White Day

• English
• Português

English

Hello jellies!

Today I’m here to talk to you about Valentine’s Day!

Wait… Valentine’s Day was one month ago? Then why is that Japanese guys are giving chocolates and presents to girls today? That’s right, it’s because today, March 14th is White Day!

On this day boys that received Valentine’s Day chocolate from girls reciprocate by giving them chocolate’s and other gifts! If you ask me this is a really sweet custom and people all over the world should embrace it as well!

Yes people may argue that Valentine’s Day is just an institution created by the chocolate industry to make more money, but the intention really matters, and although you shouldn’t neglect your loved ones the rest of the year, having a day where you show you love for them and a day where that love is given back, I think it’s a very cute concept!

Well this will be all for now, please comment what do you think about all this!

Nana

Português

Olá fofos!

Hoje estou aqui para falar do dia de São Valentim!

Espera... O dia de São Valentim foi há um mês? Então porque é que rapazes japoneses estão a dar chocolates e presentes às raparigas hoje? Porque hoje, dia 14 de Março, é chamado de White Day, ou traduzido à letra, Dia Branco.

Neste dia os rapazes que receberam chocolate no dia de São Valentim retribuem o gesto, oferecendo-lhes chocolates ou outros presentes! Se me perguntarem acho que é um costume muito fofo e todo o mundo devia adotá-lo também!

Sim, pessoas podem dizer que o dia de São Valentim foi crido por corporações como a indústria do chocolate apenas para ganhar dinheiro, mas a intenção importa, e apesar de não devermos negligenciar aqueles que amamos o resto do ano, ter um dia em que podemos mostrar o nosso amor por eles e outro em que recebemos esse mesmo amor é um conceito adorável!

Bem é tudo por agora, comentem o que acham deste dia e se concordam comigo!

Nana

Mondly

• English
• Português

English

Hello guys!

Today I bring to you the second app review of this little review series I’m doing! Don’t worry I’ll still post stuff other than reviews, but I want to give you more information about the resources to really learn and this app specifically made me understand something important.

Before I get to that I must specify I used this app for both Italian and Japanese. Even in Italian the app was pretty confusing, we have a little tutorial in the beginning, but still I couldn’t quite grasp how it worked. The lessons were pretty basic in my opinion, they covered just vocabulary, almost zero sentence structure and so on, but even the vocabulary was covered in a very random way, they picked a handful of words and threw them in a very incomplete theme.

Now to the worst part, the Japanese version was a EXACT copy! Same structure, same words, you only had a choice to put the words in romaji or kana. This made me angry, and I’m a very peaceful person.
I think this app represents what’s bad with most Japanese learning app. Japanese is NOT a romance language, not even a western language, saying that you should never EVER try to learn it as such! Japanese is a very complex language that has its own way to be learned, its own techniques, and it really makes me mad when I see apps like this because then people will go and try to learn it like that and never completely succeed. I made the same mistake four years ago when I first started to learn Japanese and it set me back YEARS I can never take back, that is why I feel so strongly about it!

From all I think it was one of the worst apps I ever tried, not just because of the Japanese and I honestly don’t recommend it at all!

This will be all for now guys, see you next time!
Nana

Português

Olá pessoal!

Hoje trago-vos a segunda review das aplicações que andei a experimentar no passado mês! Não se preocupem, vou voltar a fazer outro tipo de posts, e não me vou focar apenas nestas pequenas reviews, apenas quero que saibam mais sobre os recursos por aí, e algo em especifico que me apercebi ao experimentar esta aplicação.

Mas antes de chegar aí quero clarificar que usei esta app para Italiano e Japonês. Até em Italiano esta aplicação é muito confusa, temos um pequeno tutorial no início mas ainda assim senti que não aprendi nada sobre como navegar pelas lições. As lições em si eram bastante básicas, apenas nos apresentavam algum vocabulário, não explicaram nada sobre estruturação das frases e aspectos gramaticais. Mas mesmo o vocabulário era apenas um punhado de palavras atiradas para dentro de um tema bastante incompleto.

Agora para o pior, a versão para Japonês era EXACTAMENTE igual! Mesma estrutura, mesmas palavras, a única diferença é que as podíamos ler em romaji ou kana. Isto deixou-me zangada, e eu considero-me uma pessoa bastante pacífica.
Acho que esta aplicação representa o que está mal com a maior parte das aplicações para aprender japonês. Japonês NÃO é uma língua latina, nem sequer do Ocidente, com isto em mente NUNCA devia ser aprendida da mesma forma! É uma lingua muito complexa com maneiras e técnicas muito especificas para ser aprendida, e deixa-me muito mas muito zangada quando aplicações como esta ignoram isso pois estão a prejudicar e a atrasar um iniciante que ainda não sabe a maneira certa de estudar! Eu era assim há quatro anos e aplicações como esta atrasaram a minha aprendizagem ANOS que nunca poderei recuperar.

De todas penso que foi das piores aplicações que alguma vez experimentei, não apenas por causa do Japonês, e honestamente não a recomendo a ninguém!

Isto é tudo por agora pessoal, até há próxima!

Nana

2016 Expectations and Delusions

Hey guys!

So I just wanted to drop by today and make an overview from what I learned in 2015 and what my hopes are for 2016!

Well what to say, what to say...

As so many times before, I started seriously studying Japanese, learned Hiragana and Katakana completly finally! (still they need some reviewing, especially Katakana) 

I learned more Latin but unfortunatly put it on hold because summer vacation kicked in and I was having private lessons from my middle school Portuguese teacher!

Also started Italian in the middle of August, with some Spanish reviews here and there... In reality I didn't finish either courses, but I'm learning a lot form different sources, not only Duolingo trying to make sense of it all!

Well I think this was pretty much my 2015 language-wise, but I have higher hopes to 2016!

I want to start a Youtube channel, even if to just practice my speaking and having you all judge me there, this has been a little idea of mine for quite some time now, I follow a lot of polyglots on Youtube or just foreigners that are learning another language, and I always wished to become one of them!

Also, I wish to finish Italian and start French (That I should already know because I had it as a subject for three years in middle school, back when I wasn't really interested in languages other that English and Japanese) it's one of my biggest regrets not have taken advantage of the teachers I had at the time!

Getting into Kanji by the end of the year would also be perfect, if everything goes well I might have Japanese classes in colleage, so I'll certainly take advantage of that!

Kind-of-language-related wish is going to the UK to study, although I might not go to Languages, I really want to immerse myself in another country and learn as much as I can about that wonderful place! Besides from there I can travel to other places and experience a lot of more fun things and report it all back to you!

These are my main wishes for this year, I hope I can accomplish them all, if not I'll always have the next and so on, so on!

Tune in for more posts, I'm going to make some changes to the blog and the Tumblr page soon, so check that out!

Nana

The Emperor's Birthday

Hello minna!

So yesterday was a very, very important day in Japan!

Yes, it was the current Emperor's birthday!

明仁 or Akihito is the current Emperor of Japan. He was born on December 23th of 1933 and is now 82 years old.

His Majesty (how he's commonly refered to), was the eldest son of the late Emperor Shōwa, and his reign started officially on January 7th of 1989.

The Emperor's birthday is always a national holiday, and on this day the doors to the Imperial Palace are open where the Emperor and his Empress Michiko make a public appearance with several other family members and everyone congratulates the Emperor on this special day.

(Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko on her 75th birthday)

Only on this date and on January 2nd may the general population enter the Imperial Palace, it beig restricted on every other day of the year.

Well hope you liked this small piece of information, see you guys later and happy holidays to you all!

Nana

My Favorite Langblrs

Hey minna!

So two weeks ago I talked about the wonderful world of languages and how great of a community it is.

So today I came to share with you some of my favorite langblrs!

- Japanese Words
- language + literature
- Daily Japanese Phrase
- The Polyglot Haven
- Languages and Linguistics
- My Language Studies
- Hi Salut Hola
- Poliglotic
- definitly lingual
- Languages. What else?
- language studyblr
- You wouldn't understand: It's an Italian thing
- Translated Thoughts
- Kanji with Tavo
- Polyglot Nerd
- The Polyglot I'll Be
- I polyglot this
- Asociación Políglota Autodidacta de México

And there are many, many more I love to follow, these although, are the top ones, I hope someday this blog can reach and help as many people as these help me!

This will be all for now, see you next time!

Nana

SFX

Hello minna!

Today I'm going to talk about SFX. To those who don't know what it is, it's essencially the sound effects translated into words, like how "woof woof" is the sound a dog makes or how we write "sigh" as a written representation of the sound!

I see these mostly in manga, manhwa, comics and things of the sort, to help make sense of more subtle movements.

I found this very cute list of japanese SFX, or how they call them Gitaigo and Giongo.

I also know some more, mainly related to the heartbeat. In japanese as the image says, it's "doki doki" in portuguese we usually say "tum tum" or "badum badum" and I read a lot the utilization of "pit-a-pat pit-a-pat" for korean manhwas!

Also the famous "woof woof" or "bark bark" can be said "ão ão" here in Portugal!

This website right here has a full Japanese SFX translation divided by katakana characters, I found it really cool while I was researching for this post, I hope you like it too!!

That will be all for now, see you next time!

Nana

Weekly Goals 6

Hey hey people!!

So as you must've noticed I didn't do my Thursday post, I was just so busy this week it was impossible!

So as a result I didn't achieve many of my goals, and I'm going to essencially repost them here to finish it all and review a little to oil up my brain!

Japanese

- Finish "Learn Basic Japanese" course on Memrise
- Brief introduction to Kanji on Tae Kim's course
- Finish level 6 on Genki

Italian

- Clothing
- Present 1
- Colors
- Conjunctive

Spanish

- Present 3
- Verbs: Infinitive 1

Let's hope this week I can do it all!

It's all for now, see you next time!

Nana

Weekly Goals 5

Heyoo!

Aoo... This week I was a bit lazy with my japanese, in part because I was so fascinated with Duolingo and discovering how it worked and all... So those goals will remain the same!

But not everything is bad news! And this one is big! I will also brush up my Spanish!!!

There are a TON of things I've forgotten and a ton that I don't even know (pfft, school education am I right??) so I decided I can't stop completly spanish, so I'll integrate it on my weekly goals too!

I'll also be learning it on Duolingo so it'll be kind of similar.

Japanese

- Finish "Learn Basic Japanese" course on Memrise
- Brief introduction to Kanji on Tae Kim's course
- Finish level 6 on Genki

Italian

- Plurals
- Animals
- Food 2
- Possession
- Clothing
- Questions
- Present 1
- Colors
- Conjunctive

Spanish

- Present 3
- Verbs: Infinitive 1

Some of these levels have A LOT of content while other have very few, that is why Italian has so many goals whilst Spanish has so few, I'm trying to calibrate the two the best I can and not overload myself, especially since I also have a paper to deliver in History class and next week will be really eventfull!

This will be all for now, see you next time!

Nana

Weekly Goals 4

Hello cutiepies!

I am pretty proud that I was able to complete almost all my objectives for last week, and hopefully I can continue! I want to write even more texts and share my improvement with all of you who take your time to read this.

So without further ado I present to you this week's goals!

Japanese:

- Finish "Learn Basic Japanese" course on Memrise
- Brief introduction to Kanji on Tae Kim's course
- Finish level 6 on Genki

Italian:

- Complete 3 levels about verbs
- Finish 3 levels of grammar
- Begin "Hacking Italian" on Memrise
- Practice texts

So this will be all for this week, well I say all, btu between this, school, gym and other extracurricular activities I have, it's plenty!

See you later!

Nana

Weekly Goals 3

Hey cutie pies!

We're back this week with more weekly announcements!

Well despite being busy half the week I was finally able to catch up some more and start some new courses on Memrise, but as I start new courses I'll have a TON of reviewing to do, so I'll be taking a small break on the advances this week to deal with that!

It is to be expected also Tuesday or Thursday (or perhaps both) the release of some small texts I've been doing on my spare time to train and start to put to use what I learn. Keep in mind these will probably still be in an elementary school level, so don't expect much!

Now for this week's goals:

Japanese

- Review
- Finish "Learn Basic Japanese" course on Memrise
- Finish level 4 and 5 on Genki


Italian

- Review
- Finish 5 levels of "Easy Italian Grammar"
- More verbs
- Practice writing

This will be all for this week, thank you lots, 

Nana

Japanese Food Experience!

Hey minna!

As promissed i came back today with some cute pictures, this time of food!

I went to London this past April on a school trip for a week, and in that time we passed several times through Soho, and it was there that a friend and I found a cute little japanese restaurant that wasn't very expensive, and so we decided to try it out!

I ate some Soba while she ate Udon if I remember correctly and I absolutly loved it! We also ate some sushi on the side (can we be more cliché?) and drank some green tea (yes, yes we can).
This was the closest I had to a real Japanese meal, I also go sometimes to a japanese buffet and stuff myself on some weird fruit sushi, that I'm sure it makes true japanese chefs cringe, but I quite like it.
One time I also tried Dorayaki, Takoyaki and Mochi on a japanese event in Lisbon, it was also very tasty, especially the dorayakis that still haunt my dreams to this day!
Here in Portugal we also have instant noodles, that I use many times in my cooking inventions, including my Italian-Japanese Noodles, but that is a story for another post!

Now for the cute images!
  

Here we have a lot of food vocabulary, personally I want to try them all! Of course made and eaten on the homeland, where I'm sure they'll taste even better!

Well this is all for now, 

じゃね！

なな

Weekly Goals 2

Hey guys!!

So as I've said last week was chaotic so I didn't get the chance to fulfill all my goals, so until i get things going these are going to be essencially the same!

Japanese 

- Finish the "Learn Basic Japanese" course on Memrise
- English to Katakana practice
- Reviewing Hiragana and Katakana thoroughly
- Genki: Chapters 1, 2 and 3

Italian

- Start the course "Easy Italian Grammar" on Memrise
- Start learning verbs
- Practice longer sentences, texts, descriptions, etc...

Some are already crossed down but need serious reviewing, so I'll keep them here, I hope this week I can cross them all!

It's all for now!

Nana

Japanese Adjectives

おはようみんあ！

I was searching the internet the other day and I found the most adorable pictures used to teach you japanese!

It's very coomon, I found them a lot on Tumblr and Facebook, but I though, "why not make a post about this?" and so here it is!

This is the first but I certainly will do many more! Keep in mind I don't own any of these pictures, all the credit for their creation goes to their respective owners!

So this is it! Look forward to more posts like this, because they are coming!

Nana

Weekly Goals

Hey minna!

So I'm starting a weekly kind of thing called "Weekly Goals" that essencially update you on what I'm planning to study during the week!

So here it goes, this is going to be week one, despite me studying for a lot longer now...

Japanese 

- Finish the "Learn Basic Japanese" course on Memrise
- English to Katakana practice
- Reviewing Hiragana and Katakana thoroughly
- Genki: Chapters 1, 2 and 3

Italian

- Start the course "Easy Italian Grammar" on Memrise
- Verbs
- Practice longer sentences, texts, descriptions, etc...

It seems little but I do have school and gym on the side, I don't have much free time, still I'll try my hardest! 
I'll cross these things one by one when I finish them (some of course I won't finish this week, only start) but let's hope this way I can progress faster on this journey!

This is all for now!

Nana

[UPDATE]

So yeah many of the goals I didn't achieve, last week was crazy, so I'll put the same goals this next week!

Learning Through Music - Japanese

Konnichiwa!

Since I was little I was like a little music sponge that absorbed words everywhere through everything, so it's natural to say that one of the main resources that helps me with vocabulary in essencially every language is music!

My interest for Japanese may be rooted in anime, and through not only the anime itself, but also the openings and endings I learned perhaps 60% of the vocabulary I know today. I love singing along to catching sons like "Paper Moon" (Soul Eater 1st Op) and "Ichirin no hana" (Bleach 3rd Op), and those tunes along with hundreds of others helped me learn!

After that I graduated to other bands and performers, the one that catched my attention the best was Vocaloid and to this day I'm utterly OBCESSED with their songs! Cover, dubbed and slow versions also can be found on my cellphone, and are a great method to learn something!

First of all when you are looking to learn through songs it's best you find the versions that bring translation and romanization of it like this song for example:

This example brings English and Romaji subtitles which is what you should look for in order to catch on some vocabulary. But the song is too quick (although very cool) you barely have enough time to keep up with one of the subs, let alone both!

So my second advice is to look for slower songs, normally more childish songs work perfectly!

With this song I learned a CRAZY amount of vocabulary, listening and reading over and over again! It has helped me with phrase structure and basic vocabulary!

But this song also has a bonus! It has the lyrics written with kana right next to it! So slowly I can train my kana reading too!

But what if you don't like these types of songs and you just cringe hearing them? Well then you can just find the slower virsion of any japanese song you like, and if it doesn't have subs just try and search for them online!

I personally love this song in both versions, and it's again a very good example to help me with vocabulary!

I'll leave here my playlist with almost 300 videos, most of them subbed (some in portuguese though) if you want to check them out and find any that you enjoy!

Vocaloid Playlist

Well that is all for now, next time I'll bring you my Italian playlist so look forward to that!

Nana

CEFR & JLPT

Hello guys!

Today I'm here to explain to you how I determine in which level I fit in each language when I don't have a teacher to say it to me or an exam to determine it.

It's very simple really, it exists something called CEFR (Common European Framework of Referance for Languages) that works as a guideline (mainly to european languages) to determine which level I'm in!

And how does this work?

Well there are 3 Major levels: A (basic), B (independant) and C (proficient). Each of them breaks into two smaller sub levels which will then further specify your degree of knowledge:

A1 - Beginner

A2 - Elementary

B1 - Intermediate

B2 - Upper Intermediate

C1 - Advanced

C2 -  Proficiency

All this information I acquired from the respective Wikipedia page on the matter, so if you want further information on this I reccomend you read it!

But as I explained, this chart is better used to evaluate your skills on European languages, what about other languages like Japanese for example? 

Well each country has (or should have) a test to foreigners to get a certificate on how they learned that country's language (the tests are not necessarily made in the country of the language you learned, they can have other spots in your own contry where they have it, like a local university).

I can only speak of the cases I know, and the only I know for sure is the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). This test is held several times in several places (to the portuguese and spanish readers I know there is a place in Spain that holds the test) and if you pass you get a certificate on how you know Japanese.

There are a total of 5 different levels, meaning, five different exams, it starts on the N5 this being the lowest one and N1 being the highest level you can achieve. 

There are also schools in Japan with the sole purpose of prepairing foreigners that come and reside there to take this exam.

People everywhere argue on the usefulness of this exam, many say it doesn't leave you near of proficiency, because like in every other language class you focus on grammar structures instead of real life applications, even though I plan to take this test once I'm on a higher level, but I won't dismiss in any way the practical learning of said language!

If you are interested in learning this or any other languages that aren't European I reccomend you search these tests (if it's something you are aiming for of course) even if it is to give you a small notion of the degree you want to achieve.

Another way I like to set limits is using books, I would choose an YA (Young Adult) book in my target language (because these are usually the ones that use common, day-to-day vocabulary and not some medical terms I never heard of) and I won't stop studying until I can read it whole, even if slowly and with as dictionary by my side, if I reach "The End" I know my job is done and I just have to review it a whole lot (because you never really stop learning a language or you'll forget it...)

So this is all for today, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!

Arrivederci,

Nana!

日本語

Ohayou minna!

Today I bring you another post about languages! This one is about the second language that I'm currently learning: Japanese!

This one has a different story... I've been learning japanese for about... FOUR YEARS!!!

Yeah so you're thinking "wow she must be soooo advanced already" LIES! I barely finished memorizing my Hiragana and scraping into some Katakana on the side, the reason for this is just that I'm veryyy lazy and was always stoping and continuing my studies, the result being I completly forgot everything!

I only started to get REALLY into japanese was after i found out about Memrise that has been a great help to conquer Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji, and some useful vocabulary as well!

To this point I'm able to read phrases like "わたしはうれしいけどかれはつかれています。" with some ease and quickness, of course depends a lot on the vocabulary used and if I know it well!

Besides Memrise I previously mentioned I have been almost collecting Japanese PDF textboks and audiobooks, using them from time to time to review some vocabulary or grammar rules!

The reason that led me into this adventure was essencially anime! Yeah it's the most cliché reason ever, but I'm a big fan of anime and japanese culture in general since a very young age, so one day I decided I wanted to deepen my knowledge on it and so I began studying it at home with the help of a friend that takes real classes and some very nice japanese folks!

I will get more into my sources of study in another post, this was just a brief presentation, I will see you later!

Nana