Improving Japanese with Karaoke

Does karaoke help you improving your Japanese? Absolutely! Let me tell you about my experiences!

The first time I went to karaoke was 2016 in Osaka, as we went with a group from a hostel to a nearby karaoke bar. Was like a normal bar, but there were also two screens to showing the lyrics of songs, two mikes and a tablet to select the songs you wanna sing. 

As we were a group of mostly foreigners, we chose many English songs. But at same point I wanted to have a go on Japanese songs. The thing was just at that time I even though I was able to read hiragana and katakana - my reading speed wasn't really good enough to keep up with speed as the lyrics are running through on the screen. So I needed a song which I need knew at least a little bit. So I tried the first DBZ theme song "Chala Head Chala" from Hironobu Kageyama. I struggled, but I was happy that I tried.

Two years later after moving to Tokyo, I started going to karaoke boxes with friends more regularly and with my constantly improving Japanese skills I got more confident trying more and more songs. I even started practicing at home by using lyrics videos available on YouTube. 

Now I can feel confidently sing "Chala Head Chala", "Dan Dan", "We gotta Power", "Kimi ga ireba" and many more. I keep trying many new songs from Dragon Ball, One Piece, Detective Conan or even Slam Dunk .. It's endless. "

I even tried crazy stuff like "Ultimate Battle" (究極の聖戦) from Akira Kushida. Those who have seen the Tournament of Power in Dragon Ball Super know what I'm talking about^^

Last November I went with a Japanese friend to karaoke for three hours to only sing Dragon Ball and/or Kageyama-related songs. We found several songs from videogames or old movie endings which I knew from hearing, but never tried singing. I gave it a go and wasn't too bad.

So therefore I can safely say that karaoke is a good way to get confidence in your Japanese. The more you try, the better you get and it improves your reading speed. Especially when you try songs from which you know the melody, but not the lyrics by hearts.

If you are learning Japanese and live in Japan, definitely give it a go! And if you a lacking confidence, get a drink before you start^^

Japanese with Corona: Useful Vocabulary

The Coronavirus pandemic changed our life - especially in the past month - and will continue to do so. You barely find any news article not being related to it. If you are studying Japanese you'll find certain words used in articles quite regularly. Let's take a look at a few ones:

感染（かんせん）
It simple means "infection" and by adding additional kanji you can create related terms like with 症 it makes it an "infectious disease" (感染症). Adding 者 makes it an infected person (感染者). That list can get long, so just more additional example with 爆発 (explosion) added: It becomes 感染爆発 (explosive growth of infections).

不要不急 （ふようふきゅう）
It literally means "not necessary and not urgent". I saw it used in the first articles when people in Tokyo and around where advised to stay at home on the weekend. Interesting is here also the structure of 不*不* of which the Japanese language certainly has several examples. Me, as a Dragon Ball fan, know the pattern from 不老不死, which literally means "not aging and not dying".

延期（えんき）
As the Coronavirus causes several events to be postponed, you'll find 延期 quite often.

緊急事態宣言 (きんきゅうじたいせんげん)

It's a quite long term which you find often recently as it means "declaration of a state of emergency". 緊急 means "urgent", 事態 means "situation" and 宣言 means "declaration".

My Language Learning Goals in 2020

As the new year has started I'd like to give input on my thoughts about my personal goals and feelings regarding language learning in 2020.

Much like in recent years, I keep on improving my Japanese. As I just passed N3, I already started studying for the N2 exam. It's a huge amount of more vocabulary, kanji and grammar I have to remember and understand.

I continue studying with the Anki app having a personalized deck, but I also downloaded a separate deck with N2 words. I study grammar with YouTube channels, and it's best to use some channels where the explanation is all in Japanese (like Nihongo No Mori, 日本語の森). 

Also, I can keep reading a lot of manga, but I feel that I should try reading an unknown story from a novel at some point this year. And manga with no furigana on the kanji would also be important. But for now I'm busy reading through all 42 volumes of Dragon Ball as well as catching up One Piece and Detective Conan with their recent volumes.

Also, as much as I'm able to read manga quite well, I still have lots of trouble understanding keigo in restaurants or combinis. Also it's spoken quite fast making me often unable to follow. Yeah, that's something I need to get better in.

Therefore, Japanese is keeping me busy on daily basis, but I also have some thoughts and plans regarding other languages:

As I grew up near Luxembourg, I speak a German dialect very close to the Luxembourgish language, and can also read news articles in that language. However, interestingly: I cannot really write it, I don't know the exact spelling of words. So I set myself also the goal to use the language more in written form, like texting.

And what about improving other languages? I know basic French and Spanish, but I've currently no ambition or even focus to pursue that. Could it be a something to focus on in the future? Maybe, but for now it's ok to just use it in a basic way, wherever needed. 

About learning any languages from zero? There are surely languages I have an interest to learn, but not this year. Another Germanic language would be interesting. I already understand and can read a bit of Dutch as it's quite close to my native German. 
Swedish or Norwegian would also be interesting. Or even Finnish, which is completely different language, but special in many ways. Also Italian could be interesting as I like the sound of it.

Other Asian languages? I studied a bit of Korean characters on my trip to Seoul by the end of last year and figured that it's actually quite simple. Still, when I sometimes see a name somewhere on social media I try to figure out the reading. Apart from that, I don't really have a connection to the language to further pursue it. And that's something which I feel is quite important. But I wouldn't exclude that there could be something which motivates me on that in the future...

Currently I have no deeper interest in learning other Asian languages. Learning Kanji can keep understanding a bit of Chinese. But I'm pretty sure I would struggle with the correct pronunciation. 

Anyway, I have enough goals right now anyway to keep myself busy. Let's see where this year will bring me.

「Ｎ３へ」ついに合格した! 次は...「一月の考え」

ついにN3を合格した！やっとやったぜ！でもN3への道は簡単のじゃなかった。実はまだ沢山勉強しなきゃ。

面白いことは今回は初めて日本語能力試験を合格した。自分のJLPTの歴史はこのようにだった:

2016年07月　N5　不合格
2018年07月　N4　不合格
2018年12月　N3　不合格
2019年07月　N3　不合格
2019年12月　N3　　合格

N3の三回目に合格した。この時に自分の問題のせいであまり勉強しなかった。試験日に日本にいるかどうかしらかなかった。とにかく、たくさんドラゴンボール漫画読んだし、もちろん毎日奥さんと話した。あと、アンキのアプリに新単語を勉強した。

もっと文法や、長いテクスト読みたかった。だからリーディングには24点だけだった。聴解(リスニング)の点はちょっとびっくりした。ときどき会話は早すぎだった、半分しか分からなかった。とにかく、上達した。

夏にＮ２を試してみると思う。今もう、新しい感じやＮ２の文法を勉強しています。特にユーチューブの「日本語の森」のチャンネルは本当にいいですね。たぶん本も買います。

あと、今はドラゴンボールを最初から読んでいる中、今は第17巻を読んで終えた。本当に簡単です。でも逆にワンピースに使った単語はほうが難しい。今の「ワノ国編」は沢山Ｎ１日本語がある。多分このことについて他の記事書きます。

じゃあ、これからもっと上達したい。頑張ります！N3は大切な目標だったんだけど、本当の挑戦は今のだ！

「Ｎ３へ」上達したけど…「十二月の考え」

夏にはまた合格しなかった。今回、少なくとも去年より点が上達した。だから十二月のテストまた登録した…

じゃあ、まずは七月のテストの不合格の理由について書きたい。大きな問題はこの日にちゃんと集中できなかったんだ。東京で七月の上旬の天気は本当に曇りだった。この数週間に太陽全然見えなかった。この時たぶん覚えてるでしょうね。

だからテスト中の文法とテクストの分に集中できなくなった。答えは推測した、仕方なかった。少なくとも単語と漢字の分に集中できたけど、いろんな間違えしちゃった。テストの休憩にもう気ついた。例えばほとんど同じ漢字「線」と「緑」の意味とか。あと、最後の分、「聴解」に感じはほうが良さそうだったけどまだよく分からなった。

これはもう二回目だった、また合格しなかった？その通り、八月末に確認された。一回目より84点だったけど、またできなかった。でも次のテストに参加するのは知らなかった。
新しいビサを申し込んだんだけど、もらうのは大きな質問だった。でも九月に登録した、本当に「今回こそ合格」と思った。

でもビサもらえなかった、だから韓国に行った。そのあとテストのため日本に帰った！今回はいい感じだった。単語か漢字はいいと思った。長いテクストはまだ問題だった。まだ遅いんですね。聴解もカンペキじゃない。

じゃあ、合格するの可能性があるね。じゃあ、これから待っています。

韓国語の「ハングル」思ったより簡単です！読んでみた！

日本語を勉強しているんですけど韓国の文字は気になりました。何回「ハングルは簡単」を聞いたから、今回こそ本当に知らたかった！

先週に初めて韓国のソウルに行きました。だから出発前の日に韓国の文字について調べた。何回ハングルという文字を見たんだけど、読み方が全然知らなかった！ユーチューブで説明のビデオ見た。でもびっくりした！本当に思ったより簡単です！ハングルは覚えやすい。

たとえば、「서울」。「ㅅ」はロマージの「ｓ」、「ㅓ」は「eo」。一緒に「서 / seo」になる。次の文字は울。「ㅇ」は文字の上にあれば、聞こえない音になる（少なくても私聞こえない（笑））、「ㅜ」はひらがなの「う」みたいです。最後の「ㄹ」は「r / l」です。　

서울はソウル「Seoul」になる。かんたんじゃない？

韓国に着いた時に読んでみた！たとえば、もう駅の名前少し読めた！ローマジの名前と比べて読み方を確認された。

もちろん、韓国語の単語や文法は全然知らないけど、場所の名前以外にたくさん外来語読める！例えば「버스」は「バス」、英語の言葉です。面白いのは外来語の発音は日本語と違うです！特に母音。でもこれは他のテーマです。自分の意見は韓国語の発音は難しい。

日本語のヒラガナかカタカナと比べて、ハングルはほんと覚えやすいんです！使い方は違うんですけど、面白いアイデアだった！

とにかく、少しハングルを勉強するのは面白かった。自分の大きな目標は日本語ですけど、もしハングルの言葉どこかに見つければ読んでみたいです！

Tooned McLaren - Japanese Dialogue in Episode 7 "The Rising Son"

© 2012 McLaren Animation

As an F1 fan I used to follow the Tooned series by the McLaren F1 Team. In Episode 7 of the 2012 season, there was a dialogue between Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton in Japanese. Unlike back then, I can understand the conversation now.

That's how the dialogue looks in Japanese: 

バトン「おい、ルイス。今日は何をするつもりかな」
ハミルトン「やめて！日本語が分からないから。」
バトン「あー、そうか」

A literal translation would be like this:
Button: "Hey Lewis. What are we going to do today?"
Hamilton: "Stop. I don't speak Japanese."
Button: "Ah. I see."

The subs are a bit different, but adapted to fit the situation like adding the professor. The sentence is kinda vague anyway.

It is implied that Button knows some Japanese as he had a Japanese girlfriend at that time.

Watching the dialogue now gives me a smile as I can understand it unlike in 2012 watching this episode for the first time. An interesting thing to look back.