PE Reflection
I think my pronunciation and fluency is better than average in controlled situations where I am parroting the recordings. However, I think these two traits degenerate when I am in a stressful situation where I need to generate conversation and converse. I found shadowing the cadenced poems relatively easy.
PE Goals
I would like to hone small talk for Japanese business situations. I want to try and shadow more of these business situations so that I can commit them to memory. I will try to shadow more of the "news" based recordings that simulate real life dialogue so that I can develop an ear for patterns and set phrases.
After reading about so many other's analyses of katakana, I want to write a very brief addendum to my blog post analysis about something that I feel is more broadly anthropological. I have many questions of how language affects the behaviors and cultural fabric of society. Particular to the Japan context, I am curious as to how katakana changes in different social norms.
Gender roles and how they are manifest in katakana.
The role of othering - does katakana isolate the unwanted from the Japanese language or idolize the foreign? How is this balance changing over the course of history?
What is the process of a word become distinctly Japanese and canonized into Hiragana?
Does nationalist sentiment manifest itself in katakana as opposed to hiragana in any case?
What language does katakana steal most of its loan words from? Why?
What are the rates of katakana words being inducted as they relate to Japan's foreign relations with countries that speak the language of those words?
How does Japan side with the pronunciation of French fries when certain United States citizens wanted to change it to freedom fries?
The answers to these questions seem relevant when understanding the reasons why the Japanese people created katakana. It bespeaks of a deeper psychological perspective of how communities take in and interact with foreign influences.
[아시]발
[atta ma] patting her head, (smart)
Richard은 내 형 [아니]야. 누나가 내 [아내]???
Sojung is an [emoter]
baby mama [아가] san who hooks me up.
my friend's wife is an ogre[ohku]san
[Oh-shaped 코］on a child helps me determine he's not mine
[Oh gee] gee gee with someone's grandpa Papa [Otto] popsicles
Will Huntsman(young bro) has a [Toto] puppy
[Auto co] is run by a MAN
older brother [oh knee]s me in the balls every day.
older sis [oh nehhh]
that grandma is ober da hill. [oba산]
[on na] to prove she's a female businessperson selling some [car shine]
[KaO] that face with one punch
[가족]family
he [kame] s his hair
xiong di - xio di - kio di - kio dai.
[coochie] mouth
[결혼] kekon wedding
ko kid
Go 가족
Go kio dai
Go zhuren shyujin! husband
child is a [kodomo] dragon
se - bird tattoo on your Back
Sohu has videos of my grandpa doing the harlem shake
Sobo noodles on my grandma
chichi chachi's dad
[tsuma] a sumo mama wife. also super boring. Sue ma
te - hand
toshi - the older your Age gets the more toshil toshil
hana - only one nose
haha - my mom is fat
[Hito Rico] is an only child. that's why he chats with babes online all day.
[Man naka] man in the middle. child.
meme- of my ears wiggling
me = eye
[mega ne]megaman needs glasses
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[cabu roo] put a cap on like in cabaret!
[sue moo] cows trying to reside up in here. Sue them.
[hack] put on and hack some pants socks shoes
[hutoroo] gain weight, get fat bye eating futons.
wakaru - to understand.
[cake] roo my glasses. smear it all over.
[key] roo put a sweater shirt jacket with a KEY logo on it.
[stoma]ch roo to become employed and fill your stomach.
[ya se] to lose weight like a bird!
[su] ru - to put on irregular accessories
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te ee ru - resultant state
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[aka roo] is the most cheerful roo in australia
kakoiii - cool
kawaii - cute
[schicako] is a square city
[naga] ee go out. because it's too long
ho sonagai from long and elongated.
[maru] is round like the carpet
[midget] midji ka ee. short
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[jaws] is good at and skillfull at killing humans
[신 세수] as a random act of kindness
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eekutsu how old?
Shyoo xiao
chiuuu zhong
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sai - sal
nin - ppl
ban - yichi ban me
kata - person
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iiee, sona koto(thing) wa arimasen
iiee, madamada desu. Still have a long way to go.
In Japanese 101, we learn that katakana is used to indicate three elements in the Japanese language: 1) loan words, 2) emphasis, and 3) onomatopoeia. I find that katakana also has three other uses:
A. Marking Slang and Newly Created Words
B. Eliciting Trendiness
C. Alleviating Seriousness or Harshness
Erica Hashiba comments that there are traditional uses of katakana in terms of how it's used as loan words, onomatopoeia, and emphasis. I use her ideas and language to describe some of the interesting examples of when katakana uses go beyond loan words, emphasis, and onomatopoeia.
Excerpts from Hashiba:
Widespread Loan Words in Katakana
First, katakana seems to mark “foreignness” and to reserve hiragana and kanji for “true Japanese." Indeed, even names of Japanese-Americans, although they may be Japanese (or at least the last name, as in “Mary Tanaka,”) are often written in katakana because they are not Japanese nationals. It is like using a different font in order to distinguish foreign from native, and for this reason, it may seem as though the use of katakana is not so much vital as it is ethnocentric. However, Japan has undergone extensive westernization especially after the second world war, and have since then made major technological, cultural, and linguistic imports. The Japanese language is now fully integrated with hundreds of “loan words” that are virtually unavoidable in everyday language, and this has given way to a phenomenally widespread use of katakana in modern Japanese discourse.
Onomatopoeia
Katakana is also conventionally used to write native Japanese words like various kinds of onomatopoeia, and words used in a scientific or technical context. A manga reader is well-accustomed to the “sounds” of anything from hurried footsteps to trembling anger that confetti the page in katakana. The native Japanese names for roaches, squirrels or wisteria might appear in katakana in a biology book or a science related text, but would otherwise usually be written in hiragana or kanji.
Emphasis
The following is the title of an article in a women’s magazine and contains two katakana words:
Meibirin-ga kirei no himitsu.
Maybelline is the secret to beauty.
Beauty is obviously an interest for many women, making the word kirei (“beautiful”) one of the most overused words in many magazines, including this one. What some women love even more, of course, are himitsu—secrets. Here, both words are written in katakana to mark emphasis to these words so as to get the attention of the secret-hungry reader.
Marking Slang and Newly Created Words
Another usage of katakana is for writing slang and newly created words. Newly created words sometimes consist of loan words, but many of these words originate from already-existing Japanese words. For example, maji (“seriously;” “for real”), mukatsuku (“irritated;” “pissed off”), and motokano/motokare (“ex-girlfriend”/“ex-boyfriend”). Motokano and motokare are abbreviated words (from motokanojo and motokareshi) so usually moto (“ex”) remains in kanji and only the shortened kano and kare portions are written in katakana since they were modified from the original word to create the new term.
Unlike the katakana use for marking focus which is highly dependent on the context, slang words are very consistently written in katakana. Since slang words are newly created words that have a sense of “non-nativeness.” They are very much like loan words which have been incorporated into the language to supplement the already-existing language.
Eliciting Trendiness
When a word that should be written in the hiragana/kanji form is arbitrarily written in katakana, it suddenly gives the word some pizazz, eliciting trendiness to an otherwise neutral word. Fashion magazines often use “ore” over “boku,” and when they do, often write them in katakana rather than in kanji. This seems to make the “ore” (and who it refers to) even more cool and trendy than if it were to be written in the proper, heavy-looking kanji.
Another example of the “trendy” use of katakana is when celebrities and entertainers write their name in katakana. Some people will appear with their full name written in kanji, but many others will change their name, slightly or completely, to give it more pizzazz as a “professional” name. When doing so, many choose to write their new names in katakana, like Tamori, a popular TV show host who simply goes by his last name (which is actually “Morita” scrambled), and writes it in katakana. Countless manzai (Japanese comedy) duos come up with team names written in katakana, such as “Cream Stew”. There are both instances of celebs writing their Japanese names in katakana, as well as those who completely do away with their Japanese name and give themselves a western name which is also, of course, written in katakana (although some get really clever and adopt a western name and write it in hiragana or kanji.) While some students of Japanese may wish to ascribe self-picked kanji to represent their originally katakana names, many Japanese do just the opposite—and write their kanji names in katakana so as to emulate the trendiness of a western name.
Alleviating Seriousness or Harshness
The kanji script is typically much more complex than the katakana script, so when a word that should conventionally be written in kanji is reduced to the simple katakana script, it literally does away with the serious, burdening look of the original word—interestingly enough, this visual difference has the same effect on its meaning as well.
The blog of a 20 year old female college student contains the following text under the headline “My college life”:
Kyoo-wa gakkou-ga ohiru made deshita.
“Today school was until lunchtime.”
For a 20 year old girl who probably spends the better half of her day making an elaborate blog site intricately bordered with dancing Hello Kitty icons, school is probably not the most interesting place to be. Thus, by writing a mundane word like “school” in katakana, she does away with the serious, scholarly connotations of school and makes it appear to be a more playful and lighthearted ordeal.
Because of such visual effects of words written in katakana, many adversarial words are written in katakana for the same reasons.
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I think Hashiba identifies nuances of using katakana that indicate that as newer phraseology and words come into play in the 21st century, the way that katakana becomes incorporated into the Japanese language will become manifold beyond the three usages that we learn in Japanese 101. Perhaps, like Korean, we will see the use of kanji phase out and the Japanese people revert to language types of hiragana and katakana to express themselves. Of course, the element that we miss out on when this happens is the meanings of homonyms. This might be derived purely from context.
As I learn more Japanese, I would like to see if the contextual cues are strong enough in the Japanese language to obviate the need for kanji. I believe that the uses of katakana will grow ever stronger and the use of older Chinese-based kanji sets will become less important to the study of Japanese.
雨にもまけず (Be not Defeated by the Rain) はとてもゆめいな詩です。著者は Kenji Miyazawa (宮沢 賢治）です。 Kenji Miyazawa is a poet from the northern prefecture of Iwate in Japan who lived from 1896 to 1933.
I shadowed this poem for my PE exercise and enjoyed reading the translation.
not losing to the rain not losing to the wind not losing to the snow nor to summer's heat with a strong body unfettered by desire never losing temper always quietly smiling every day four bowls of brown rice miso and some vegetables to eat in everything count yourself last and put others before you watching and listening, and understanding and never forgetting in the shade of the woods of the pines of the fields being in a little thatched hut if there is a sick child to the east going and nursing over them if there is a tired mother to the west going and shouldering her sheaf of rice if there is someone near death to the south going and saying there's no need to be afraid if there is a quarrel or a lawsuit to the north telling them to leave off with such waste when there's drought, shedding tears of sympathy when the summer's cold, wandering upset called a nobody by everyone without being praised without being blamed such a person I want to become
I thought it was a poem full of wisdom and resonant with community values. What do you think of the poem?
1. Speak in less halting sentences. I have lost a lot of fluidity in my Japanese after we started to do verb conjugations because I still have to think about how to conjugate. I want to finish thinking about what I want to say before I say it.
2. Improve tones of the ending of my sentences. I have also focused less on the intonation of the sentence because I just want to finish saying the thought that I was formulating. I think the best way to improve the tones is to concentrate on this aspect during my shadowing exercises.
3. Increase the length of my shadowing exercises by at least 10 seconds. I think this will be much easier since Shibata sensei will provide the text to many of the shadowing exercises available.
4. Focus on grammar review during Shibata sensei's office hours.
