Miles' Japanese Blog!

 This semester has flown by, and Japanese was one of my favorite classes. To be completely honest, in high school, foreign language was one of my least favorite topics, but now that I know I'll be studying abroad in less than a year, there's been an interest and excitement in my studies that I haven't felt in most of my other classes. I really enjoyed ふせ せんせい's approach to teaching, and it was apparent he was invested in our learning of the material. I knew I wanted to take him again for the next class as soon as I realized I had the chance. I was not struggling to complete the homework in time before the removal of the late penalty, but afterwards, as the material got harder, I appreciated having the extra time to complete it. I never felt overworked in this class, but I still felt like we covered a lot from when I first barely knew anything other than some basic hiragana. I will definitely study ahead a bit in the Tobira textbook over the summer, just to get a jumpsta...

1)  ぼくは 四人 ともだちと はるやすみに South Dakota にりょこうしました。ともだちのうちにいきました。それから、Badlands National パーク をりょこうしました。私 はとても しゃしんをとりました。 2) しゅうまつに どようびに おばやおじと  レストランで  ばんごはんを たべました。ぼくわ ピザを たべました。おばもピザを たべました。それから、おふるにはいりました。

For this blog post, I will discuss my time starting Yakuza: 0, an action-RPG from the popular Yakuza franchise. Video games were a new medium for me to be exposed to the Japanese language, and I chose this series partially for its strong narrative and cinematic storytelling, which would give me plenty of dialogue to listen to. The start of the game was pretty exposition-heavy, as the game was introducing me to the cast of characters, the dynamics between them, and setting up the inciting incident that will jump-start the overarching plot. I had a fun time reading random bits of katakana and hiragana on the neon signage as I walked around Kamurocho, a fictional district in Tokyo, and could even walk into a few コービニ to buy various food and drinks to heal/improve my character. I felt I was still very reliant on subtitles to understand what was being said the vast majority of the time, thanks to my small vocabulary and the speed at which the characters spoke. I will most certainly keep pla...

わたし の しゅうまつ は とても よっかたですた。どようびに いえで にほんご や すうがくを べんきょうしました。それから、ともだちと デパートで かいものを しました。にちようびに ばんに ぱあちにいきました。ともだちとあいました。

 For this blog post, I'll be going over the popular anime One Piece, specifically episodes 1031-1032. As the battle between the "Worst Generation," which includes entertaining characters like Eustass Kidd, Trafalgar D. Law, and the main protagonist Luffy, and the two Emperors of the Sea, Big Mom and Kaido, rages on, our heroes are seemingly up against insurmountable odds. However, they reach newfound levels of power due to their determination and the intensity of the fight, and pull off some flashy and well-animated moves to deal some damage to their once untouchable adversaries. For the Japanese part of this post, I'll first reiterate a point I made in my last One Piece review. There are a great number of exaggerated voices and laughs given to characters, which I assume is to emphasize their personalities. Some of the fight scenes' dialogue consisted of just shouting, yelling, and other noises. I'm starting to recognize some sentence structure in basic dialog...