Japan Is Doomed

Having just completed week seven of my course at university, it’s time for us to face the ultimate challenge - the midterm examinations. On this coming Monday and Tuesday, I will be tested on listening, comprehension, grammar and Kanji. It’s somewhat worrying then that everything I seem to attempt to memorize goes in one ear and out the other.

Thank goodness, then, for jMemorize, which is a fantastic free flash card program. Basically, if you are willing to take the time to create ‘cards’, you can then flick through them relatively quickly, checking your knowledge of grammar and so on along the way. Whilst it is quite a simple program, it does have an awful lot of flexibility and various options to help you focus on particular parts of language.

Here’s an example of it in use. I’m using Darren’s flashcards, who is a guy from my course with far too much dedication and not nearly enough slacking off…

So there you have it. Sorry about the length of this update, it was just a break from copying out thousands of symbols over and over. If you’re wondering, the DIR EN GREY review will come very soon :)

Another week another essay! Due to a power failure on Thursday night, which lead to the University basically shutting down for a day, plus the ongoing battle between me and my internet provider, this update has been somewhat late in coming. I’m aware that I’m not really updating very frequently at the moment, but I have been very busy recently. However I recently joined the Sheffield Japan Society council, which means I now wield terrible power, so expect updates about my fearsome rule of England soon. I’m also seeing Japanese cult legends Dir En Grey tomorrow evening.This week’s essay was “A place I reccomend”. As it’s somewhat fitting, I chose Tokyo, having lived there. As usual, Japanese in blue, translation in orange. The idea was to use the ‘I advise’ form, so that’s why I keep advising you to do things. Or maybe it’s because I’m really pushy.

私のおすすめのばしょはとうきょうです。とうきょうは日本のほんしゅの東にあります。

とうきょうにいろいろでゆうめいなばしょがたくさんあります。たとえば、とうきょうタワやとうきょうディズニーランドやめいじじんぐなどがあります。めいじじんぐはたいへん大きくて、きれいなじんぐです。行ったほうがいいです。がん日にたくさん日本人はめいじにいきますから、がん日に行かないほうがいいですよ。

日本のたべ物はおいしいです。日本で鳥肉 と馬肉とすしをたべることができます。私の好きなたべ物はやきそばですが、イギリスで、いいやきそばをかうことができません。ざんねんですよ。

とうきょうで日本のビールをのんだり、日本人と日本語ではなしたりすることができます。日本人はしんせつですが、まちでたべないほうがいいです。げひんです。

とうきょうのでんしゃはたいへんべんりです。一年間まえに王子えきのちかくにすんでいましたから、王子は一ばんです! 王子で、おいしいいざかやでたべることができます。いざかやのたべ物はおいしいですが、いくらのすしはまずいです!たべないほうがいいです!

なつやすみに日本に行くつもりです。おさかとひろしまでけんぶつするつもりです。とうきょうでけんぶつしたことがあります。いっしょにいきませんか。

The place I recommend is Tokyo. Tokyo is in the East of Honshu in Japan.

In Tokyo there are many famous places of different types. For example, the Tokyo tower, Tokyo Disneyland and Meiji Shrine and so on. Meiji Shrine is a very big and beautiful shrine. I advise you go there. At New Year’s, many Japanese people go to Meiji Shrine, so I don’t advise you go there at New Years.

Japanese food is delicious. In Japan you can eat Bird meat, Horse meat and Sushi. My favourite (lit: “The Food I Like) is Yakisoba, but you can’t buy good Yakisoba in England. It’s a shame.

In Tokyo, you can drink Japanese beer and speak Japanese with Japanese people and so on on. Japanese people are helpful, but don’t eat in the street. It’s rude.

Tokyo’s trains are very useful. Last year I lived near Oji station, so Oji is the best place! In Oji, (you can) eat delicious food at an Izakaya. The Izakaya’s food is delicious, but the Ikura Sushi is disgusting! I advise you don’t eat it!

In the summer holiday, I plan to go to Japan. I plan to go sightseeing in Osaka and Hiroshima. I’ve been sightseeing in Tokyo. Why don’t we go together?

nb. An “Izakaya” is a Japanese style pub. “Ikura” are salmon eggs.

So there you are. It’s true - I do plan to return to Japan in the future, I’ll be writing an update about that before too long. Hopefully you don’t all spot too many mistakes!

Finally, I’m going to wrap up today with one of my photographs, but this one doesn’t have my dog in it! The horror! This was taken with my mobile phone. It’s a shot from a long bridge over some water in the Rivelin Valley near where I live.

Pretty, huh?

It’s taken two weeks, but I’ve finally written a homework essay which is nearly as insane as Every Morning I Jump On My Bed. This week the task was to talk about what you did either yesterday on the weekend. It’s actually an assignment we had a few weeks ago, the difference this time being we are by now expected to be able to use the て form well - which allows for a lot more freedom. I chose to write about the weekend, although I stress this isn’t true - I wasn’t very well on the weekend.

私は土よう日にともだちのうちに行きました。ともだちのしゅみはおよぐことです。そして、私はおよぐことができますから、十一じから一じまで、川でおよぎました。

それから、トレンディなレストランでひるごはんをたべてから、 ビールをたくさんのみました。レストランのゆうめいなたべものはケーキです。ケーキをたべるつもりでしたが、よっぱらいました。ケーキをちゅうもんしましたが、たべることができませんでした。

それから、 こうえんに行きました。こうえんでねて、サッカーをして、アイスクリームをたべました。私はサッカーをしながら、アイスクリームをたべることができます。

よる 、クラブで女の人にあいに行くつもりでした。でも、ともだちはお金がありませんから、行くことができませんでした。よる十一じにうちにかえりました。土よう日はよかったです。

日よう日にみどりのしゅくだいをしてから、いもうとといぬ といっしょに森に行きました。二年まえから、まい日、森に行っています。

しゅうまつはたいへんおもしろくて、たのしかったです。

On Saturday, I went to my friend’s house. My friend’s hobby is swimming, and I can swim too, so from 11 until 1 we swam in a river.

After that, we ate lunch at a trendy restaurant, then drank a lot of beer. The restaurant’s famous food is it’s cake. I planned to eat the cake, but I was drunk. I ordered the cake but I could’t eat it.

After that, we went to a park. In the park we slept, played football and ate ice cream. I can eat ice cream and play football at the same time!

In the evening, I wanted to go to a club to meet ladies, but my friend had no money so we couldn’t go. At 11pm I went back to my house. Saturday was a good day.

On sunday I did my green homework, then I went for a walk in a forest with my little sister and my dog. I’ve been going to the forest every day for the last two years.

The weekend was very fun and interesting.

I know it’s somewhat random and disjointed, but getting all the various different phrases into one weekend is quite difficult. I can’t really play football and eat ice cream at the same time. At least I doubt I can - I’ve never tried and I have no intention to.

マイク・パクスマンのプロフィール
名前：マイケル・パクスマン
年齢：十九
ニックネーム: マイク

私はイギリス人です。でも、出身地はスコットランドのアッバーデンです。
好きな食べ物は焼きそばです.
趣味はスノーボードをします、音楽を聴きますと映画を見ます。
よろしくおねがいします!

There you are, then. I had a good stab at writing myself a profile, then I hijacked an exchange student, and she helped me make it read properly, rather than being a collection of angry scribbles. I’ll do a translation and so forth in due time, but for now I’m just proud of what I can manage.
Everyone is strictly forbidden from correcting my grammar, symbol usage or anything else in the comments!

I wanted to write about what I’ve been studying at university. I know this has the potential to be a very boring post, but I’ll try to inject it with my usual balance of borderline funny jokes and insane ramblings. If you really can’t bear to read it, just rub your face against the screen - you’ll soon feel like I do after two hours of grammar conjugation.

My university has an incredibly intensive Japanese course - it’s famous for it’s drop out rate and general amount of stress put on it’s students. We currently have around sixty people taking the class, and the lecturers are expecting around thirty of us to graduate into the second year. They are expecting only around twenty of us to complete the entire course. It’s kind of strange making all these new friends, knowing that only one in three of them will be around four years from now. The reasons people drop out vary, but the usual reason is “it’s far too hard” or “it’s far too fast”, and it really is. We cover two or three new grammar points in an hour, and get just one hour to practice them in a classroom enviroment. After that, we’re on our own. If you don’t practice or understand it - tough luck.

This “tough love” approach is kind of daunting, and I know quite a few of my colleagues are somewhat put off by it. Personally, without sounding like a sadist, I am finding myself benefitting from this regime. Yes, it’s not much fun sitting in the library going over worksheets time and time again, but at least I’m doing it, consistently, for hours at a time every day. Something tells me if they were “coaxing us into” the language, I wouldn’t be nearly as motivated.

Anyway - the nightmare that is Japanese. The first rule is that we absoloutly had to know the two basic scripts of Japanese. We all took tests in both of them and thankfully, I passed. From the get go, everything written on the worksheets or by the students should not be in English, aside from personal notes. It’s quite difficult, but it has improved the speed and accuracy of my composition, which is a nice side effect. Sadly, it’s also turned me into a nervous wreck. Can’t win them all…

Personally, I’m struggling at the moment with the Katakana (foreign words) spelling. Things like Chocolate - is it チョコーレト, or is it ヨコッレト ? It’s really annoying that, even after a year living in Japan, I can make mistakes just as much as everyone else. I was looking over some notes I made during my gap year and I was horrified to find I’ve forgotten half of it. Scary stuff. (It’s チョコレート, by the way…)

In reguards to the speaking, I think I am keeping my head above water, although that may be on the grace of what I learned during my gap year. We are currently doing an アンケート (questionnaire), and my partner and I decided to do ours about alcohol. Our three questions went something like this;

1. きりんビールをのみますか.
Do you drink Kirin beer?

2. あなたはたいていどこでビールをかいますか.
Where do you normally buy beer?

3. わたしはごぜんん六時から九時までヴォッカをのみます.あなたは何時から何時までアルコールをのみますか.
I drink Vodka from 6am to 8am. What time do you normally drink alcohol?

The teachers were impressed at our questions although they did express distress at our drinking habits. Suprisingly, not one of the students we surveyed drinks Vodka at 6am. Those fools don’t know how to live!

Anyway, that’s what we’ve done so far in a nutshell. This week we’re doing yet more grammar, and then the whole vicious learn-repeat-study-consider suicide-learn-repeat cycle starts again. Wish me luck.