Pronounciation

Word pronunciation is very important to the speaking of a language, the way people understand what your saying has a lot to do with word pronunciation. The Japanese pronunciation is very easy to learn as it doesn't vary much because each sound is giving the same emphasis.

Let's begging with vocals. The Japanese language uses the same vocals as any other language a,i,u,e,o but how do you say them? If you already speak Spanish your in luck because the vowels are the same so technically you know some Japanese as for English speakers you are not in luck as the pronunciation is very different.

a is said like in 'ma' the sound is short but clear.

i is said like the sound in 'leaf'.

u is similar to 'put'

e is like 'egg' Make the e sound shorter

o is like 'more' But make the o sound shorter


That's it for this time. Sorry that its not much finals week is here and I need to concentrate but I have lots planned for the summer! 

~Matane

Numbers

Numbers! They are indeed an important part of society and like any grade school kid you have to know your numbers! This for me is a funny post because I learn my Japanese numbers through a YouTube video that I found years ago when I was younger and I have never been able to forget the numbers because of it.  Its a song and I love it.  So to help you  to learn the numbers I will be putting the video here along with another video I found that is much younger with a sensei (teacher) who is teaching you herself and she is great, makes it really easy to understand.  So soon you will be able to count to a hundred, maybe even more.

Ganbatte! (Good Luck!)

                                                             Number song

Teacher

Land of the Rising Sun

So I sat down and got to thinking every place has an official name and nickname right? Florida is the "Sunshine State", San Francisco "The windy city" and Italy "The boot" some places are named for more obvious reasons while some you would have to do a little research.   Japan is the "Land of the rising sun" and out of much curiosity I snooped and came up with not 1 but 2 reasons why it is called this way! Now out of all of these my favorite is the geographically correct one which if you read you will also soon know.

Okay let's begin! In Japanese, Japan is called Nihon this roughly translates into land of the rising sun but the ancient Japanese called their islands Nippo which means something like suns origin but why the change of name?   Well, during the Sui Dynasty which was a long time ago (589-618 AD) Chinese Buddhism grew very large and the number of temples and monks were enormous. With the growing of Chinese Buddhism, people in other countries like Japan came to China to study the religion which promoted the cultural exchanges between different nations.  China gave the name Nihon to the islands of Japan because from China the sun rises in their direction, and soon enough the name became popular and was adopted as the official name for the islands.  They even adapted it to their flag.   

Stealthily placed Map of Asia

That was reason number one according to the information I found now for my favorite reason number two.  If we were to look at a map we can see that Japan is the eastern most place in all of Asia.  To the ancient people of japan there was no other land to their east only the vast ocean.  Seeing nothing in that direction they believed that they were the first land awakened by the rising sun and so they were, Nippo the suns origin.  Pretty cool, huh?

A few things I should address historically, the Sui Dynasty is strictly for Chinese history for information and documentation about japan around that same time you would search about the Asuka period, which took place before, after and during the same time as the Sui Dynasty.


I hope to help someone learn a bit with this one but I must warn this information I found on the Internet and not everything on the Internet is completely accurate, so if it truly interest do your research! I am avid about getting information off books rather than the computer so I encourage you to do so. It'll be good for your brain I promise!

That being said.
~Matane

Eiga Time! Grave of the Fireflies

Well, one of my favorite animated movies of all time really is "Grave of the Fireflies" it is a Studio Ghibli film, and if you don't know what Studio Ghibli is then lets just say you've missed out on a lot!  To me they are THE BEST! none of their movies ever disappoint me there's always a moral that stays with you or the stories are so well thought out that you will remember them forever.  If you haven't heard of Studio Ghibli you might know Hayao Miyazaki who is a director and co-founder of the studio he wrote and directed some animated movies that you might know if your a 90's kid or older since I myself remember staying up to watch them on Toonami in Cartoon Network. These movies are 'Princess Mononoke' and 'Spirited Away'  you might remember them and if you do they kept you at the edge of your seat, they were great right? If you haven't seen them, please watch them you won't regret it.  If you are the kind of person that does not like animated movies I assure you, I had the pleasure of watching 'Grave of the Fireflies' with a person that absolutely detest animated movies and he gave it a great review said he wanted to buy the DVD so I can vouch for it.

This Studio Ghibli film was directed by the studios other co-founder Isao Takahata he wrote the screenplay but it was actually based on a book with the same name by Akiyuki Nosaka.  The story that goes on in the movie is based on the book and the book is based on the authors experiences during his youth as the war raged on in Japan and the world.


Seita and Setsuko after
much hardship

The movie is placed in the middle of World War II Kobe, Japan as Seita, the main character and his little sister Setsuko try to survive the horrible things that are happening all around them.  The movie opens with Seita preparing to leave his home before the bombs drop over his village.  His mother leaves him and his sister to go to the bomb shelter because she has a heart problem and must leave first.  Seita still preparing to leave with Setsuko hears the emergency bells ringing telling them that the bombs are dropping.  He runs to safety with his sister on his back and not much else.  A few things
occur and we find that his mother has been horribly injured and has to go to a hospital away from the bombing.  Upon knowing this Seita and Setsuko end up living with the only relative they know of an Aunt who you see through out the time they spent there did everything she could to insinuate that she did not want them there.  One night after some time living with the Aunt, Seita find an unused bomb shelter that he thinks would be a great place to live with his sister and so they gather their things and begin living there.  But things don't exactly turn out the way he thought they would. Many things happen and I won't spoil it for you much but I'll tell you I am a person that never cries because of movies but this one is the only movie that has ever made me cry so if you are sentimental get your tissues ready because the ending is heartbreaking. 



Setsuko toward the
end of the movie

Also the reason the movie has the name 'Grave of the Fireflies' is illustrated beautifully in the movie itself.  Now I know I did a poor job of a movie description so if your at all interested in watching the movie you can go look for a better written movie description but most of the time they will tell you more than you want to know and frankly for movies I like to keep things as a surprises.  I will leave the English dubbed version of the trailer at the bottom.  Last time I checked you can watch the movie online so with that being said....

~Matane

Beginning a blog!

Well let's see, let's see what to say? I'm a college student who is very intrigued by the Japanese culture and although it's been years since I've started my journey down this path I feel like I should document it to remember.   Like any young student I do not know all there is to know about Japan as I am not of that culture but I hope to soon learn enough to be able to visit and roam Japan all by my lonesome or with people I meet there.  My interest in Japan started at a very young age as my best friend in middle school was, drumroll please, yes! you guessed it Japanese!  She had to move back home but not before we promised that we would see each other again and of course this spun me into a spiral of trying to learn things I before didn't know. 
After years of being stuck in the manga and anime world I decided that I should take things a bit more seriously and get down to the thing I've been avoiding for 8 years, learning Japanese! Now you might think that after eight years of watching anime I would be speaking fluently at this I answer HA! yes I can pick up a few words and phrases I can do all the basics like introducing myself, saying what time it is and I even know how to count but I don't think that just these things make you fluent speaker of any language, especially not one as complex as Japanese, not to mention that some anime do not speak like the everyday Japanese person and like any person in a foreign land I do not want to be that weirdo that talks funny especially when you stick out like sore thumb.  So! in this blog I hope to not only document my own learning but to help those who come across my blog learn from me and to be corrected by those who know more than me so I can share that with the world.  Now as my learning proses will be slow since I am of course a college student and I will be bombarded with test every once and a while I will also, maybe, be putting up reviews on manga, movies, and anime that I have found interesting over that years and that have stuck with me through the passage of time. With that being said....
~Matane (see you later)