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".

The Forest of Frieza's Hell - 「復活のF」Trivia #002

In Volume F we find a few more details about the hell where Frieza is hanging in a cocoon on a tree. And even differences between manga and anime/movie. What could be the reason for that?

As I finally acquired "Volume F" last year which includes the screenplay of the movie written by Akira Toriyama I sometimes go through and find some interesting details. Last time it was about the location where Frieza got back to live. Let's continue with the next one: The Forest of Frieza's Hell!

"Frieza's Hell", first introduced in "Resurrection F", is displayed as huge flower garden with a tree in both the movie and the anime. However in the promotional manga for the movie as well as in chapter 32 of the Dragon Ball Super manga, you can see more trees in the background, at least five more. But why is there a difference? 

If you look at the very first line of the screenplay on page 28 of "Volume F" you may find a hint about what could have happened there. It says:

森に囲まれたお花畑。
(もりにかこまれたおはなばたけ）

English: A flower garden surrounded by a forest.

That's what it literally sounds like and seemingly Toriyama's visual description of how the "hell" should look like. However, for unknown reasons in the animated versions it looks rather like a tree surrounded by a flower garden. Or are there more trees, but just so far away that they are not visible?

Frieza's hell in chapter 32

As the term "forest" (森) is used here, Toyotaro's depiction comes closer here, although the trees a still standing a bit apart. Seemingly he made the manga following the script more closely and didn't follow a possible final change in the movie version. Which we don't know.

Interestingly enough, he keeps this version consistent. As seen in chapter 32 when Goku visits Frieza in hell, we can still see two more trees in the background. 

So are there more villians on other trees? As I haven't played the story of Dragon Ball FighterZ I'm not actually aware, but as I read it's seemingly implied that Cell, Nappa and the Ginyu Force may also went to that hell.

Anyway, it's interesting to see these two versions of that hell, both remaining consistent in each respective medium.

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！