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イギリスに帰ってから全然日本語で話してないのでLanguage Exchangeをやればいいのかなと思った。それで、インターネットでロンドンにいる留学生を見つけて、昨日その人に会った。
少し日本語を忘れてるかもしれないけど、まだ会話が出来るんだ！良かったなと思った。知ってる言葉が出てこないときもあったけど、練習しないとそうなるよね。もう一つのこときがついた。それは日本語で話すことが大好き！
これからも、ここに日本語で書こうと思ってる。変な日本語とか不自然な表現とかがあれば、ぜひ直してください。よろしくお願いします。
べき as in するべき, something you 'must do'. Recently I learnt the term べし which seems to be used in the same context as べき. Are they essentially the same in terms of usage? Any difference in politeness?
3rd August 2005 Update:
べし is like べき but old style language. Also, people use すべき・すべし for するべき・するべし in conversation, though I'm not sure if they'd be written like this.
I've found site called JGram: The Japanese Grammar Database. The site relies on user contributions and has a community feel to it. There are categories for the JLPT and others such as 'social e-mail' and 'business e-mail'.
How do you say 'Check it out!' in Japanese?? 見てみ?
「ゲット」って気にならない？僕は日本語ぺらぺらになったとしても「ゲット」と使わないともり！
It must be in part due to my students over using the term during it's super popular phase (maybe that was ゲッツ but anyway), not to mention the English grammar butchering.
Do you have any words you prefer not to use?
ぼく, as in 'I'. Young kids often use this, as do older adults (sometimes after おれ) or when being a little less 'rough' than when using おれ.
What I never knew was that accent can play a role with this word. I've been told that ぼくwith a rising intonation is how an adult would say it, while a child would use a more flat accent. How come nobody ever told me that before?
Do you use web-mail for sending and receiving Japanese mail? Are there any ways to get it to work reliably with yahoo.com mail accounts? I've only just found out that yahoo.com doesn't support non-Roman character sets. I find this bitterly dissapointing when other services clearly support Japanese 100%.
> Notes to Myself (original post) - please comment here.
I've just stumbled across the SOAS web page, where various Japanese courses are offered here in London. I found a JLPT page only to discover that this is the JLPT page in England.
"In the UK the test is administered by SOAS Language Centre, University of London, on behalf of the Japan Foundation."
So applications are sent to SOAS and the tests are also taken there.
This has got me thinking if I should apply for the test this year. Such a lack of Japanese study and lately, lack of daily exposure, have led to a sharp decline in my Japanese ability.
I'd prefer to fail miserably at 1 kyu than to score worse than last time at 2 kyu. Also, I could sample just how difficult 1 kyu is. Is that logical? Or maybe I shouldn't take the test this time around.
Often in Japan I heard what I would call conversational style grammar, things which often caught me out. Some are used often, and of course, you eventually get used to hearing and even using them. For example the following,
やってはいけねい > やっちゃだめ
You must not do that
A couple of other ones which I'd like to memorise I heard again watching anime - I've learnt a lot from anime actually, a useful study aid.
やってみないと分からない > やってみなきゃわ分かんない
You don't know until you try
言わないほうがよかった > 言わなきゃよかった
I shouldn't have said that
Any mistakes?
Tae Kim kindly told us about 教えて! Goo in the post "Kanji Variation", a website where people ask and answer questions. Again, this site could potentially be useful for readers of this site so I'm posting these links.
終始 - しゅうし - beginning & end, from beginning to end, doing a thing from beginning to end
Ok, now this is a new word to me. After just seeing it for the first time I can't help but wonder whether it's not the wrong way around ;)
I've come across kanji lately which have similar meanings to kanji I already know but look slightly different.
逢う - あう - to meet (with drama or pathos)
観る - みる - (oK) to view (i.e. flowers, movie)
Are the nuances different to 会う and 見る?
