Anime and Learning 日本語？My Opinion

こんにちは世界。Hello world, it’s Midori, signing on for another blog entry.

I’ve just decided to mostly use the name Midori on this blog because it’s my Japanese camp name and more and more people are calling me by it, so it can be the web-name for my blog too. But either works, Midori, Abby, it’s all the same. xD

Today I’d like to talk about Anime, if I may. Because first of all, I was watching K-ON earlier. And second of all, I am so sick and tired of the internet debate about using Anime to learn 日本語. Also, I’ve gotten a lot of questions recently about why I like Anime.

Like many of you JAPANOPHILES out there, I am a fan of Anime of many kinds. But there are some things that I just want to get straight here, because it’s been bothering me for a long time.

#1: Let’s address the whole “learning Japanese with Anime” debate. Let me preface this statement with the fact that I have absolutely nothing against using anime as a study tool, and I have learned tons of casual phrases (not to mention phrases I probably should never say) from watching my favorite shows. But where the 60% or so of anime fans go wrong is by thinking that anime can stand alone as the ONLY way they learn Japanese. If you’re hoping to sit down at your computer, or flatscreen, or smartphone or HOWEVER you partake in your Anime, and just learn Japanese, then I’m very sorry to say that you won’t get past “konnichiwa” or “itadakimasu”.  Unless of course you are 4 or 5 years old and still have the brain-power to soak up language like a sponge. THAT my friends, is an entirely different story. So, if that’s NOT how to go about it, than how can you work anime into your study schedule? Well, there’s many ways. (By the way, if you want more study tips on how to SUCCESSFULLY learn Japanese, I will write a whole separate blog post. But for now, I digress.)

l  Keep in a notebook a list of phrases you hear in Anime that might become useful to you.

l  Take note of interesting cultural tidbits that come up when you are watching, such as daily school life, popular music, or Japanese holidays. You may learn a lot about the culture.

l  Watch the sub version, NOT the dub, and try picking out phrases that you understand instead of just zoning out and reading the subtitles.

l  Find a version of the manga online or in a store that has Japanese with furigana (little phonetical characters on top of the characters to help you read), and use a dictionary to help you sort out words you don’t know. (this is most successful  if you’ve watched the anime and know the story line, because you don’t stress out about knowing what’s going on, simply focusing on learning something new.)

l  Listen to or learn the theme song at the beginning or end, usually they have Japanese and English subtitles, and it’s interesting to learn Japanese through music. Pick out some key phrases from the refrain, or get it for your iPod

l  Talk to Japanese people who also like the Anime, have a conversation about a favorite character. (KEEP IN MIND that not all Japanese people are going to like the same anime you do, or even like anime at all. SO make sure to preface your discussion with the question “do you like this anime?” so as not to annoy them with constant anime chatter.)

l  DON’T FORGET ABOUT OTHER FORMS OF STUDY, ANIME SHOULD NOT BECOME THE SOLE REASON YOU ARE INTERESTED IN JAPANESE CULTURE IF YOU TRULY WANT TO LEARN THE LANGUAGE.

Hopefully that offered you some helpful tips!

Now that aside, I would like to talk about the word ANIME as a whole. Many people ask the question “do you like Anime” too broadly. There are many types of anime, just as there are many types of TV shows. That would be like asking an American person “Do you like TV shows?” They would probably respond by asking “what kind? I like certain types.” There are comedy anime, romance anime, action anime, and dramatic anime, as well as supernatural anime and any other kind you can imagine. Kids anime, adult anime, anything you want. So even if you don’t like “cute stuff” or cosplaying, and you don’t consider yourself an anime fan, be a little open minded. Maybe there will be a more serious mystery anime, or an anime that relates to your life. The word “anime” just refers to the fact that it is animated. Or maybe it’s just not your style and you like dramas or reality shows. It’s not half as much of a big deal as most of you make it out to be. Just because you like anime doesn’t make you a “weaboo” or an “otaku”.

On the other side of the spectrum, the fanatic anime fans out there have to understand that not everyone who is Japanese or is interested in the culture is going to want to watch or talk about anime. It is a specific interest. If you want to study Japanese, there should be some OTHER motivation than just figuring out how to watch the anime without subtitles. Anime is a small part of Japanese culture out of MANY different parts of Japanese culture. It is a form of entertainment, but most people don’t think of it as your LIFE. But however you think of anime, I hope it aids you in your Japanese study, or simply just provides entertainment.

So we’ve established that I like Anime. SO what type? And Why?  I get these questions all the time.

I tend to watch the more comedy or romantic type animes. I like an anime that either makes me laugh hysterically, or cry hysterically. It’s nice to unwind from reality with a touch of drama or comedy.

I don’t like Anime that are too little kid based, or all about fighting and action, although I admit I used to like Naruto. As a little kid. I enjoy anime just because it’s a fun entertainment that also helps me study Japanese.

I like anime that provoke different emotions, because I can chose an anime or drama based on my mood. It’s nice. I also like the ART ASPECT to anime, as I like to draw manga and keep a manga journal.

A sketch I did recently, I try to post one sketch every blog entry. :D

But while there is lots I like about being a fan of anime, there are some things I can’t stand.

l  I cannot stand people who talk like Anime characters on purpose. Correction, I have no problem with the people themselves, I just wish they didn’t do that. Real people do not talk or act like anime characters. (generally speaking) Some anime are realistic, and close to real life, but most of them are a little out of proportion. Anime characters’ reactions and voices are very unique. I know girls who love anime so much they try to make their voices, outfits, and behavior match there favorite characters. I think this is a BIT extreme. The outfits I can understand, as I myself cosplay A LITTLE. This does not make me a weaboo because I understand that my life is not an anime. (Although some days it’s dramatic enough…)

l  I hate when people pronounce the word wrong when they’ve been watching it for years. “Oh yeah, I like ANEEM. I like MAYNGA and AYNIMEE. This may just be a personal pet peeve, and I may be over reacting, but it gets on my nerves. Don’t get me wrong, I get it if you just honestly didn’t know. I have no issue with people who do it by accident. But people who have been TOLD the correct pronunciation and still REFUSE to do it are what bug me.

l  When people get into comment fights in the chatroom of anime websites about their different opinions about the show, and they start getting nasty. People, chill, it’s just a show. You don’t have to badmouth people for having different opinions or liking different characters. I know, when it comes to pairings, I fiercly defend my favorite couples, but I never make it personal and offend the other person. That’s just wrong.

All that being said, I really do enjoy anime. And I personally don’t mind if you don’t, it’s your opinion. And if you don’t, I’m very sorry you had to read this long and rambly rant/rave about something you dislike. (But you don’t have to read it…) Please put your opinions in the comments, I love to hear. <3 you guys are the nicest commenters. You make my day.

To end this on a POSITIVE note, these are three of the top famous anime quotes I have most heard of. Guess what anime they came from in the comments, and I’ll tell you if you were right. This is also food for thought for you fellow learners of 日本語。(as for you guys, I’ll try to make a study tips blog post soon.)

1)  「真実はいつもひとつ」

“One truth prevails”

2) 「月にかわっておしおきよ！」  “In the name of the Moon, I will punish you! ”

3) 「俺が諦めるのを諦めろ！」 “Maybe you should give up on me giving up!”

GUESSES, GUESSES, I WANT YOUR GUESSES BELOW IN THE COMMENTS :D

Oh my, that blog was longer than I had wanted… ごめん！

Thank you for being faithful readers. (I’m not sure how many of you there are yet, but thanks!) I’ll have a blog about the happenings of my life up soon.

Thanks for reading!

This is ミドリ(MIDORI) singing off for now ^_^

Procrastination, Shoes, and Summer Camp

Hello World! こんにちは世界、it’s me again.

I am actually pretty proud that I got my act together, sat down and wrote another blog post. I am actually up to par with my weekly blogging schedule.

Playing around with my new camera effects... And new hairstyle :P

           I have really exciting news! So last blog I kind of went off on a tangent about 森の池(my Japanese immersion camp), and how I hoped I could go back this year. (Okay, I didn’t KIND OF go off on a tangent, I just plain went off on a tangent.) Well… I am officially registered for session JD32 of Mori no Ike for 2013!! Two more weeks of paradise! (Yeah, I wanted to be a four week student this year, but finances and stuff weren’t in my favor.) Speaking of which I need to get writing on an essay for a scholarship, but I figured you guys wanted to hear from me first. I procrastinate too much…

SPEAKING OF PROCRASTINATION: Half my neighborhood still has their Halloween decorations up. Really? Really people? It’s almost the Christmas season, I mean a couple popular stations are already playing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and you still have your jack-o-lanterns. In Minnesota, there seems to be a rule that no holiday ends until the next one is half over, and then you get planning for the next one. It’s like our lives revolve around them. But people’s birthdays are over and gone in one day.

My Halloween costume was a last minute shamble of everything black I had in the house and some vampire fangs. This was me, pre-makeup before I went to school.

I had such a lisp with fangs, so I sounded like Sollux whenever I talked. Homestuck reference: Sorry.

 Things I've been into lately...

• Drawing Manga
• Cooking
• Watching Hana Kimi again
• Translating songs into Japanese, especially the christmas songs. Speaking of drawing manga...

My latest masterpiece, it's supposed to be me. Or an ideal of what I wish I looked like turned into manga form, more or less. I use SketchbookExpress for MacBook

Well, I went shopping today because yesterday was Black Friday and I was scared to leave the house for fear of being trampled. I wouldn’t have gone shopping today either, except for the undeniable fact that I required shoes, since my only nice black dress shoes are high heels that murder my feet. I wore them to my school band concert last Thursday, and while I was trying to oh-so-gracefully walk off stage, I tripped and oh-so-clumsily crashed into a bunch of guys from school who gave me weird looks.

Long Girly Tangent About Shoes: sorry. But anyhoo I needed shoes, so I bought some. Although I think the cash register lady hated me, since the shoe rack was right next to her and I kept dropping shoes all over the place. She kept adjusting her putrid orange scarf and giving me pointed looks as if to say “When is this girl going to LEAVE already?” Nevertheless, I left with two pairs of wonderful shoes. Enough about footwear, for gosh sakes. No seriously though, don’ t you just hate shopping around Christmas? Everybody’s in a foul mood at you just because they’re in a hurry.

Behold... THE SHOES

         I’m getting ready for a very busy holiday season, people. Besides the fact that there are 830 of my youtube subscribers who require Japanese lessons, I have some selfish plans of my own…

Part of these plans involve getting up at 4 in the morning to depart for Maine, traveling al Aeroplane. If I’m wide awake enough to sit up straight, I’ll vlog from the airport in 日本語. I always get a kick out of vlogging in actual PLACES, not just my bedroom. So, when I get to Maine, I’ll be spending the week of Christmas with my grandmother, and most likely eat a lot of seafood. Only in Maine is Lobster a popular Christmas dish. But hey, I’m not gonna complain.

         My wonderful awesome fantabulicious best friend has a birthday coming up soon on December first, so happy birthday, Rachel! (Although I’m not quite sure if Fantabulicious is a word…) I would tell you what I’m getting her, but under the slight chance she might read this, I have decided against it. I’ll give you a hint. POCKYPOCKYPOCKY. I… kind of… have too much of that. :P

If you haven't tried this, you haven't lived. :)

My best friend!!

Later Aligators! I promise I’ll have a blog with more actual stuff to write about soon, and less tangents, but this week was… well, uneventful. So leave your comments and please check out my youtube channel if you haven’t already at youtube.com/ranabvideo

見て見てくださいね〜

よろしく

Peace!

じゃね、

The Midori Neko signing off (for now)

こんにちは、世界。Hello World! It’s me here, Abby. How have you been? About a year ago, when I decided to make a blog to just share with my friends, I wrote my first two posts on wordpress, which you may have or may not have seen. But now I figure it's time to share my blog with the world, so from now on, I will be blogging regularly. Yay! So to start, just a little 自己紹介(self intro) to get to know each other, shall we?

THERE ARE MANY THINGS YOU COULD ASK ABOUT ME. First, why I want to blog. The reason I want to blog more, is so that I, a hopelessly unaverage teenage Japanophile, can write about my life. Who's going to read this? I don't know. But let's get started.

 My major interest is languages. I am bilingual, soon to be more than trilingual. I speak 日本語(Japanese) and English. I study languages because I want to travel the world, and learn about different cultures. At the moment, I am just a middle school girl who has never left the good old USA, but that is soon to change. I plan to go do homestay in Japan when I'm in high school, and live there when I'm older. I got my interest in Japan because of a Japanese friend in elementary school, and my interest grew to the traditional culture, pop culture, and language. I enjoy everything from tea cerimonies to anime, from kawaii culture to kimonos, from the technology to the sushi. I don't just enjoy one part of the culture. That's what sets me apart from many teenage Japanophiles in America. I am not OBSESSED with Japan, it is just my main foreign culture of interest.

The other languages that I study include Korean, Chinese, Spanish, and French. I speak a little Russian as well, due to knowing many people who speak it at my school.

My physical appearance: I'm fairly short, american, strawberry blonde, and can be seen wearing a pair of purple spectacles... When I'm not trying to avoid wearing them. I have braces too. I am in the 8th grade at a Jr. High in Minnesota which shall remain unnamed because of you creepy people out there who want to eat me. :P You can often find me wearing odd hats, knee high socks with skirts, graphic tee shirts, and too many bracelets. I enjoy pigtails and hair extensions, so my hair can drastically vary from day to day. Most of my class at school finds me a bit... odd, but I don’t care. I guess the only way to really describe me other than that is to attach a photograph thingy.

I can imagine you guys still have some more QUESTIONS, so I am going to to try to be a mind reader and answer what I think you will ask me… before you actually ask me. Phew, that was confusing.

1). What are your daily passtimes/hobbies BESIDES languages? You are very likely to find me with my nose in a book, writing fanfiction, going shopping or doodling some kind of sketch in my notebook. Other than those lazy sitting-around type of hobbies, I run cross country, and go swimming as much as I possibly can. I do know how to cross country ski, but from doing that a couple times I can tell that it is definitely not my sport, and ended up with snow up my nose. :P  

2) Do you like Anime??? I do like ANIME. HOWEVER, I am not OBSESSED, an OTAKU, a WEABOO, or anything of the like. Let me just make that crystal clear right now. I have only cosplayed once. Just because I like cosplay does not make me any of those things… haha. All that stuff being said, I am a big fan of anime, so here are my favorites. (I won’t spend too much time on this for those of you who don’t like anime, I just want to introduce my top 5… or 6.)

-Kimi ni Todoke

-Lovely Complex

-Itazura na Kiss

-Hetalia

-Bokura ga Ita

-Clannad

Lovely Complex

Kimi ni Todoke

3) Do you like J or K dramas? Yes, I am also a fan of J-drama and K-drama, so here are my reccomendations for those of you who are interested in THAT.

-   Hana Kimi

-   Proposal Daisakusen

-   My Darling is a Foreigner

-   Ouran High School Host Club (yes, I am aware that that is also an anime)

-   Koizora (Super sad… but good)

Hana Kimi

Daarin wa Gaikokujin

As you’ve probably figured out by now, I’m a fan of romcoms <3

4) Do you even like AMERICAN pop culture? As for American movies and TV shows, I like those too. I am known to watch Big Bang Theory marathons on Sunday, much to the chagrin of my dear mother’s boyfriend, who quite enjoys football. Honestly, I would marry Sheldon Cooper. Of course, this being IF Sheldon Cooper weren’t so… well… against marrying people lol.  Among my favorite movies are Avatar, Titanic, the Avengers, Harry Potter, and the Golden Compass.

5) Do I have any pets? I have an 80 pound black Labrador Retriever who is at the moment slobbering all over my foot as I type… gross. Not the dog, just the foot licking. I used to have a Siamese cat who meowed loud enough to wake up the entire neighborhood. Not quite an exaggeration.I actually quite enjoy dogs, along with practically every other animal alive, as long as it’s not venomous. Although this rule does not apply to centipede-kind, as I will go all ninja on those nasty little things… If I do not run and scream first. Anyway… Yes, I have a pet. (tangent much? Haha)

6) Why the heck am I writing a blog? I don’t know… I guess just to have a fun outlet for writing about stuff… and to share some of my thoughts with you guys. Whenever anyting blog-worthy comes up… I guess I’ll blog about it!

7) What is your favorite t-shirt? At the moment, I am wearing my t-shirt from summer camp, which is my current favorite because it has so many MEMORIES and stuff. Other than that, I recently ordered a Rose Lalonde shirt online. If you don’t know what that is, you don’t read Homestuck, and you need to look it up RIGHT NOW. It will completely confuse your thinkpan at first, but if you can get through the weird terminology and complex plot layers, IT IS THE MOST FREAKING EPIC WEBCOMIC ON THE INTERWEBS.

How did you spend your SUMMER? Oh boy… this is gonna need a whole ‘nother blog. I went to Japanese Immersion camp in northern Minnesota. It was the whole Concordia Language Villages program ‘Mori no Ike’, a.k.a the best place EVER. In short, it’s a summer camp for teens who want to learn Japanese. You live there for either one week, two weeks or four weeks in a cabin with other people of your age and gender. The counselors speak all Japanese to you, and you do fun activities and classes throughout the day, such as Origami, dance club, kendo club, song time, morning dance excersise, skits, campfire, singing, and lots of dancing. Did I mention the dancing? We got Japanese names, mine was Midori （みどり）meaning “green”. The food is mostly Japanese, which is delicious, as long as you aren’t opposed to having rice 3 meals a day. You get to spend lots of time with your cabinmates and make friends, including free time, which for me involved going to the お店(store) and buying tons of pocky, then heading down to the lake to go swimming. Besides all that, you end up making best friends that end up being more like sisters, and you don’t want to leave. I can’t even express how much those people became my family… Before I blab myself into oblivion and nostalgia about this (too late…), I’m going to stop here, and promise to post more photos and stories in another blog entry, another day… But here’s just a few…

After that I went to Penumbra Summer Institute, which is like acting camp on steroids. Basically we got a month to learn how to be Activist Artists, a.k.a learn how to use art to promote social change. (Anti racism and discrimination, etcetera) We put on a stellar performance at the end of the month to a full audience from the public. Again, more on that later.

So yeah… you might be starting to see why I kind of lapsed off on the whole blogging thing… So busy.

So now that you know about me… let’s start this blogging thing!

I’ll try to update daily, but knowing me you can probably put your money on weekly. I’m such a 怠け者 (lazy person)

But please tell me what you think, I’m new to this whole blogging business.

Please feel free to comment!

ABBY