I can't say much for improvement in my Japanese language skills; I am learning, but I am still constantly frustrated at how inconsistent I can be when it comes time to speak. This last week especially I am fighting with myself to string more than 4 or 5 words together in logical order. I'm not sure why, but my abilities come and go as they will. A couple of weeks ago I was progressing, but now I'm kind of stagnant. I feel like there should be a switch in my brain that automatically lets me speak fluently, but no such luck. What I've noticed is that when I'm trying to speak, I find myself staring off into space, attempting to visualize the words I am saying in kanji (Chinese characters). This has to be the most inefficient way to go about talking to other human beings (if I were just talking to myself, who cares. I've had weirder conversations with myself for sure) considering the fact I don't know everything. I had a really weird moment today when I wanted to say that there's a word limit on something and I found the character 限 floating in front of my eyes, but I couldn't complete the word 限界 for "limit." It would be something like in English if I could visualize only the Latin root of a word and nothing else.
But speaking of English, the one thing I can say is that my English skills are taking a hit. As I've already implied, this is not to say that my Japanese abilities are picking up the slack. Speaking hasn't been too much of a problem, though I did have someone poke fun at the way I say "banal" (think in the gutter and you'll hear how I said it). I assume this is a case of only having experience with the word in print as opposed to using it in conversation, but I am also really immature (heh, speaking of, I also successfully handled a ballcock the other day... that's right, I fixed my own toilet, bitches). Most of the instances where I'm speaking English are with other students, and therefore formality isn't an issue and pretty much every other word that comes out of my mouth is of the 4-letter variety anyway. No one notices your grammatical mistakes when you use "fuck" in its full lexical glory. There was also last week when I was trying to help with a game of Scrabble, and I was trying to spell out of the word "elicit," but I kept looking at the word and thinking, "what the hell, that doesn't look right." I realized I was being stupid and that "illicit" is a homonym, and eventually turned the game back over. I felt better when the person looked at the word and was like "e-licked?" Go graduate English language skillz!
And crossword puzzles! Ugh, I was never an expert with them (hi, Tina), but I could hold my own for the most part. It's one of those skills that at least for me I have to consistently work at (hey, like Japanese!) because like with writing (I'll get into this in a minute), I need to find a rhythm before I make progress. I could at least do through Wednesday in the NYT, but as evidenced by my struggle with a Monday puzzle this week, I'm beyond the pale here. God it was so embarrassing with the following clue:
35 Across: Come About
B E F A _ S
That S was wrong, but eventually I worked it out to B E F A L S and I was like, "well, maybe befalls is spelled like that..." knowing full well I was being a total jackass. I sat there and struggled forever until I figured out that the S was incorrect, but afterward I felt like such a moron. Anyway, I'm trying to do crosswords more often now because I also have this giant chunk of time between classes where I've had my fill of studying for the afternoon, and I need something to do. Rather than sit and read more celebrity gossip, I've tried to do a crossword puzzle in the computer lab before class; I find it helps to focus as well as relax me a little because my afternoon class can be a bit of a pill, but even then if you are at IUC and see me throwing my hands up in the air, I am likely fighting with myself over a clue as I did the above. Believe you me, I am trying like hell not to swear out loud.
However, writing has become an increasing struggle. Even just keeping this blog gets difficult at some points because I find myself talking in a giant circle when I can't figure out the right word or phrase. It is almost like I think that if I say more words I'll eventually find my way back to my original point, but just end up with a giant tower of babble (by the way, I read in the NYT this week that the word "babble" in fact comes from the way babies make sounds and not from the Bible story. Weird). I have noticed a number of boneheaded grammatical errors: writing "everyday" when I meant "every day," and even when I type I find myself making all these weird mistakes . SEE, there I just made one! I wrote "macking" instead of "making." Again, this could also be because I am immature, but I'm pretty sure it was accidental. I also had a moment earlier where I wanted to type "baggage" and I wrote "backage" for some reason. My habit of overusing adverbs has turned into a full-on infection; I reread a lot of what I write even in casual day-to-day interactions because I've started to use an adverb in one clause and then turn it into an adjective in the next. It's really weird, and a bit frustrating since I'm usually pretty anal about my language use, as I feel it's hard earned. My classmates in Japanese refer to me as "The Robot" because of the way I memorize things, but that's the only way I can function in Japanese class. I save all my creative language use for English because there I can be flexible. I can't do it in Japanese and if I tried, I don't even want to know what a mangled mess it would be.
The biggest thing, though, is the fact that right now I'm trying to work on Ph.D. applications and I am struggling like fuck to try and write a personal statement. Not to mention I also spoke to my advisor on the phone today and she told me that I need to submit a research paper for review in an academic journal LIKE NOW so that it's something I can use on my Ph.D. applications. As for my SoP, I have the bulk of it done, but I am almost certain it needs heavy editing because it was really like trying to extract a lung to get what I have on paper out. And it was shocking to me how long it took me to write about 3 pages double-spaced and how tired I was after it. Writing for applications is an art and one I thought I had down at the end of graduate school, but man, did that ever unravel quickly. It's hard to describe, but there was a certain way I used to write things and that flow allowed the words to just kind of come to mind at a natural pace. And if a word failed to come to me immediately, it would take only a couple of seconds before I finally thought of it; now I feel like I'm dealing with the vocabulary of a 14-year-old. I'm pulling everything up by the roots, and for the most part I don't know how much sense I'm making. I also have a tendency to get kind of esoteric and hyperbolic in these types of essays - a tendency I have fought for the last couple of years to keep at bay, but old habits die hard.
Just to make this all the more confusing, I also enjoy watching programs on learning to speak Korean in Japanese. It's like studying two languages! Except these days my Korean is pretty much just being able to read Hangul and a few spare phrases, verbs, nouns and adjectives that I remember. Watching just a little bit reminds me of how much I like the sound of Korean, and sometimes I find myself wanting to say things in Korean instead of Japanese. There's something about the inflection that makes them all the more impactful (I learned that word from Kanye!). When I want to be kind of whiny in asking どうして (Why?), I would rather ask 왜, 왜요?? because it conveys better the emotion I'm trying to convey. Same goes for 배고파 over おなかすいた (I'm hungry). The aspiration in the vowel sounds and "p" in ㅍ make you sound all the more exasperated with fact your stomach is about to eat you from the inside.
My ultimate conclusion is that language is a pain in the ass and it would be so much easier if I could just grunt at people, make hand gestures and paint in caves. Or hey, music is also a good universal communicator and I've been listening to a lot of Miles Davis lately for whatever reason (I've got Sorcerer on now as a matter of fact), but then not everyone likes or will listen to jazz. ::sigh:: Though listen to the below and you'll get kind of an idea of the cacophony in my head; just imagine the different instruments as different languages, punctuated my ever-present-but-not-always-welcome inner monologue:
And then there's this because it makes me happy.
Awwww pookie. Now it's back to the grindstone...
But speaking of English, the one thing I can say is that my English skills are taking a hit. As I've already implied, this is not to say that my Japanese abilities are picking up the slack. Speaking hasn't been too much of a problem, though I did have someone poke fun at the way I say "banal" (think in the gutter and you'll hear how I said it). I assume this is a case of only having experience with the word in print as opposed to using it in conversation, but I am also really immature (heh, speaking of, I also successfully handled a ballcock the other day... that's right, I fixed my own toilet, bitches). Most of the instances where I'm speaking English are with other students, and therefore formality isn't an issue and pretty much every other word that comes out of my mouth is of the 4-letter variety anyway. No one notices your grammatical mistakes when you use "fuck" in its full lexical glory. There was also last week when I was trying to help with a game of Scrabble, and I was trying to spell out of the word "elicit," but I kept looking at the word and thinking, "what the hell, that doesn't look right." I realized I was being stupid and that "illicit" is a homonym, and eventually turned the game back over. I felt better when the person looked at the word and was like "e-licked?" Go graduate English language skillz!
And crossword puzzles! Ugh, I was never an expert with them (hi, Tina), but I could hold my own for the most part. It's one of those skills that at least for me I have to consistently work at (hey, like Japanese!) because like with writing (I'll get into this in a minute), I need to find a rhythm before I make progress. I could at least do through Wednesday in the NYT, but as evidenced by my struggle with a Monday puzzle this week, I'm beyond the pale here. God it was so embarrassing with the following clue:
35 Across: Come About
B E F A _ S
That S was wrong, but eventually I worked it out to B E F A L S and I was like, "well, maybe befalls is spelled like that..." knowing full well I was being a total jackass. I sat there and struggled forever until I figured out that the S was incorrect, but afterward I felt like such a moron. Anyway, I'm trying to do crosswords more often now because I also have this giant chunk of time between classes where I've had my fill of studying for the afternoon, and I need something to do. Rather than sit and read more celebrity gossip, I've tried to do a crossword puzzle in the computer lab before class; I find it helps to focus as well as relax me a little because my afternoon class can be a bit of a pill, but even then if you are at IUC and see me throwing my hands up in the air, I am likely fighting with myself over a clue as I did the above. Believe you me, I am trying like hell not to swear out loud.
However, writing has become an increasing struggle. Even just keeping this blog gets difficult at some points because I find myself talking in a giant circle when I can't figure out the right word or phrase. It is almost like I think that if I say more words I'll eventually find my way back to my original point, but just end up with a giant tower of babble (by the way, I read in the NYT this week that the word "babble" in fact comes from the way babies make sounds and not from the Bible story. Weird). I have noticed a number of boneheaded grammatical errors: writing "everyday" when I meant "every day," and even when I type I find myself making all these weird mistakes . SEE, there I just made one! I wrote "macking" instead of "making." Again, this could also be because I am immature, but I'm pretty sure it was accidental. I also had a moment earlier where I wanted to type "baggage" and I wrote "backage" for some reason. My habit of overusing adverbs has turned into a full-on infection; I reread a lot of what I write even in casual day-to-day interactions because I've started to use an adverb in one clause and then turn it into an adjective in the next. It's really weird, and a bit frustrating since I'm usually pretty anal about my language use, as I feel it's hard earned. My classmates in Japanese refer to me as "The Robot" because of the way I memorize things, but that's the only way I can function in Japanese class. I save all my creative language use for English because there I can be flexible. I can't do it in Japanese and if I tried, I don't even want to know what a mangled mess it would be.
The biggest thing, though, is the fact that right now I'm trying to work on Ph.D. applications and I am struggling like fuck to try and write a personal statement. Not to mention I also spoke to my advisor on the phone today and she told me that I need to submit a research paper for review in an academic journal LIKE NOW so that it's something I can use on my Ph.D. applications. As for my SoP, I have the bulk of it done, but I am almost certain it needs heavy editing because it was really like trying to extract a lung to get what I have on paper out. And it was shocking to me how long it took me to write about 3 pages double-spaced and how tired I was after it. Writing for applications is an art and one I thought I had down at the end of graduate school, but man, did that ever unravel quickly. It's hard to describe, but there was a certain way I used to write things and that flow allowed the words to just kind of come to mind at a natural pace. And if a word failed to come to me immediately, it would take only a couple of seconds before I finally thought of it; now I feel like I'm dealing with the vocabulary of a 14-year-old. I'm pulling everything up by the roots, and for the most part I don't know how much sense I'm making. I also have a tendency to get kind of esoteric and hyperbolic in these types of essays - a tendency I have fought for the last couple of years to keep at bay, but old habits die hard.
Just to make this all the more confusing, I also enjoy watching programs on learning to speak Korean in Japanese. It's like studying two languages! Except these days my Korean is pretty much just being able to read Hangul and a few spare phrases, verbs, nouns and adjectives that I remember. Watching just a little bit reminds me of how much I like the sound of Korean, and sometimes I find myself wanting to say things in Korean instead of Japanese. There's something about the inflection that makes them all the more impactful (I learned that word from Kanye!). When I want to be kind of whiny in asking どうして (Why?), I would rather ask 왜, 왜요?? because it conveys better the emotion I'm trying to convey. Same goes for 배고파 over おなかすいた (I'm hungry). The aspiration in the vowel sounds and "p" in ㅍ make you sound all the more exasperated with fact your stomach is about to eat you from the inside.
My ultimate conclusion is that language is a pain in the ass and it would be so much easier if I could just grunt at people, make hand gestures and paint in caves. Or hey, music is also a good universal communicator and I've been listening to a lot of Miles Davis lately for whatever reason (I've got Sorcerer on now as a matter of fact), but then not everyone likes or will listen to jazz. ::sigh:: Though listen to the below and you'll get kind of an idea of the cacophony in my head; just imagine the different instruments as different languages, punctuated my ever-present-but-not-always-welcome inner monologue:
And then there's this because it makes me happy.
Awwww pookie. Now it's back to the grindstone...
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