Would you consider this week to be the last week of July or the first week August? 🙄

Writing this “Japanese immersion” post makes me realise how much immersion does not happen naturally to me. I really have to make it happen or the week passes without me doing anything in Japanese apart from reading books.

Music

I have been looking for artists to listen to in vain. I have spent some frustrating time on Youtube, but nothing really caught my ear (apart from “Horololo” by EXO-CBX, but that may be because I am used to hearing K-pop, and it immediately sounded familiar and catchy…)

I think that generally speaking, Jpop is not for me, but I can occasionally find things I like, so it is worth searching!

I ended up listening to jazz, an area where I am rarely disappointed and found the band Bohemianvoodoo. This is exactly the kind of jazz I like to listen to, especially while studying:

Musical experience: 100/100
Study background: 100/100
Japanese immersion: 0/100!

Gaming Channel

The only thing I did to listen to Japanese this week (but I did it a lot) was to watch a Let’s play on Youtube. I love watching Let’s plays, and some are very addictive, but I usually watch them in English. Every time I tried to watch Japanese gamers, I found that I did not like their style. I would often find their way of talking irritating or things like that.

But, I found a gaming channel that I really like: Toilet Paper gaming channel. I particularly like his Stardew Valley series. I love Stardew Valley and play it myself in Japanese on Nintendo Switch. I don’t really watch the episodes closely, sometimes I just let the video play while I am doing something else. For once, I really appreciate the gamer’s way of talking. Stardew Valley is a relaxing game, and I find that he has a relaxing way of playing and talking, while occasionally making funny remarks. Personally, I don’t like YouTubers who try to be funny all the time or burst into exaggerated exclamations every 5 minutes. This channel is perfect to me.

There are more than 200 episodes in the series. He started with the unofficial Japanese version before the game was officially translated into Japanese, then switched to the official version when it came out (episode 75/76). I think he more or less let it down at episode 216 and went back to it with the multiplayer update only some days ago.

I also find easy to understand what he says, which is always encouraging to me.

News: ポケトークW

In the news, I found an article on the upcoming new version of ポケトーク, a translator device. The new version will be quicker and have a bigger screen. It will cost 24880 Yen and be available in September. Apparently, you can say a sentence either in Japanese or the target language and the device will translate and read it out loud for you. Here is the commercial of ポケトークW:

https://youtu.be/hDW6kK6EY78

Imagine that you go to Japan, try your newly born, shy and modest Japanese abilities on a local, full of fears and hopes, and he hands you his “pocketalk”, thus destroying months or even years of hard study, haha!

Holidays announcement

I think that I will take some summer holidays on my blog… I am sure it has to do with the hot weather, but I really feel like a dumpling in its bamboo steamer: flabby inside and sticky outside. I will allow myself two weeks 😏 from now on! I won’t be posting the next two weeks and will be back on Monday 20th!

See you then!