November 30, 2007

Ganbatte!

Ganbatte! An English announcement script.

みんなさんHello、先週に僕は日本語能力試験を受験した。

一生懸命勉強した。まあ、合格の可能性が低いし、毎日僕がいろいろな間違いをしちゃうしけど、日本語として、最後まで頑張りたい。

君たちも英語やすべてに頑張ってほしいよ。 そのため僕の粗末な言語の始まりのものがたりを伝えたいと思う。もし、きいたら、君たちがインスピレーションがわいてくる気がするかな。

そもそも僕は何となく大学に行く前は言語授業がなかった。面白半分で日本語をえらんだ。簡単だろうと思った。なのに、最初のレッスンは僕にとって、ものすごくむずかしかった。内容は二つの句だった:「できました?」と「はい。できました。」そんな短くくせに僕は覚えられなかった。

結局、僕はその会話のビデオを何回も観た。たぶん、40回ぐらいごろにやっと覚えられるようになった。その厳しいことのあと日本語が簡単になった。あいにく都合のせいでその期間のあと、長い間日本語を勉強ことがあきらめなければならなかった。そして能力回復のはまだ続いているんだ。だから僕の推薦は君たちもあきらめないで。そのうえ、最初から一生懸命したらものごとが楽になるはずだ。

ためしてみよう。

(yeah I know; this script is from the future! Oooooh.)

November 26, 2007

食中毒

犯人はこのやつだと思う。ウンチみたいな食べ物はやっぱりだめだ。




猫達が看病してくれた。

November 22, 2007

bread and butter (lesson script)

今日の表現はbread and butterだ
繰り返して
意味は生活の糧(かて)とか
自分の糧を得る方法

例文!
A: Do you play baseball?
野球をしますか。
B: Play it? It's my bread and butter!
するかい。それは俺の人生を支えているのものだ。

A: Is fishing popular in Tara?
太良町では、みんなが魚釣り
をしているんだ?
B: Yes, you could say it's our bread and butter.
ええ、まるで我が命のように大切だ。

November 20, 2007

蟹味噌汁

カニみそ

video post

November 19, 2007

眠い

一週間ぐらい僕は眠かった。多分季節が変えるのせい。おそらく部屋がまるで大きなこたつのよう。
このビデオには、猫=僕。そして犬=同僚
眠いねん

November 16, 2007

Last Time I Checked

今日の言葉はchecked
繰り返して
checked の意味は点検した
今日の表現はLast time I checked...
繰り返して
文字通りの意味は前回チェックしたときは
表現としての意味は
当たり前じゃんとかもちろんさ。
その後、動詞の過去形くることが多い。
ところで調子によって、皮肉なことも多い。

例文!

A:Are you American?
アメリカ人ですか。
B:Last time I checked I was.
ええそうだよ。

A:Can you speak Spanish?
スペイン語話せますか?
B:Last time I checked I could.
もちろん話せますよ。

A:Didn't she dump you?
彼女をお前にふられたでしょう。
B:Yeah, last time I checked I was indeed dumped, thanks to your meddling.
ええ。そうだったよ。あんたのおせっかいのおかげで。

November 13, 2007

A successful announcement lesson

(I never had anybody check the Japanese in this script; if you see a mistake let me know.)
英語表現を使うぜSHOW!

きょうの言葉はwayだ
繰り返して…
じゃきょうの表現はNo way!
繰り返して
意味はいろいろが含めての意味は:
決して~ないとか嘘だ!とか
やだとか絶対だめ!とか仕方がない
じゃいくつかの例文で行くぜ!
A: Billy, take out the garbage.
A:ビリ君、塵を捨てて。
B: No way! I’m playing video games!
B:やだ!テレビゲームしているんだぞ!

A: Won’t you date me?
A: デートをしてくれませんか
B: No way!
B: きもい!

A: Are you going to fail?
A: 失敗するかい
B: No way! I’ll definitely win!
B: 絶対そのことないよ。僕の勝ちだ。
----
Unrelated: I like this picture.
--
Also, I am going to try to hook my ipod up to the school announcements and play some golden eggs.

November 9, 2007

A couple weeks back

A couple weeks back I asked the school nurse, "Don't you think my throat looks odd?"
"Not particularly."

Said throat (view discretion advised).

EDIT: Mum says thrush. Maybe I should give up school lunches... or at least the rice.

November 7, 2007

2 1 1

Two kinds of pills.
One kind of liquid.
One bottle of iodine.

I have fungus. And bacteria. In my throat. Ironically, one of my medicines is penicillin (fungus) based.

Japanese drugstores have a funny routine when they give you your medicine. They go, "Oh, your throat is sore, isn't it?" "Yes? Well take these after meals." "Oh, and your chest has an interesting sensation, right?" etc.

Making you want to say, "Just gimme my medicine. And validate my parking."

November 6, 2007

Posting about add-ons and scripts again

Once again blogging about extentions. I do this for my own benefit too, cause I use many computers between schools and download extensions at all of them.

Extensions:
All-in-one gestures (disable all unused guestures) Right click and make a squiggle. I use it to close tabs.
greasemonkey You need it for the scripts in the scripts part of this article.
rikaichan (with names dictionary, press return to switch) The best tool on the net for reading any Japanese webpage. Or even mine sometimes.
submit to tab
Scribefire Useful when I post for wordpress blogs like Japanprobe
foxmarks Syncs my midget porn bookmarks wherever I go.
GButts All your google pages next to the URL bar or wherever.
Resurrect Pages Useful for dugg-to death pages.
tab history New tabs have the history of the page that spawned them.
tab mix plus Essential.
Context search Lets one search highlighted text with any search engine they have installed into the search bar.


Greasemonkey scripts:
google cache continue
Pagerization
wikipedia auto-login
google MP3 Puts a little play button next to MP3 links you can listen with.
Textarea backup Essential for not losing stuff you said or want to say again.

November 5, 2007

November 3, 2007

Another teaser


I hate animating; takes forever. And this hardly counts.

But here's another pic one to confuse you...

November 1, 2007

Halloween

Late to the site, but made on time at least.


Nothing sacred

So a kid drops his math triangles on the floor. I take them to the board and draw a small house shrine (or maybe it wasn't; I also drew a portrait of some man in a picture frame so I could have been drawing a funeral thing--we'll get to why it's bad that I don't really know) and some incense and a plate of mikans. Then I place the triangles there as if I am making an offering to my ancestors.

The kids thought it was hilarious.

When the teacher finally noticed, she thought it was sacrilegious. She sternly said, "We don't do that," and erased it. Then she turned to the class and said something quickly with the word "joke". I'm not sure if she was covering my actions or denouncing them.



So a couple of factors go into my surprise, and my やっぱり "I shoulda known" feelings about the matter.

Factors that made me think it was okay:
The Japanese aren't religious. They often seem pretty proud of how religious they aren't.
I was talking to the other teacher before class, and she joked about how if you don't honor your deceased grandma with a snack offering, she will turn into a vengeful ghost. So I had it in my head at the time that one can joke about that very thing.
There are many scenes in animes and comedies where I have seen people joking about funerals. Please see this video for what I am talking about with the funeral funnies.
The kids seemed to think it was funny.

Factors that should of let me know that things would suddenly take a turn for "I'm sorry I just insulted you and your entire culture":
The Japanese are religious, or at least ceremonial in a Confucian way. Even though many of them proclaim no religious beliefs, almost everyone still has those home shrines. All the festivals, save our Saga balloon festival, have religious overtones.
Funeral stuff is taboo. My students were shocked when we had a discussion in which I stated that sticking your chopsticks in your bowl and standing them that way is not rude. Shoulda foresaw that related stuff would be bad too.
That teacher takes everything I do seriously. For instance, I described a guy as a "the one that is a little chubby" when at a loss for a name, and she heard me across the room and was like, "What did you say?!"
A funeral is not the same as a home shrine. Once again, I am too culturally ignorant to know if I depicted a shrine as I intended, but in any case, I don't know some of the taboos going on, so while it may be okay for comedians on TV (afore-posted video link), there are rules to the comedy I might not get.
The children are aliens. No, seriously, any middle school teacher in Japan will tell you that. Ask them about the alien thing. What it boils down to is the children may have thought it was okay to laugh because they are not yet indoctrinated.
The Japanese are superstitious. Usually only in a "this will bring me good luck" way, but still.

So, yeah. Sorry bout that Japan.