About a week ago I played an opposites game in a mixed group with native speakers. It's a game where participants form a circle and ask their neighbour to name an antonym for a word. Americans go heavy on adjectives at first: takai-yasui, semai-hiroi, and so on. Japanese endeavour to …
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BRR (Badass Raw Reader) Evolution
Guide to katakana ri, so, n
When Kate of Sketchbook mentioned being unable to distinguish ri, so, and n, I thought she was playing to stereotype. Today, however, Steven admitted to mixing them in Ken's comments. But it's simple, in the same way distinguishing Sumire and Ami was simple.
The process takes up to two steps …
read moreSupermarket Nipponism No.2
The series of Precure candy came to a close, but never fear: the American food industry is infiltrated by weaboos. While the candy was sold by a store that may be described as "ethnic" (e.g. selling Heinz beans), this specimen came from an honest supermarket:
What do you think …
read moreJapanese and self-studying
Apropos Chikorita hitting the rough road towards self-improvement, the other day I was rewatching Ai yori Aoshi 01. For years, one thing about it bothered me: when Kaoru refers to Aoi's broken strap, he says: "Harao ga...". It's quite clear, but there's no such word.
And so, years passed, and …
read moreAppreciate Miku Hatsune
2DT on Hanamaru
Then just the other day, I was assisting an English class when I saw the teacher draw an interesting picture next to an important grammatical point: The drawing was a spiral, with a sort of fluffy petal pattern surrounding it. It looked so terribly familiar, but where on …
Guess the word
It just occured to me that "animaru soruja" means "Animal Soldiers". Yes, I'm slow.
read moreReal pencil boards
About a year after I bought a full-page Horo pencil board by MediaWorks, I got a chance to use it in anger. It turned out pretty amazing.
Previously, I used the "mini" boards that used to come with first-print R1 DVDs (in particular, Geneon's Kamichu in R1 had them, and …
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