Sneezing in Japan

There's one thing that annoys me every time it happens here in Japan. When people sneeze. Not that they sneeze more than anywhere else in the world or sneeze in my face or anything like that really. Just the fact there's no word to say when people sneeze.

In Sweden people say 'prosit', which sounds like it comes from French or something, in English 'Bless You'. If I'm not mistaken there's some old belief that you're possessed by a demon/devil when you sneeze and someone needs to say these above mentioned words to help preventing anything bad from happening to you. Nowadays it's practically just used as a polite phrase.

In Japan, there's practically a word for everything, but no word to use when people sneeze. However, Japanese people in general insist on being very polite and show consideration for other people, so usually they just have to say something rather than not saying anything. This means when someone sneezes, 9/10 times their friend or person they're speaking to will say '大丈夫ですか' (daijoubu desuka) which means 'are you alright/okay?'.

Each time I hear it I find it more stupid. Why the hell would someone not be alright only because they just sneezed? Personally I sneeze every time I go out from a dark place and get blinded by the sun. I don't find it that dramatic. The next time I sneeze and someone asks me if I'm alright, I'll answer 'No, I guess not, after all I just SNEEZED so probably I've caught a bad case of lung cancer, but thanks for asking'.

Well, to not only be a whiner, I've decided to do something about this! I'm going to come up with some word in Japanese to use when people sneeze and see if I can spread the message. Anybody who reads this and speaks Japanese, why don't you give me a hand and figure out a good word to use when people sneeze and write me a comment!

About photos I promised to upload. Erhm well, they're on their way in a few days or so. When I've got time :P.

Studying, studying

I've finished the 'beginner level' of Japanese a while ago and am an intermediate student now, which means I should know enough survive daily life, feels very good.
The new book we've started studying a month and a half ago or so actually has real texts, compared to the beginner level studies which are just basic sentences and exercises presenting the new grammar. Feels nice when you notice you can actually begin to understand real texts written in 'normal written Japanese'. Of course, the kanji characters used in the texts are only those we've studied so far, about 650 or so.

Also the listening exercise have become normal daily spoken Japanese between Japanese people. Not exactly about space science, but Japanese people speaking to friends (normal, non-polite langauge that is) is fast as hell and quite tricky since they leave out half of the words and the remaining words gets cut off halfway cause it's faster that way. The polite language and conversation between people who are not close friends is alot easier to pick up.

Took the JLPT, the Japanese language proficiency test (日本語能力試験) last week. It's the one big test for non-Japanese people used to measure Japanese language proficiency, practically necessary to take if you want to get any job where more or less advanced knowledge of the Japanese language is requred. The JLPT comes in 4 levels, where 4 is the easiest one and level 1 is the most difficult. Level 3 & 4 are quite useless, since they only cover basic Japanese. Often level 1 is required, sometimes level 2 is alright.

I took the level 3 test, which is for people who have learned all the basic Japanese required. Had previously bought the last years test and taken at home, which was very easy, I could practically nail every question on that one, with a few exceptions. This year's test was kind of in another division of trickiness though. However reaching the passing rate of 60% correct answers shouldn't be any problem though.

The JLPT is known for having quite big differences of difficulty from year to year and is said to be more difficult every other year, which seems to be quite right. Kind of like they look at the statistics for the test and notice the average score was a bit high/low this year and decide to make it more tricky/easy for the next year.

My goal right now is skipping the level 2 and going straight for the level 1 in one year from now. The level 1 is however absolutely in a class of it's own when it comes to difficulty. The level 2 is supposed to be a quite manageable test if you know Japanese quite well and the passing rate on the test is 60%. The level 1, however, is even tricky for Japanese people and requires 70% correct answers. Most people who manage it are Chinese people who already know the kanji characters, or Koreans who have a language with very similar grammar.

But on the other hand, I love challenges and I've managed to learn a big part of the necessary Japanese in 8 months and one third of the necessary kanji. Also, I'm can match any of the Asian students in my class when it comes to using grammar, so why shouldn't I be able to reach the level 1 in 12 months from now? About 1200 kanji to go... And after all, the JLPT is supposed to be easier next year. 頑張れ！

In the meantime, it's becoming increasingly difficult to remember all those not-so-often-used Swedish and English words and sometimes even in which order the words are supposed to come. I guess I'll be coming back to Sweden with mad skills in the Japanese language, but having to take a Swedish for immigrants course.

I've always wanted to live in a mansion...

And I thought I'd have more time to use the Internet after moving and having an Internet connection at home, HAH!

Been really busy with buying stuff and sorting things out with the new apartment, which is really nice by the way and the house is brand new actually. The rent's 64000 yen per month, which is about 3900 swedish kronor. Not too much for a brand new Mansion, is it?

Eeh? What's he talking about? Mansion?! Isn't that like a huge villa with 10 rooms, servants and a garden?
Well, I thought so too, but as you might know, things are often a bit different in Japan...
Over here, a mansion is simply an apartment with more than one room.

Anyway, our mansion has two rooms and kitchen and came with furniture and washing machine included, not so far from the city's central station. So, not expensive compared to Stockholm at least..

Also had an exam at school the this week, so I've been studying quite a bit. Got the result on Friday, the exam consisted of 4 parts;
1. grammar 2. reading comprehension 3. words and kanji 4. listening comprehension.
I got 100 out of 100 points on all the first three parts, perfect in other words. This big exam was easier than the tests we have regularly.
The listening part didn't turn out that well though, I got 79 out of 100 points, which is not that good. That part was quite difficult and it was the last part, which wasn't so good for me. As some people back home might know, when I'm a bit tired, I'm not a good listener at all.

Advice on learning Kanji

This post is for you guys and girls also struggling with the kanji characters.

I'm not an expert and haven't studied kanji for much more than a month or so, but this is my 5 cents so far on how to learn them.

1. Study and repeat EVERY day. Don't take a break and not study for a few days every now and then and then try to catch up by studying like a mad man.
If you don't repeat every day, you'll learn them and then forget them again in a few days and start mixing them up with each other. It's better to study the kanji for a shorter time everyday than for a long time every 3rd day. But of course, it still takes alot of time, so try to find some joy in the studying. Otherwise you've gotta be really stubborn.

2. When you try to learn a kanji, associate it with the meaning it carries, not with its pronounciation. Otherwise you'll be in one hell of a mess as soon as you learn a few kanji. A friend here just got into this trouble, that's why I'm warning you.
Do you know how many kanji that has the pronounciation 'sha' for example? Try searching for 'sha' in a kanji dictionary and you'll see. It's quite a few. So, associate the kanji with it's meaning and think of its pronouncations as a separate thing.

3. Try to find the general meaning of each kanji and remember that this meaning can be slightly flexible. If you just learn that the kanji '外' in the context of '外人' (gaijin), means a foreigner, you'll be lost when you suddenly see the same kanji in another context. Instead, learn that '外' by itself carries the meaning outside, or something coming from the outside. Then you can figure out what it means in other contexts as well.

4. Make kanji flash cards. Get post-it notes and write the kanji on one side and the meaning and it's pronounciations on the other side. Keep the notes with the kanji you're currently studying in your pocket and look at them every now and then. I always keep them next to my bed and have as a routine to look at them before I go to sleep and immediately when I wake up. Actually, I notice that my brain is often thinking about these damn kanji immediately when I wake up, before I've even looked at them.

5. Buy an electronic dictionary with handwriting recognition. They're a bit expensive and I don't know if you can find them in other countries, but it's a really good thing to have. If there's a kanji I see but don't know, I write it on the screen of my Casio ex-word (xd-sw9100 if anyone wants to google it, I can recommend it) and it shows up with an explanation.
I bought the "Kodansha kanji learner's dictionary" separately on a memory stick for my electronic dictionary, which is very good. It's a dictionary specifically made for people who want to learn kanji, unlike the other dictionaries included in the Casio ex-word which is made for Japanese people and therefore shows the kanji you're looking for and example sentences, but not how to pronounce it. The Kodansha dictionary shows the pronounciations and how to make the strokes correctly when writing the kanji, so it's really useful.

6. Go to Japan! It's just boring to study the kanji when you're in a country where you don't have any use of your new knowledge. Personally, I just couldn't find the motivation to study kanji in Sweden. Here in Sapporo, when I'm in the city or anywhere, I always keep my eyes open for the kanji I know and feel a bit happy when I for once manage to figure something out. Like the name of the subway station where I'm supposed to get off for example.

Right now, I'm just worried about how I'm supposed to remember all the kanji when I return to Sweden and don't use them anymore.
For your info, the books we use at school is 'minna no nihongo'. Text book, grammar book and kanji book. We study about 25-35 kanji per week.

If anyone has more advice on how to learn kanji, please write them!

You've gotta love the kanji

When you return to your room at 1 in the night, not so sober and not really in the mood to sleep yet, what do you do? I guess most people would watch tv, play computer/video game, eat something etc. At least your answer probably wouldn't be drinking some nihonshu (sake) and sitting down to practise writing kanji characters for an hour.

Lately I have had a growing fascination for the kanji characters, the more or less complex Chinese characters used in the written Japanese language. Which of course is good since it's the most difficult part of the Japanese language to learn. Indeed it takes alot of time to study the kanji and it's easy to mix them up or forget how to write, even for Japanese people. Many of the other students (the Chinese doesn't have any problem with the kanji though of course) at my school seems to see the kanji as the troublesome, tiring part of the Japanese language and sighs alot about it. However, for me, it tells alot of interesting stories about the culture and how the language is constructed, which is a very good source of inspiration.

When first looking at a kanji I haven't studied before, to borrow a good expression from a friend back home in Sweden, it may seem like a 'brädhög', a pile of planks. And indeed, sometimes I­'ve felt like I'll never be able to remember all these strange characters, they all look alike anyway.
At those times, I've thought of the Chinese people in my class. The Japanese language use the kanji characters combined with more simple characters (hiragana and katakana) to form different words, which makes alot of different combinations possible. Therefore to learn Japanese, around 2000 kanji is enough. The Chinese language uses solely the kanji characters, which means they have to learn ten times as many characters or so.
So if the Chinese people in my class, which (no offense my Chinese fellows) seems like quite ordinary people, have managed to learn tens of thousands of characters, why shouldn't I be able to learn two thousand? It's quite simply alot of practise.

It's a satisfying feeling when you study something you've never tried to learn before and notice that your brain actually after a while decides that 'alright, if this is so damn important, I'll remember it'.
When you break it down and look at the different parts that makes up the kanji and write it a few times, it's ­suddenly not a brädhög anymore, and you can write it without any major problems. It's kind of like when I was a kid and built stuff with lego bricks. A feeling of creativity.

What I also find interesting is how the kanji is made up and how they are combined. My main reason for going to Japan was to learn more about the culture and how Japanese people think, and the kanji is an important part of that.
I'll give you a couple of examples.

If you can't see the Japanese characters correctly, I suggest you install the Japanese character set on your PC or you might have to change the character encoding of your web browser, because I am not going to spend time on posting the Japanese characters as images.

The Japanese word for interesting is 'omoshiroi', which is written like 面白い.
The first part, '面' is pronounced 'omo' and by itself carries the meaning 'face'.
The second part is '白い' is pronounced 'shiroi' and means white.
Thus, probably someone a long time ago thought that a white face is interesting and it came to carry that meaning, I guess.
Believe me, Japanese people in general and Japanese kids in particular still think so..

The kanji for man, '男', pronounced 'otoko', is two other kanji characters that is put together to one.
'田' which means a field, and '力' which means strength.
So, a man is a person who is strong in the field.

The kanji meaning like or love, '好' is also two other kanji characters that's been put together.
'女' which means woman, and '子' which means child.

It might seem a bit old-fashioned that a man is someone who's strong in the field, and to like or love is a woman and a child, but keep in mind that these characters wasn't exactly made yesterday.

One more example which I find a bit amusing.
The word for animal in japanese consists of two kanji characters, '動物' 'doubutsu'. The first kanji '動' (dou) carries the meaning moving, which is also used when writing for example a car, 自動車 (jidousha), which quite exactly means a self-moving vehicle.
Well, let's get back to the animal, 動物 (doubutsu). So the first kanji carries the meaning moving.
The second kanji, 物, means a (living or not living) thing or object. So, an animal is quite simply a moving thing.
Brilliant, isn't it?

For me, these small discoveries gives the written language a depth which the western languages doesn't have at all.
I mean, a word in english or swedish just consists of the letters that forms the pronounciation of a word. You learn that a certain pronounciation carries a certain meaning. The characters themselves however, doesn't carry any meaning at all.
Sure, it's practical, but boooring. Therefore, I can think it's kind of sad with the huge amount of katakana words (words taken from other languages, mostly american-english, which is written with katakana characters) used in the japanese language.
For many of those words there's already japanese words, but it seems to be kind of cool to write the foreign words instead, I don't know. In my opinion, it makes the japanese language lose some of its depth.

This is the good thing about learning a language as an adult, I have the ability to reflect and question why things are in certain ways.
Japanese people I talk to don't really seem to have thought much about how the language is made up, they've just learnt it as a child and accept that things are the way they are.
The bad thing is, if I'd have the mind of a child I wouldn't question anything, I'd just learn it and it would take a lot less time.

Busy days

Started school on Monday, so my first week of learning Japanese will be accomplished tomorrow (writing on Thursday night, but can't post now due to no internet connection at home). It's been busy days for sure. Actually, my days has consisted of waking up, eating breakfast, studying a little, going to school, coming home and having dinner (finally figured out how to use the timer function on my rice cooker, so the rice is done when I come home, just need to make some sauce etc), relaxing for 30 minutes or so and then studying and going to bed.
But hell, I ain't complaining. I want to learn the basics of this language as soon as possible so I can even have a decent dialogue with people other than swedes and the few english speaking people I meet. I'm here to learn Japanese after all.
Don't have much things to do anyway, so I'm fine with studying most of the day. Life certainly gets quite different when you don't have a mobile phone, no Internet connection, can't understand what's on the tv, hardly know anyone other than a few other people who are also studying, and if you want to talk to someone else, you can't manage to have a conversation consisting of more than a couple of sentences with 99% of the people you meet.

My class consists of 12-14 students or so. There are some Chinese and Koreans, then there are one person each from Thailand, Taiwan, Australia, Russia, Spain and Italy, and finally two swedes except for me.
We have four lessons per day, 45 minutes each. Starting at 1 in the afternoon and finishing at 4.30.
So far, it's a good group and good teachers I'd say. Mostly, we're practising saying basic sentences and responding properly.

Most of the things we've gone through so far I already knew (but had put them somewhere in the back of my head), but it takes some time anyway to get used to using such a different language.
What's taken most (all) of my time outside school is the writing. It takes hours and hours just to write a bunch of pages of homework. When you're not used to writing the Japanese characters, you constantly have to think for a short time about which character you're going to write and how it's written. When writing a few pages, that short time adds up to hours. And that's only the kana characters so far. But of course, it's necessary to learn the basic characters very well first, so you have something to start with. It certainly helps that I've practised this stuff a little bit before. It's not really difficult things, but this time it really is about bashing stuff into your head time after time until your brain stops complaining and chooses to remember those essential things as something for daily use. A bit different from learning it in Sweden and storing it far back in your head.

For those of you without much knowledge of the Japanese language, the kana characters are some hundred or so characters which makes up the syllables of the Japanese language, they're mostly used as particles for the more complex kanji characters and to write foreign words.
Next week we'll start with the kanji, the more complex chinese characters of which we should learn a bit less than 2000 during the coming two years. As you might know, they have different meanings and are used in other ways in the Chinese language, so you don't get Chinese as a bonus when learning to write Japanese.

Please note that I'm not whining at all, actually I'm happy ­with everything so far and see it as a good challenge to learn Japanese.I'm certainly looking forward to the day when I'll be able to use the language well enough to express most of my basic thoughts, feelings and needs. Hopefully it won't take too long.