The Top Language Learning Blogs 2013 list is released today! And I’m extremely happy to say that I made it to the Top 100! Big thanks to @ccrawrlol for the nomination! and all of you who have been reading this blog! Right now, it’s the voting stage, so vote for me! LOL~ In case, you are wondering what this voting stage is about, there is a ranking for the overall top 100 overall languge lovers list and top 25 list for each of the 4 categories (Top 100 Language Learners, Top 100 Professional Blogs, Top 100 Facebook Pages, and Top 100 Twitter accounts)
Here’s how the ranking works:
Ranking & Results (June 10th – June 12th)
All the competitors will be ranked based on user votes (50%) and the Lexiophiles ranking criteria (50%, see below). We will then compile the top 100 overall language lovers list and the top 25 list for each of the four categories. Results will be published on June 12th. Each blogger, Facebook page administrator or twitterer will be contacted when the results are published.
So please vote for me so that I’ll make it into the overall top 100 (*shameless). Please click on the blue button, “Top 100 Language Lovers 100″, and you’ll be directed to the page, scroll down the page and look for “Life is a journey” to vote. Well, I highly doubt I’ll make it into the overall top 100 overall language lovers list or the top 25 lists cos honestly I already have an idea who will make it to the list since I read quite a few of these guys’ blogs. For me, I’m just glad I made it to the Top 100 Language Learners 2013. Since I’m at this, I will like to share with all of you the other language lovers’ sites I frequent:
The Everyday Language Learner – A brilliant site by Myers which contains LOTS of language learning tips. I visit his site almost every other day. This site is extremely inspiring at least to me.
The Polyglot Dream – I was very impressed with Luca’s posts on language learning techniques when I first came across his blog and subsequently became a fan of his youtube channel (especially enjoy those posts when he collaborated with other polyglots).
Jeff弁 – Came across Jeff’s blog recently and identified with many things he mentioned. I love his views about language learning and he provides lots of good tips for language learning as well. By the way, I love his twitter profile pic (him holding Totoro! His expression is priceless! ^^)
Some blogs which I came across today which I think is extremely interesting:
Yesterday, I received Sarah‘s postcard in my mailbox and am still extremely happy. She’s really sweet to send me a postcard. ^.^
Got to know Sara after my second giveaway (yes! I had giveaways!) and learned that she has an amazing blog. I love her blog for her contents and the nice pictures she took. It always makes me feel good after reading it. I hope you guys can make time to visit her nice blog.
I love how maintaining this blog has given me the opportunity to make friends from different parts of the world and I find it amazing that someone at the other side of the world is reading my blog and working hard at learning languages as well. Speaking of giveaway, this is a note to all new readers of my blog. I like to send postcards to all those who might be interested in getting one from me! ^^ Of course, a postcard ain’t a big deal but it’s my way of saying thank you to all of you who read my blog. So if you are interested, please write to me at creativityjapanese@gmail.com and I’ll send you a postcard ;D
Anyway, some stuff I have been up to recently. I’m reading a lot of SLA (Second Language Acquisition) books.
You can sort of guess why certain books are in the stack~some of them are for my personal reading~ I’m reflecting on how I learned my second language and third language The reflection process is very interesting to me as a language learner since I find some of the techniques are used by myself or others. Not only so, I also learn why certain learners are better learners and so on. I really want to share those here but I figured that will take a long time so I will talk about that when my research essay is done.
As for Japanese, I did a Japanese recording and upon listening, I realized several things about myself. I was trying to apply what Mizuu先生 and dimitri2012先生 said to the passage I read and then I realized it’s TOUGH! ~!! I realized I am TERRIBLE at pauses. TERRIBLE. Not only so, I was out of breath quite easily. Honestly after the 3rd paragraph, since I was rather out of breath, I couldn’t focus on pronouncing the words and getting the pauses at appropriate times. I felt my out of breath BIG time when I was focusing on the “high” and “low” while focusing to reading the sentence or part of the sentence in one breath. Focusing on two things at the same time was a strain on my brain and throat and I know this is really all due to myself still not used to how the language is.
And I could hear all my mistakes half way through the passage. And I also realized that my voice was 硬い. >.<” I know the biggest reason for this is because, I got nervous when I was out of focus n breath.
The other thing I realized was my eyes were moving faster than my mouth. Hmm, I think this is also due to the fact that I’m not used to the language though I did realize that when my eyes moved quickly, I had a tendency to read quickly as well. Yet reading quickly and pronouncing the words correctly proved to be a great challenge. Hmm, so many things I need to work on!
On the whole I learned that I can learn by listening to myself. And YES, I’m my worst critic! I need to spend more time to practice and listening to myself. I’m sorry if you guys are expecting that I’ll be posting my recording here cos I really don’t want to kill your ears. (HAHA)
And today, I came across this interesting paragraph:
Of course, I’m not looking at becoming a 声優 but I feel that many things can also be applied to reading Japanese as well. I am going to try the above to prevent my voice from going 硬い.
As you can see, my life is still filled with loads of 声優 stuff and honestly, I’m not looking at changing this at all (LOL) cos there are way too many things on 声優 that I can listen and read. As much as I say that, I’ve stopped listening to audio dramas with 1 voice actor and have switched to those with various voice actors to catch the differences in styles. I have recently started to listening to 神谷浩史さんand 小野大輔さん’s radio programmes, “Dear Girl Stories”. It’s one of those random things that one listen for laughs. If you are interested, you can find quite a lot of these on youtube.
Anyway, 神谷さんand 小野さん were also in another radio programme and they were absolutely hilarious in this though there was some wisdom in their words though they were nonsensical at some points xDDD
The 神谷さんand 小野さん combi is just beyond words funny, these guys are so funny together. Because I enjoy listening to them so much, I’ve converted their radio programmes videos into mp3 so that I can listen to them when I’m on the move.
As for reading, I’m trying to read a variety of things from different sources with the minimal time I have, from Diamond Online to Life Hacker to anything 声優. Speaking of which, I found a site which contains tons of 声優’s interviews and LOL~ I’m going to read them whenever I can from now on! Can’t wait to go back to reading the novels I have but unfortunately, I don’t have so much time to do so many things that I like. But I have a realization that I need a lot more Japanese to improve, so I know I can’t stop this immersion and I intend to go even deeper into this immersion~
Well, so much about everything, shall end with a cute video of 神谷さん playing with his cat in his radio programme. This is 超可愛い～！！
Hi guys~! Said that I’m going to come back and talk about the スープ magazine and here I am!
I mentioned that I have been a fan of スープ as it’s a magazine of street fashion (most of it). The reasons why I like this magazine are numerous. And I also like to think this has to do with the fact that it’s a Japanese magazine. I realized that many Japanese magazines (particularly female magazines have a similar format). Here I shall show you how the presentation is like:
Like most fashion magazines, スープ shows the coming fashion trends.
The coolest thing I love about Japanese female magazines and スープ is the provision of fashion tips. It’s very common to see pages like the above, for instance, how to wear a particular piece of clothing differently. I think I have yet to see this in magazines in other languages (English, Chinese and Korean – the Taiwanese Chinese translated ones have similar ones but they are translated from Japanese so I don’t consider that as Chinese). I think such tips are invaluable since you don’t have to spend tons of money to look good.
Japanese street fashion is really focused on the small details so accessories are a big thing in Japan (something which I absolutely adore). I love the fact that everyone can have their own style and look different and perhaps this is the reason why I don’t fancy Korean fashion that much cos I find that most Korean girls looked the same when I was there (except the 2NE1 girls).
And the other reason I really love Japanese magazines is the feature of people in the streets. Here, you get a real idea of what people in the streets are dressed in. So it’s quite unlike the English or Korean magazines I’ve seen when the models are of ridiculous proportions and that you know deep down there is no way you can look good in those clothes EVER. SO, Japanese magazines are realistic in this aspect.
And if you noticed, there’re also the zoom-in on the details of the items on these people (something which I love as well).
And of course, how can there not be makeup and hairstyling features in a fashion magazine? However, Japanese magazines are rather different, they show the step-by-step on how to create the “ideal” makeup or hairstyle so even an idiot (in makeup n hairstyling) like me can follow that. I find this lacking in magazines in other languages as well. I love スープ for their features as their styles are extremely natural.
And スープ also has a nice recipes section. Love the colors! And the simple steps to make such delicious food. This is always the section that makes me hungry!
And other than that, there’s also the self-help section. In this particular issue, this section is on how to behave appropriately according to the situation. I find this extremely enriching as you can see, there’s the sitting and standing postures to how to put your shoes if you visit your 彼氏’s place, and other things (not seen from the above) on how to write emails, 敬語 and so much more.
There are also sections like music, movies that can be found in this magazine. Oh! Another thing I love about this magazine is it doesn’t contain a lot of ads. Most fashion magazines have TONS of ads and I find this makes reading unenjoyable.
After enjoying the nice, good spread by スープ magazine, I just want to share how Japanese magazines are good in helping you learn Japanese. The text found are usually short so it’s not putting off like long Japanese novels. This helps you to have an idea of written text. However, the text in Japanese magazine can contain colloquial terms so sometimes you might find difficulty in understanding what is going on. Though there are colloquial terms, you can make use of these and learn them. And lastly of course, you love what you are reading! What not to love when the magazine is like the above, you get to see the lastest fashion trends and learn and practice your Japanese.
Anyway, Japanese male fashion magazines are just as interesting and they have a range of different fashion styles magazines for the different guys. I find other magazines extremely interesting as well, even the serious ones cos Japanese know how to make their magazines colorful, informative and educational. With SO many plus points, I really recommend people interested to browse a Japanese magazine and see for yourself if a Japanese magazine is better and if you are convinced, you can buy one and practice your Japanese! ^^
Recently, I am kinda in a スランプ for my school work. Actually, this is the same for Japanese but the recovery is much faster for it since I have avenues to relieve myself~ 白熊カフェ and a couple of other things to snap me out of my スランプ. I’m actually facing a dateline for end of this month and I’m feeling totally terrible since my head goes 真っ白 even when I’m trying my best to read the relevant stuff.
This is exactly how I feel about my studies xDDD
The reason why I mentioned that I feel in a state of スランプ for Japanese is partly due to the fact that I AM growing sick of audio dramas with just one character and I’m seriously running out of things to listen to. But thank goodness I’ve figured a way and that is to spend more time watching 声優 events and listening to those radio programmes done by 声優. In the meantime, I’m happy with my recent 声優フリートークCD of 小野大輔さん and 神谷浩史さん.
I love the chemistry between ひろCと小野Ｄ cos they are so honest about so many things that I find their talk hilarious~! And I found out later that they are actually good friends so perhaps that explains the chemistry between them.
In case, you find the above familiar, that’s because I listened to みどりんとひらリンの生絞り100％メロンゆずのど飴. And I really enjoyed this CD.
I’m beginning to realize I really enjoy listening to 声優 do フリートーク cos they are just so funny so now I think I’m moving onto finding related materials so that I listen to what I enjoy. Honestly, I realized that I like to listen to nonsensical stuff and I actually find ひろC’s sense of humor pretty much my cup of tea. To add to that, he has his radio programme so I’m going to check them out! ^^
So much about that, today, I finally wrote stuff in Japanese and am proud of it. No prizes for guessing correctly what I’ve written. I wrote about 声. It’s something that I’ve been really into so I thought it’s best I write stuff I like. It’s naturally a bit nerve wrecking putting that into words but as much as I said that~ 書きたい～！It’s now on my Lang-8 account and here’s the journal post if you are interested. よろしく！
As mentioned, I’m in a スランプ recently so I thought I shall immerse myself in things Japanese that don’t require too much brain power, so~I bought my fave magazine, “Soup“. It’s been a while since I’ve bought this magazine. I love street fashion and love the spread by this magazine. I’m going to talk more about this magazine in another post. In the meantime, here’s a pic of how it looks like.
And if you are interested, there’s actually a PDF file of 7 pages.
I haven’t been up to much recently except reading my stuff for my essay AND watching tons of 白熊カフェ!
Came across 白熊カフェ as I chanced upon a youtube video of my fave 声優さん、櫻井孝宏さん in it~
Actually, I heard of this anime last year and my friends were raving about how good it is but I guess I was not really “back” with Japanese yet and I wasn’t that into voiceacting then as well. Honestly I wanted to watch this anime after I watched the above video since I got quite curious as to how the voiceacting was done since the 声優さん達 were saying that they had problems trying to voiceact their own characters as it’s an anime with mainly animal characters and just a few human characters.
And this anime didn’t disappoint me cos it’s SO funny!! In short, this anime resolves around 3 main characters, 白熊, パンダ, ペンキ. 白熊 runs a cafe and パンダ and ペンキ are his customers, so the fun bit resolves around their daily activities from conversation (mostly this really!) to their adventures outside the cafe. There are lots of puns in this anime (something which I ABSOLUTELY love!!), and the humor is really the Japanese humor I love.
I find it really difficult not to love this anime as all the characters are so lovable and hilarious. The anime is really quite clever at putting together the different characters with their different personalities.
This above scene is one of those scenes that tickles me every time it comes up. パンダ is this lazy chap who loves to bump around at home and do nothing but eats and sleeps so his mum gets totally annoyed at him and uses her vacuum cleaner to suck him (HAHAHA) to stop him from being a good for nothing.
From the above, you can see the puns by 白熊. The funniest thing is 白熊 loves to act out his puns and he’ll always have people who will go along with it. I personally feel this is the best part for Japanese learners since you get to learn a lot of Japanese terms in context. The humor element in these scenes makes me laugh out loud everytime they come up.
Another big reason I really enjoy this anime is the lead voice acting cast is beyond words amazing. I’ve seen how 櫻井孝宏さん, 福山潤さん and 神谷浩史さん talked when they are not voiceacting so knowing how their voices are completely different in this anime really amazed me big time. 櫻井孝宏さん is amazing as 白熊 as he’s so deadpan (and that’s really quite characteristic of 白熊) and I always wonder how he managed not laughing to the jokes when he voiceacted. Though I’m no fan of 福山潤さん and 神谷浩史さん, I have to say that that they are just AMAZING as パンダ and ペンキ. Honestly, you would have never imagine they voiceacted for these characters if you have seen them talk in their real voices. I am beyond words amazed and in awe with this fact.
福山潤さんas パンダ, 櫻井孝宏さん as 白熊, 神谷浩史さん as ペンキ. This pic’s SO cute!
No prizes for guessing correctly that my fave character is 白熊! Not because 櫻井孝宏さん voiceacted him but because he’s the guy that’s always so 優しい and awesome at doing puns. He really cracks me up every episode I watch him.
I’ve finished episode 15 of this anime and have so much more to go. I think there are50 episodes for this anime. Anyway, FYI, usually one season of anime is like 12 episodes, but this series seems like it’s quite popular so that’s why there are so many episodes for it.
And yes, to celebrate my new craze for 白熊カフェ, I’ve changed my wallpaper~ LOL~!! ^0^
