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feeling: meh
listening to: Toshinobu Kubota - La La La Love Song
This is a fun song. ^_^ La la la laaa looove sooong~
It has come to my attention through sources such as myself that I rarely if ever have anything to say here anymore. And I stumbled upon Quizilla today. We have here the ultimate lethal combination. :P So be prepared over the next few days/weeks/seconds/etc. to see lots of those random pointless amusing quiz things taking up space here. In fact, here's the first handful:
-Perfect- You're the perfect girlfriend. Which
means you're rare or that you cheated :P You're
the kind of chick that can hang out with your
boyfriend's friends and be silly. You don't
care about presents or about going to fancy
placed. Hell, just hang out. You're just happy
being around your boyfriend.
What Kind of Girlfriend Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Cougar
What Is Your Animal Personality?
brought to you by Quizilla
Where do you fall on the liberal - conservative political spectrum? (United States)
brought to you by Quizilla
You are the mystery woman
Which Ultimate Beautiful Woman are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
avoidant
Which Personality Disorder Do You Have?
brought to you by Quizilla
...I feel that's enough for now. More whenever.
I need to study tonight. Japanese oral midterm tomorrow morning. The bad part of that is, some of the material we've covered for this thing is exceedingly tricky. New honorific registers, transitive/intransitive verbs (sorta like passive/active voice, but not quite the same... we learn that later :P), half a dozen different ways to say 'give' plus a few extras for 'receive' AND how they all combine with other verbs and/or nouns in big long continuous strings... and a ton of new vocabulary. Like, here's one utterance we might be expected to know:
I wanted to put the new desk in my bedroom, but I hurt my back, so I had my little sister help me.
Doesn't sound too complicated, no. But translated into Japanese...
Atarashii tsukue wa shinsitsu ni motte itte oitakatta kedo, koshi ga itaku natchatta kara, imouto ni tetsudatte moratta.
First we've got a string of verb words - 'motte itte oitakatta', which involves words for 'take/hold', 'go', and 'put/place'. Then we see 'koshi ga itaku natchatta', which is actually closer to 'my back [regrettably] ended up becoming painful' or some such. Finally we see 'tetsudatte moratta' - words for 'help' and 'receive', which literally translates to something like 'receiving the act of helping'. There are, of course, more polite ways to say this - a way that honors the person helping you, a way that honors the person you're talking to, a way that humbles yourself, and ways that combine all of the above. This applies for pretty much every component of the above sentence, so there are about a dozen different ways to say it depending on who's helping, who you are, and who you're talking to.
And THAT is why everyone thinks this language is impossible to learn. :P It's not, though, really. It's intimidating, but only because it's so totally different from English and other languages that are Latin or Germanic in origin. That includes most European languages - if you listen to a simple conversation in Spanish, French, German, or Italian, chances are you'll be able to pick up at least a partial meaning from it even if all you know is English. With Japanese, though, even if they use a borrowed word from English in said dialog, you're usually totally lost. Then of course you have the one characteristic of the Japanese language that's so tricky even native speakers often never master it: honorifics. There are about a dozen different ways to say pretty much any sentence you could imagine, depending who you're talking to, who you're referring to, and who you are. Honorifics are a pain. Other than that though, Japanese really isn't that hard. And it's hecka fun.
...end rant.
Time to study now. I need chocolate. *sigh*
comment! (0)
dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 2/13/2003 08:09:00 PM
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