What's this?

A little reflection daily about my language acquisition

Sunday 10 September 2023

899

I am listening to Harry Potter in Japanese, one chapter at a time, at normal speed. I hope to have completed the first two books of the series (only two have been narrated) before we visit Japan at the end of the year. 

For the first time, I notice that it is possible to gain the best meaning by concentrating only on kanji. It is possible to skip ahead and prepare to listen by missing out the hiragana in between.

Wednesday 19 April 2023

898

It was interesting for me to read your corrections of Mei Keneko’s journal entry. Altogether, you made corrections in 18 different areas: style, verb form, clause use, preposition, vocabulary, articles, capitals, plurality, markers, adjectives, punctuation, clarification, word order, hyphenation, sentence, excess words, verb/object and spelling (Sachi).

Ema and Saran did something even more interesting. They changed the text completely to make it true for them. In other words, the boys corrected the text for grammar, but the girls corrected the text for meaning i.e. meaning as it relates to them.

Perhaps you have different-type brains!


Tuesday 18 April 2023

897

Sometimes it may be difficult to know what to write in a journal. Here are some ideas. You could write about something you . . .

  1. did
  2. thought about
  3. felt
  4. remembered or were reminded of
  5. were interested in
  6. were puzzled by
  7. enjoyed / didn't enjoy
  8. dreaded
  9. looked forward to
  10. planned
  11. were bored by
  12. thought was weird
  13. tried
  14. sampled
  15. ate
  16. experienced (maybe for the first time)
  17. were bored by
  18. were critical of
  19. were impressed by
  20. became tired doing
  21. learned
  22. played
  23. watched
  24. (someone) you met
  25. (somewhere) you went




Monday 3 April 2023

896


The seven Kanazawa students who arrived in Dunedin on Sunday were welcomed to Otago Polytechnic with a mihi this morning. I made sure to arrive before time, and with a book in my pocket to while away the minutes. (It had to be small to into my pocket.)

The book I chose was The Bodyguard by Robert Tine. The French translation. It’s been a while since I looked at the language.

I go a sense of the meaning of the first couple of pages. After finding the original – in English – on the Internet Archive, I was able to understand more.


Sunday 2 April 2023

895

At the hub, waiting to catch the next bus to Saint Clair, I discovered myself without a book to read. However, I had my Kindle. The only problem was that it had nothing new in English. So I opened Hare Pota (in Japanese). I started reading from a random position. 

To my surprise, I managed very well indeed. It seems that the intensive reading I’ve been doing – I’m over 3000 sentences – have paid off. From now on, now that I’ve found my feet, I must cover more ground. Rather than trawl through sentences I must steam ahead much more speedily.

Saturday 8 January 2022

894

 It's been a month since I posted, after having posted daily for the previous five months. What gives?

This past month I've continued doing Māori - so no problem there. I've continued to enjoy working through Hare Pota (I'm up to page 200). However, due mainly to uncertainty in the workplace regards mandatory vaccination, I've been somewhat distracted. My daily Māori practice has helped me to remain sane, but I do find that I only spend between twenty minutes to half an hour.

I have not wrapped up my six-month experiment with a final evaluation, but I won't push myself. I will continue to learn Māori, however. I'm happily addicted to that.

With this blog, I shall post without pressure, whenever I feel like it. It won't be once a day.


Thursday 9 December 2021

893

 If I'm honest, I must admit that it has lately become more difficult to remain enthusiastic and motivated about this project. It isn't that the project itself is failing to inspire me. Rather, it's the fact that it has become almost intolerable to live an ordinary, unvaccinated life.

Wednesday 8 December 2021

892

Apropos of nothing much, I learned the other day that one difference between Māori and Cook Island Maori is that more, if not all, double vowel combinations are pronounced distinctly separate. The word 'koutou', for example, has four syllables ko-u-to-u. 

Tuesday 7 December 2021

891

Pēnei on page 145 of Hare Pota.

On this page, there were five instances of this structure that struck me.

  1. Pēnei i a Whirika
  2. Pēnei anō i a Whirika
  3. Pēnei i ō Hākiri
  4. Kāore i paku pēnei i ō Hākiri
  5. Pēnei i a Ahorangi Makōnara
They are all cases of comparison.