The Japanese Speech Contest was today and it was great. I'm glad that I went to see it and I stilldon't have any regrets not participating this year because I don't really have much to talk about, especially in Japanese. Come on... I'm not known for talking... I'm happy being the quiet, good-natured doormat type. Lots of good topics and even better speakers... makes me wonder what I've been doing up till now. I'm not even sure I'm physically able to speak any faster than I can right now. I'll admit - saying stuff like みられる and ちつじょ（秩序）is hard!
I know I don't speak well, but that only strengthens my resolve. Hopefully my "20 kanji a week" plan will pay off eventually. Here's the short version of my kanji plan:
1) The more kanji I learn and the faster I learn it, the less time I'll waste studying it in the classroom. And there's no way I can ever learn the entire Joyo Kanji List (常用漢字表) in class. In other words,the sooner I learn all the kanji I ever need to know, the more time I'll have for learning the REALLY hard stuff like grammar, vocabulary, and honorifics. It's one less thing I have to worry about. Helpful links: Jim Breen's WWWJDIC Server, Learn the Japanese Kanji
2) The sooner I learn kanji (trying to remember all the readings), the sooner and easier it'll be learning new words. Just today I was looking over someone's speech and I was able to pronounce 「内容」, so I asked "What does ないよう mean?" and the guy answered, "contents". Makes sense... 内 = "inside"; 容 = "contain / appearance". If you ask me, recognizing the kanji and knowing how to pronounce the kanji in compounds counts as a victory. Helpful links: Quizzes on Commonly-used Japanese Words
3) The sooner I learn words, the sooner I can read books, newspapers, and magazines to solidify my grasp of the grammar. And that's really all there is to learning a language, right? Helpful links:POPjisyo.com, アサヒ・コム
It was also good seeing my old JAPN 320 classmates (who didn't recognize me immediately)... they were great too.
What wasn't great? I would have liked an intermission (I was hungry and nervous and tired and I wasn't even participating!). Also there was one guy who already won some prize (he was good but I'm sure he had some unfair advantage), and then when he won something from the raffle, he was all "I don't need another dictionary! I have three dictionaries at home!"... I don't know about you but I thought that was pretty rude. It was being given away and he said he didn't want it... and I'm sure there were many people (myself included) who would have wanted it!
And before I forget... CONGRATS TO FIORE FOR WINNING THE DAMN THING!!!
(...even though he's probably not going to read this.) Others from our class won stuff too, but I already forgot who won what. We're all awesome anyway.
I know I don't speak well, but that only strengthens my resolve. Hopefully my "20 kanji a week" plan will pay off eventually. Here's the short version of my kanji plan:
1) The more kanji I learn and the faster I learn it, the less time I'll waste studying it in the classroom. And there's no way I can ever learn the entire Joyo Kanji List (常用漢字表) in class. In other words,the sooner I learn all the kanji I ever need to know, the more time I'll have for learning the REALLY hard stuff like grammar, vocabulary, and honorifics. It's one less thing I have to worry about. Helpful links: Jim Breen's WWWJDIC Server, Learn the Japanese Kanji
2) The sooner I learn kanji (trying to remember all the readings), the sooner and easier it'll be learning new words. Just today I was looking over someone's speech and I was able to pronounce 「内容」, so I asked "What does ないよう mean?" and the guy answered, "contents". Makes sense... 内 = "inside"; 容 = "contain / appearance". If you ask me, recognizing the kanji and knowing how to pronounce the kanji in compounds counts as a victory. Helpful links: Quizzes on Commonly-used Japanese Words
3) The sooner I learn words, the sooner I can read books, newspapers, and magazines to solidify my grasp of the grammar. And that's really all there is to learning a language, right? Helpful links:POPjisyo.com, アサヒ・コム
It was also good seeing my old JAPN 320 classmates (who didn't recognize me immediately)... they were great too.
What wasn't great? I would have liked an intermission (I was hungry and nervous and tired and I wasn't even participating!). Also there was one guy who already won some prize (he was good but I'm sure he had some unfair advantage), and then when he won something from the raffle, he was all "I don't need another dictionary! I have three dictionaries at home!"... I don't know about you but I thought that was pretty rude. It was being given away and he said he didn't want it... and I'm sure there were many people (myself included) who would have wanted it!
And before I forget... CONGRATS TO FIORE FOR WINNING THE DAMN THING!!!
(...even though he's probably not going to read this.) Others from our class won stuff too, but I already forgot who won what. We're all awesome anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment