Watching a drama, at last! I finally found a drama I like: the Japanese remake of the Korean drama "Signal": 『シグナル 長期未解決事件捜査班』. It is about a police investigation team specialised on old unsolved cases. A walkie-talkie allows one of the members of the team to communicate with one of the detectives from the past, who is..
Currently reading: 『こころ』by 夏目漱石
I have always considered that reading Soseki in Japanese would be one of the greatest achievement of this whole Japanese journey. Since I heard from a Japanese that reading Soseki was hard for Japanese too, I thought I would keep it for "when I am fluent" or something like that. [caption id="attachment_13046" align="alignright" width="194"] 『こころ』by..
Monthly review: September 2018
Monthly review: September I have tried a new thing this month, which is to define some monthly goals and publish them on my homepage. The goals I have chosen for September were: And now, it is time to see how far I went! First of all Anki! My usual practice is to save in my..
Japanese immersion: September week 4
To be exact, this post should be entitled Japanese non-immersion because the week was a complete disaster. I have been busy with other things and could not even hold to my weekly challenge (it was listening and repeating lines of Isao TAKAHATA's film Only Yesterday). As for immersion, there was almost none, apart from some..
Currently reading: 『日本語びいき』by 清水由美
Once again, I find myself reading several books at the same time! I could not resist this book's title and cover: [caption id="attachment_13017" align="alignleft" width="272"] 『日本語びいき』by 清水由美, illustrated by ヨシタケシンスケ, 中公文庫[/caption] 『日本語びいき』 is written by a Japanese teacher who teaches Japanese to foreigners. From what she writes in her forewords, I guess that there was/is..
Impersonation and language learning
Today's post is about speaking, which is rare on my blog! What triggered it is this video I found on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zgqcQ6Z9Mtw It was a commercial, and for once, I didn't skip it after 5 seconds. This Korean guy learns English by doing impersonations of Sherlock Holmes from the series by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. I always..
Japanese Immersion: September week 3
My focus for this week was to read my novels, so I haven't done many non-bookish things for my Japanese immersion. Japanese Songs This being said, I did work a little on my immersion with music. I already mentioned it in a previous post, but I have difficulty finding Japanese songs I like. The Japanese..
Currently reading: 『未来のミライ』by 細田守
Some months ago Topple commented on one of my posts to recommend the collection 角川つばさ文庫 (collection "Tsubasa" of the publisher Kadokawa). I have been on the lookout for a book of this collection since then and finally spotted one in a bookshop the other day: 『未来のミライ』by 細田守 (ほそだ・まもる). The collection First of all, let's talk about..
My new study method: the One-week challenge/immersion!
I think I got it at last! The method that suits me best to learn a language. Learning Japanese on my own has been a mess of trials and errors, of abandoned study plans and seemingly revolutionary but unrealistic study methods. But somehow, it has been fun trying different things, and designing study plans is..
Japanese Immersion: September week 2
どうぶつの森!I woke up this morning to hear the good news: Animal Crossing is coming for the Switch! To me, Animal Crossing is closely linked to learning Japanese: it is a game I play in Japanese, and it created an unconscious association between "Japanese" and "a fictional world I love, where the smallest acts of kindness..
Currently Reading: 『流星の絆』by 東野圭吾
[caption id="attachment_12973" align="alignleft" width="195"] 『流星の絆』by 東野圭吾, 講談社文庫[/caption] To me, the best way to start reading again after a long period of trials and errors is to start a novel by Keigo HIGASHINO. The magic worked this time too, with the novel 『流星の絆』(りゅうせい の きずな). It is a very long novel (617 pages), but I am confident..
Read the news in Japanese: one-week reading challenge!
I have decided to try something new this week and start a "reading the news in Japanese" challenge. I will read and translate one news article per day this week, starting today and ending on Sunday. I think that the more often you read the news, the easier it gets. Not only because you improve..