So I'm sitting in Kroch library reading an article about an ongoing sound change in Standard Japanese (titled, surprisingly enough, "Ongoing Sound Change in Standard Japanese"1), when I come across the following passage:

It is interesting to speculate on what may be causing these innovative pronunciations. My guess is that they originated with ( Read more... )

Today was the first day of classes for the spring semester. I've forgotten how much of a mindfuck it is to have to spend an entire hour reading, talking and thinking only in Japanese. 授業の後、頭が痛かった　^_^;; Fortunately I only have that class three times a week. I'm also sitting in on a psych course on computational modeling of cognition, focusing on ( Read more... )

わ
が
歩
む
落
葉
の
音
の
あ
る
ば
か
杉り
田
久
女

( roomaji, and a translation )

Today I spent almost three HOURS trying to get Emacs, LaTeX, and the CJK TeX package to cooperate with each other. The main problem I was having was that files included from the main .tex file couldn't have any Japanese characters in them, or they'd cause an "invalid character" error. After lots of pointless googling and trying several different ( Read more... )

Today I found out that my friend Anne has a Japanese name, Anko (which is just her English name with -ko stuck on the end). Which was kind of an unfortunate choice on the part of her parents, given that anko literally means `red-bean paste' in Japanese. She also has a sister whose English name is Mary, and whose Japanese name is--wait for it-- ( Read more... )

So today, after a marathon session of student conferences, I'm done with classes and pretty much everything else for the semester. ::whew:: All I have now is my Japanese speaking test next Friday, but I have a whole week to study for it so it shouldn't be too bad. And I have to find a job for the summer if I want to stay in Ithaca, cuz I kinda ( Read more... )

Last night me and about 50 other freaks went to see Melt-Banana play at Noyes on West Campus. As I told my Japanese sensei in class this morning, "Tottemo urusakatta ga, sugo~i tanoshikatta ne~!" (It was *really* loud, but a lot of fun!) I took a few pictures, of course.


( Read more... )

So the other night I have this bizarre dream entirely in Japanese. I'm sitting seiza-style in front of an extremely fierce-looking samurai, who explains to me that I have to use a pair of chopsticks to transfer all of the sashimi from the table between us onto a plate to the right of the table. If I were to drop any of the pieces of sashimi, ( Read more... )

今日、日本語の学生はみんな川崎先生の家に行って、少し昼ご飯を食べた。やなどり先生と晴子というやなどり先生の子供もいた。おすしと肉じゃがと「じゃがじゃが」という肉がない肉じゃがと焼き鳥を食べた。おいしかったなあ！それで、川崎先生の三匹プードルに遊びした。犬の名前は「キャット」（猫）と「ヴェッジ」（野菜）と「桃」だ。フールサイズだったから、とても大きかったね。桃ちゃんは白いが、キャットとヴェッジは黒い。テッディーベアに似っていた。犬時の後、キャジュアルの茶道をした。まず僕は正座に座ったけど、アメリカ人だから、足がちょっと痛かった。それで、去った時、春ちゃんは「みんな、バイバイ！気をつけて！」と言った。かわいそう！！やっぱり、楽しかったねえ。＾＿＿＾

...in Ithaca, and in the English-speaking world. ::yay:: Parents picked me up from Vermont yesterday, but wanted to take the "scenic route" back home through the Adirondacks, so what should have been a 4.5-hour drive turned into a 10-hour one. I got a little tired after about the 7th hour or so, but it wasn't too bad, and I got to see some ( Read more... )