カタカナ Revised

フィレオフィッシュ - "fish fillet"

"fish"は日本語で「さかな」って言ますけど、マクドナルドのメニュは「フィッシュ」っと言います。とてもおもしろいですね。日本で、アメリカの言葉方が日本語の言葉よりクールですね。

On the McDonald's menu, there is a katakana expression for "fish" rather than the native Japanese word "sakana." Certainly this emphasizes the foreign feel of McDonald's to Japanese customers. McDonald's also tried to look cool in its American commercials, so perhaps they use the katakana to look cool to the Japanese. In fact, their entire menu is in katakana. Americans too use foreign phrases to sound sophisticated, such as "vice versa", "c'est la vie", and "veni vedi vici."

Another possibility for using katakana is too sound more natural. Some phrases just don't translate well into other languages, so keeping the foreign pronunciation makes it seem normal. Japanese and English are such different languages that I'm sure this happens often.  I wonder if a native Japanese speaker would be offput at the prospect of buying an うれしいごはん instead of a ハッピセット (that's "Happy Set" or "Happy Meal")。

「どんどん」
英語で"quickly"

This is a Japanese sound to represent the feeling of "quickly." It's not strictly speaking onomatopoeia, but it's classified as "Gitagio 擬態語" in Japanese. You can use your imagination to figure why this sound is "quickly." It can sound like footsteps running or a heart beating quickly. The word sound more personal and friendly than a standard Japanese word. For example, in English "tic tac" sounds more personable than "candy" or "sweet tablet."

The textbooks from class emphasize different uses of katakana. They all of course mention its use for writing foreign loan words and names. One textbook mentions its fashionable appeal, and another mentions its use in onomatopoeia. Presumably, the explain it in different ways because they use different katakana in each book, and so the author needs to explain katakana differently so the reader will understand. 

ハイチュウ

一月の休みに私はデンバーに姉に会いに行きました。週末にたくさんいそがしかったです。金曜日に私は姉とスキーをして、ピザを食べて、えいがを見ました。 家（うち）から山まで車（くるま）で二時間かかりましたが、ドライブはたのしかったです。休みの前に、私はスキーをしたことがありませんから、スキーをしるのはむずしかったです。

私 は小さいおいがいます。土曜日に、いっしょにダウンタウンへ出かけました。おいはキャンディーが大好きなので、キャンディーの店へ行きました。おいはうれ しそうでした。アメリカの店ですけど、日本のキャンディーも少しありました。そのキャンディーはおもしろそうでした。名前はグレープハイチュウでした。私は キャンディーを買いましたが、おいしくなかったです。私はアメリカのキャンディーの方が好きです。おいは車のチョコレートを買いました。それから、レストラ ンでおいしいおすしを食べました。その晩、ひこうきで大学に帰りました。休みはよかったです。 

新しいセメスター

このセメスターは, it's time to start taking pitch more seriously. Now that I don't struggle (as much!) at fluency, comprehension, and grammar, I need to learn proper pitch to minimize 私のアメリカのアクセント. I can improve it in a number of ways:

(1) 今、when  I learn 新しいボキャブラリー (or review 古いの), I will practice out loud using the pitch pattern in なかまきょうか書。
(2) Pay more attention to pitch when シャドーイングをします。So far, I mostly pay attention to speed, but it's time to push myself more.
(3) Get as much exposure to listening to natives as I can. This means オフィスアワーや CDを聞きます。I also found a handy site that has good listening practice. ウェブサイトのなまえは「http://mykikitori.com/lesson1.html」です。

このセメスターはたくさんかんじがあります！I have found that studying radicals is immensely helpful in learning to write the かんじ (though it doesn't really help with 読む them.) たとえば、新　＝　立　＋　木　＋　斤。　そして、　語　＝　言　＋　五　＋　口。　When writing, it's much easier for me to remember three radicals than trying to remember over a dozen individual strokes. Many radicals are かんじ themselves too, so it really helps. So, before the セメスター ends I want to learn all the bushu radicals, except the obscure ones. <http://www.jisho.org/kanji/radicals/> gives you all theじょうよう かんじ for each radical, so I can ignore the radicals that only appear in a few kanji. If I learn (meaning I learn how 書く it and the えいご definition, not the 日本語 reading) then it should be a manageable goal since I've already learned many dozen. Most radicals are only a few strokes, though exceptions like 鼻(えいごで "nose", 14 strokes) exist. Still, I find the radicals very useful and おもしろい.

My primary semester goal is to improve pitch while continuing work on grammar, speaking fluency, etc. As a bonus goal I will try to learn the radicals too, which will make future classes much easier (I hear you have to learn something like かんじ十五つ、毎日　in PII!)