ぞく！ぞく！

ぞく！ぞく！

It's so chilly today, and I just cannot warm up. ぞくぞく(zoku zoku) is Japanese onomatopoeia for shivering.  Today was onomatopoeia day in Japanese, we learned about how different sounds are expressed in Japanese from English. (ex: English dog bark is woof woof. Japanese dog bark is わんわん wan wan) There are two different types of onomatopoeia in Japanese, ぎたいご (gitaigo) which expresses sounds/states of the external world and ぎじょおご (gijioogo) which expresses internal mental states, conditions, feelings.  These Japanese onomatopoeia express more than they do in Englisg by giving sounds to things that do not normally have a sound. Such as  ぼっけっと(bokketto) which is the sound you make for gazing vacantly, something I did not know had a sound! Hopefully soon I will すやすや (sound for sleeping peacefully) I am so tired and have been  ばりばり(the sound of being very busy) with the of the semester school work but it is all most over!

ps. I think that Japanese onomatopoeia is going to be my research topic ^-^!! 

On Learning Japanese

This semester I started learning Japanese! Its very exciting, and is acctually an easy language to learn. I know I know what your thinking about that. But linguisticly speaking Japanese is an easy language compared to well, English. Ive also been studing SLA or second language acqusition too and it has been particually helpful in learning Japanese. So while Japanese may not seem like an easy language to learn there are some things to consider to making it easier!

1. Tell your English to shut up while you are activley learning Japanese. Your knowledge of English interefers with what you are learning in japanese. Exaample, when learning sentace structure.
English is SVO (Subject Verb Object): Lauri(S) bought(V) beer(O).
Japanese is SOV (Subject Object Verb): Lauri(S) beer(O) bought(V).
It seems ass backwards but there will be alot of things that go against what you know about langauge. Just deal! (Japanese uses this SOV structure to force politeness of the listener. By placing the verb at the end the listerner MUST listen to the whole sentance to get the meaning. If you dont hear that verb you would be wondering what I did with that beer. Did I buy it, drink it, steal it? Cleaver huh?)
2. Don't try to translate word for word into English. It doesnt work that way. There are many markers and particles that have no translation. There are also many interejection words that dont translate well either. Some like じゃ (jya) can be used a bunch of different ways and in a bunch of different contexts. These are things you need to learn to feel out the usage on. Also Japanese has about 40 odd sounds, so this creates many homonyms. Pretty much everything seems to have several meanings.
3. Embrace ambiguity. This is soooo important. It pretty much sums up the previous two things. Just be realxed and chill when learning another language (Especially English to Japanese) Just go with the flow and accept the unknown to you. You will figure it out and it will all come into context. Plus when you are relaxed and less anxious you have an easier time learning. You will get more out of your class sessions and the imput around you. Linguistically this is called and affective filter.
4. Practice/Absorb!! not just by yourself, if you can find a language buddy who speaks your language all the better, you will get more imput and learn more that way. Also watching movies in Japanese helps big time with figuring out the ambiguities of the language. Cruncyroll.com has a lot of good Japanese dramas to watch with English subtitles. You will hear words in different native voices and pronunciations which is good for you.

All of this will work when learning any language really.