And we're back in Japaradise!
Happy New Year to all, and I hope you had a wonderful holiday.
I took a big break from vlogging, tweeting, and blogging. I'm not sure I'm ready to come back full force because I'm still really deciding on my battle plan, but writing is the easiest part for me, so I wanted to drop you all a line.
Here is what I'm thinking for this year as far as injaparadise goes:
On this blog, I will write posts in both English and Japanese for people learning about the cultures of America, the West, and/or Japan. I really enjoy teaching, so I want to share my experiences and tips about learning Japanese, but I'm not ready to start making videos of them yet.
I'm hoping to post at least once a week, and we'll see where that gets us. I've been blogging, vlogging, and tweeting in various capacities since 2008, but I have never held myself to a schedule, so this is new to me (in addition to being a full-time student and having a part-time job)!
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All that said, I wanted to holler at my fellow studying peeps and empathize with you all--for the first time in quite a while, I stopped studying my Anki cards for well over a month. I'm now trying to catch up on all of them, as well as learn new vocab for my two vocab tests Wednesday, and it is making my brain seize up. So if you're hitting some roadblocks, I am right there with you!
What are you studying now? What's your favorite method for learning new vocab?
Looking forward to a fun 2015 with you all!
injaparadise
The Perils of Using Slang in Another Language
Slang, idioms and colloquialisms, they're all just kind of in a vacuum for foreigners. Even if we understand the meaning perfectly, knowing what feeling or image it evokes and when is proper to use it is a pretty nebulous thing to understand! For instance, the phrase, "fucked up." This is not something we'd usually use right off the bat with our boss or the grocery clerk. Or the phrase, "hotter than hell." For me, it makes me think of an older person from the South.
I got a new conversation partner recently, and he wrote in a message, "You ain't in Chicago now??" This is definitely English that gets said in America, but it's strongly associated with southerners and speakers of the "urban" dialect. It's pretty hard to list all these intricacies in each definition of slang!
Honestly, when I teach my conversation partners slang, especially something that might be a little stronger like "fucked up" or "tickets to the gun show" (LOL, yes, I've taught this), I try to get them to wait and hear how it's used instead of just barging into their next conversation and going, "That's FUCKED UP," to their little old lady neighbor or somebody.
What strategies do you have for learning and using slang, etc. in another language? Do you wait to hear it and get a feeling, or do you just find it online and immediately start trying it out? Let me know in the comments!
I got a new conversation partner recently, and he wrote in a message, "You ain't in Chicago now??" This is definitely English that gets said in America, but it's strongly associated with southerners and speakers of the "urban" dialect. It's pretty hard to list all these intricacies in each definition of slang!
Honestly, when I teach my conversation partners slang, especially something that might be a little stronger like "fucked up" or "tickets to the gun show" (LOL, yes, I've taught this), I try to get them to wait and hear how it's used instead of just barging into their next conversation and going, "That's FUCKED UP," to their little old lady neighbor or somebody.
What strategies do you have for learning and using slang, etc. in another language? Do you wait to hear it and get a feeling, or do you just find it online and immediately start trying it out? Let me know in the comments!
Chicago's new bagel spot, The Bagelers! シカゴの新しいベーグル所のザ・ベーガラーズ
My friend and I checked out this new spot on Lincoln in Lincoln Park. They have an interesting selection of bagels--I had never seen a sea salt bagel before. I found the menu a little hard to read--I thought they had smoked salmon, but it's actually a smoked salmon cream cheese. Also, I found out later that gardinara is actually supposed to be a spicy vegetable condiment, and the "gardinara" cream cheese was not spicy at all, which is a little confusing. They also do not yet have lettuce or tomato, which also seems like a must for a bagel joint. However, they must be doing something right because all the tables were full while we were there, and a ton of people drifted in an out in the 30 minutes or so that we were there. Worth checking out!
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