Miles' Japanese Blog!

 For this week's blog post, I'll be discussing my experience watching episodes 八 and 九 of DanDaDan 's Season 二 with Japanese audio and English subtitles.  DanDaDan (ダンダダン) is a hard anime/manga to describe, as it seems like your typical action-shonen but with a surprisingly interesting developing romance between the two protagonists that keeps the general plot going. There's some trope subversion which makes the viewing experience enjoyable, along with the series' random sense of humor and its cool fusion of supernatural powers and science fiction. In the first episode, Okarun and Aira have a brief clash against the spirits of classical musicians late at night in the band room of their school, and Okarun returns stronger from the ordeal to fight the cursed spirit Evil Eye that is possessing his friend Jiji. The second episode I watched mainly consisted of the following fight. I was understanding bits and pieces like my experience last time watching One Piece , but ...

 しゅうまつ、なにを　しましたか。 私 は バンドです。だから、しゅうまつ  どようびに ノートルダム Football Game にいきました。にちようびに、べんきょうをしました や テレビ を みました。こんしゅは たいへん です！

 For this blog post, I'll be discussing episodes 1141 and 1142 of  One Piece , an anime/manga that's very popular around the world. The former episode ended on a cliffhanger with the insidious Caribou finally crossing paths with the deadly crew of Blackbeard, armed with a ton of information that is about to fall into the worst possible hands. There was a break the next week, so I had to wait twice as long for this to be resolved. I watched these episodes in Japanese with English subtitles, and although I wasn't able to recognize a lot of the vocabulary used, I was starting to recognize some sentence structures and certain common words/particles. I've noted in a previous entry that some of the characters' exaggerated or silly voices make it harder to follow along with what's being said, but it just takes some getting used to. I'm looking forward to understanding more and having fewer gaps in my knowledge!

1. Introduction はじめまして！わたしのなまえは Miles Thornburg です。私 は Notre Dame だいがう の 三ねんせです。 私 の せんこうは ビジネス です。おんがくとあにめがすきです。 どうぞよろしくおねがいします。 2. Goals for the Semester Since I'll be studying abroad in Nagoya, Japan, for my spring semester this year, I really want to get as familiar with speaking and reading Japanese as possible to have the best experience during my time there. I aim to master the material covered in Elementary Japanese I and expand my vocabulary and grammatical understanding of the language. Kanji is another huge beast that I have barely scratched the surface of. I'm looking forward to gaining more knowledge about the Japanese language while getting more experience speaking and writing it in class.

 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...