑誌, a manga zasshi.**)
*Phonetically in the sense that phonemes tend to attach to the feels they name—mechakucha for all over the place, out of control—my hair is all mechakucha; or guttural, and other heavy /uh/ sounds, in English. Lithe, a lithe word to name litheness. Meek to name meekness. びっくり, which sounds surprised. Onomatopoeia, of course, like crack. キラキラ, どんどん, くしゅ.
*Having read many, many academic publications, I'd say manga often ranks higher in cultural value. I have a draft around here somewhere about 漫 and its related forms.
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
英訳は深刻な社会問題だね。
過労.
彼は年金を与えられなかった。
Monday, August 15, 2022
灯籠書道、奏功?
Pilot attempts at lanterns. Got out all my materials; very happy to see my brushes again. First attempt 魂; everything about them off, proportions of the top and bottom (since I'm trying the stacked form), elbows in the strokes from hanging around too long on too-absorbent material (in this case, practice napkins); tried again but on larger drawing paper, rolled, and set into the beaker of a French press; that didn't hold the paper form well; dropped-in tea candle went out, so used tongs and felt ridiculous, but whatever; overall effect in the dark OK but need for improvement obvious. Next: write nearer center of paper, to avoid ugly edge overlap; write better; probably not that brush, because I don't see those bristles giving my a decent 厶; use a Shabbos candle for greater illumination; use tape or rubber band to affix paper to outside of glass structure. (I've lined up a rocks glass and a scrubbed salsa jar.) Concern: given the narrowness of these vessels, I'll have to write pretty small to keep the proportions on one side. Options: I also have a rectangular vase or two the might work; or, I could form the paper into a rectangle or square and house the candle in something protective but smaller in diameter.
Anyway, JLPT. Refreshed the screen all morning until I succeeded in registering for N3, 9AM 太平洋 Time. (I'm sure that's not the word for the time zone, but I'm going to allow myself the satisfaction of knowing how to say the ocean.) I have until December to execute some study strategy. After all these years and books, and an endless streak at the top of the diamond league in Duolingo, I still feel like I can't actually say anything in Japanese, outside the parameters of an exercise. I can't get through half a thought without tearing it all down as wrong. (I can't even settle on the best kanji for "lantern"; I might go with 灯籠, as a basket, but I'm not 流しing them anywhere. I had to read a page on the difference between 成功 and 奏功.) Anxious paralysis. But, hey, it's the journey. Right? 練習道のマスターになっているね。
Saturday, August 13, 2022
O-bon lanterns! Let's make some.
I haven't been able to get to the o-Bon festival at 松風荘 this evening, so I think I'll make lanterns for my windows. We need 季語 kigo, seasonal words, appropriate for o-Bon; we consult this kigo site, among many, and choose 魂祭 tamamatsuri, soul festival—what right-thinking ancestor wouldn't be attracted by that?
Next, we need examples. (I don't mind writing badly if only I and the dead will see it.) Hao86—Chinese site, so I think 书法 shufa, vs 書法 shohou; both vs 書道 shodou, "the way of" calligraphy—has examples of everything, in multiple scripts, attributed—or, at least, it seems to be trying to, as some areas are a bit bare—so we look there. Hao offers five style categories:
行书 (行書 gyousho semi-cursive/"running" script)
楷书 (楷書 kaisho standard/regular/"block" script)
草书 (草書 sousho cursive/"grass" script, very stylized)
隶书 (隷書 reisho clerical script*)
篆书 (篆書 tensho seal script, for stamping documents)
*"Clerical script" may be a euphemism, as Jisho defines 隷 as "slave, servant, prisoner, criminal, follower".
Helpful, for picking out forms we find interesting and would like to practice a bit. 例えば:
This one preserves the shape nicely, has the shape I like for the "animal legs" radical (stab left, sweep right!), and sort of casts off the little two-stroke oni 鬼 triangle, into almost a barbed tail:
(about the artist, YU Boqing 徐伯清, current, Shanghai)
...but this one is irresistible—look how it stacks the radicals:
(about the artist, ZHANG Ruitu 張瑞圖, 1570–1641 / works)
Maybe handle the "speech" radical 云 (which I somehow think of as steam/mist/vapor, which certainly works here) with sort of a rightward dot, strong horizontal, elbow, take a moment at the end, launch into the vertical for 田; loop and tie, then into the legs, and the styling final dot that makes your 厶 but also seems a quintessentially 書道 thing to do. I think. Or something. Anyway, it looks fun to try.
祭はねー。。。
Matsuri is pretty much a prayer/altar (示, 礻) under the "dotted tent" radical (癶); Henshall says the parts are literally a hand placing meat (⺼, with interesting/confounding overlap with 月 moon) onto an altar. Seems to pack in the connotation of sacrifice. Perfect for a soulfest. I'm not finding the right thing on Hao, so on to general search; we don't want to mix styles, but I'm loving this lean one, because it looks a bit like a person releasing 灯籠 tourou paper lanterns:
(about the artist, ZHANG Jizhi 张即之, 1186–1263)
In gyou and sou styles, the altar tends to look a bit like a hiragana ふ fu, which derives from kanji 不.
But it's fun when kanji look like stuff. Maybe there's some room to play with that "meat" radical, since it suggests both the moon (月) and night (夕)—great for a lantern. (I'm thinking of examples of 月 I've seen that recline, almost to a 夕-like angle.)
I have two big windows, so maybe I'll make two lanterns and not worry about matching styles. Next up: ink! And to choose a 筆 that will be kind to me. I have some glasses, so the thought is to write the kanji on whatever (paper or maybe napkins—not good paper, but something with some kind of character) and wrap it around a glass so the candles won't cause a 盆fire. Vamos a ver. イクゾね。
I've been hoarding recyclable egg cartons and an old window screen because one of these years I'm going to make paper, I swear.
Also on the list to explore: shufalife.com.