Improving one’s English vocabulary

I was thinking about the standards i hold myself up for with japanese with the goal of understand 95%~ of the text that i’m reading on websites. of course if it’s of no interest to me i’m not going to waste my time googling that to find out what it means or what it is (sometimes it’s just something i just wouldn’t know because i’m not japanese and i haven’t lived in japan or whatever). Then I was thinking hey i haven’t reached this goal with english with the 95%~ comprehension for websites (well you could argue, not knowing or being unsure of the meaning of a couple adjectives/verbs/nouns doesn’t necessarily kill the comprehension… depends how important it is to the whole picture). It really is dependent on what i’m reading in english even if it’s a blog if it’s well-written they’ll be complex grammar where i’ll have to read the sentence again or they’ll be words I don’t know.  Some people are just good writers and they just use words i don’t know. Whether it’s blog entries or news articles, if it’s fairly well-written then i will come across words i do not know.  I’m not gonna start reading the new york times or whatever other boring ass newspaper to improve my vocabulary. that’s torture. I don’t do that for japanese and i’m not gonna do that for english. But I found a good way to learn vocabulary.

BTW you should know that firefox has awesome plug-ins/add-ons for looking up words and for saving text to file while you’re reading the internet. i downloaded dictionary.com and if you double click it tells you the meaning (I like merriam webster better but fast and efficient is KICKASS).  the sucky part is if you click on the audio thing for the audio bit it’ll take a while so i will actually hear the prnounciation faster by going to m-w and looking up the word than waiting for the add-on to fetch the audio.  I think with english especially hearing the word is useful and sometimes it’s spelled really weird or it’s ambiguous with the pronounciation. even if they have that gibberish to tell you how to pronounce it, it’s just a lot more clear with the audio. i’m checking out other add-ons so it’s more easy to collect/mine the stuff like with rikai-sama if you press S it saves the SENTENCE, DEFINITION, into a notepad file!!! like how awesome is that. so i’m seeing if any of the plug-ins are as kickass as that on firefox.

SO ANYWAYS the most important part is the SOURCE of the sentence/sparagraphs that you leran the vocabulary from. it has to be not too difficult/ridiculous/useless/archaic/etc and at the same time it has to hold your interest… otherwise why the hell would the context help you remember if you don’t give a shit about the actual thing you’re reading ie crappy newspapers.  It’s like AJATT  it has to be something you enjoy.

So this is what I found really useful/helpful and i think it could be applicable to other people … well bear with me. i hope somebody gets something out of what i wrote.

I find mad men really useful for learning vocabulary.  i look up words they use in the show and what i always always do starting since some season of mad men is I read  other people’s thoughts and analysis of the episode. ONE is because the show mad men is just very sophisticated like the dialogue is just not straight forward sometimes i miss out or i misinterpret????? TWO it’s just a well-done and there’s a lot of shit going on (If you don’t think so, you need to venture out into the INTERNET.  THREE even if i were to re-watch it, i wouldn’t get as much out of it compared to just reading somebody else’s thoughts about it. other people just better at getting stuff out of that show.  FOUR lots of mad men fans do it. FIVE it makes me want to watch more actively for the next episode like i want to notice stuff as much as the other peeps. SIX mad men fans are smart/educated (some of them are probably old right? like they were actually alive in the 60s lol) . some stuff i’ve seen written by mad men fans are just so well-written with the sentence/paragraph I have to re-read or the big words I don’t know. SEVEN it’s season 6, i forget stuff lol…. like i said this show’s well-done with the continuity and all that. i’ll literally watch an episode there’s some character and i have no idea who it is ( I couldn’t figure it out just from watching the ep because i like said mad men is never relaly that explicit and clear) or i forgot who it was (they showed up in some other season) and then i have to refresh myself lol.  I watch it once a year when it airs so….

Even though they’re using big words I care and I know what they’re talking about (the thing they’re describing) because I watched the episode. It’s sort of a game too like they’ll describe the character as some word I don’t know and I’ve seen the episode so I’ll be like oh   i think that’s a fancy word for __ and then i can see if i’m right. but usually now a days i have no imagination so i don’t even guess lol. The reason it works so well for me is because it’s so well-written and i really care about what the person writes about. it’s just the perfect environment for learning the vocab.

Now I don’t know what to do with the vocabulary. I saved the sentences with the definition on a notepad which i later transfer to EVERNOTE (kickass progrma, highly reocmmended thank you tofugu though their entries of late are complete shit , very lazy for the most part) . I looked at the sentences i collected they really are a pleasure to read lol… like no wonder i looked it up. I’ve always looked up words when i read particularly well-written stimulating blog entries or news articles or whateve rbut i never collected them. but i feel like collecting is helpful because the context is just so compatible with me. like i realy really give a shit!  I don’t know about adding the sentences to anki or anything like that. I do that with japanese and i don’t want to do that with english. english is my native language even if my vocab is low compared to people who read many more books that i have. I do want to improve my vocabulary like anyone else (who has a brain). if you don’t know the awesomeness/benefits of reading and vocabulary on YOUR LIFE, then you need to read up on that. I was literally tortured by people who do not read much/possess much vocabulary which was evident in their vapidly empty annoying blithering conversations. check out my lang-8 for that, you gotta be my friend to read it though!

so I found an awesome source to TAP to get the words that i do not know that i want to know. who wants to learn from a list from sat or act or gre or whatever…. half the crap just seems useless becaues you never heard of it. it relaly is like AJATT you gotta find something that’s enjoyable.  I do have a desire to improve my vocabulary and i’ve found the right medium. I’m not sure if this works with other shows…  mad men is just so SPECIAL AND well-done and there really is a lot to talk about plus some shows why would you care enough to read about other people’s thoguhts lol ie gossip girl/anything on cw for that matter. of course that show would attract fans who are good at writing and intelligent lol.  I’m also reading books too btw it’s just hard because I want to read japanese books too lol.

Basically I encourage looking up words while reading the internet since there are some awesome tools. there’s no reason not to. it’s 2013 bitch!  I checked out chrome, chrome has awesome addons/extensions too… the dictionary for that fetches the audio instantaneously!! so perhaps that’s a perk that can’t go ignored. hearing the word is really helpful to remembering it so that the next time you come across it, they’ll be a higher chance of having some feeling of familiarity.

here’s a copy paste of the stuff just so yo know what i mean… more clearly. if you haven’t seen mad men season 6 up to episode 4 there might be SPOILERS… i hope most people will see what i pasted and go i don’t know those words eitther lol. that’s what i’m thinking but i’ve been neglecting english for the past 4 years? loll with the japanese. I don’t want my english to turn to  crap or stop growing but at the same time iwant to also learn french a lot… not to fluency of course (that’s very very high goal) because first of all i haven’t even discovered what thing about france interests me.. the reason i mention french because it’s romance language and they’re based on latin so french itself would be helpful with expanding my english vocabulary but i’m curious as to how helpful learning french is vs. reading more in english with improving english vocabulary. because for korean if you don’t know hanja you can forget about expanding your vocabulary because it’s mostly (well  ALOT OF) 2 syllable words that all sound the same lol… the difference are so who gives a shit arbitrary unless you know what to look out for with hanja. i’m curious if it’s as helpful as hanja was for korean/japanese. but then again if i think of it as how helpful is korean for advanced japanese vocabulary (advanced? wtf is that lol.  I guess any and all words a fluent japanese speaker would know – that would encompass words that are based on kango, not based on kango) i don’t think it’s really helpful because they’re 2 different languages and they’re both based on kanji/hanja/chinese characters so not really…. not really for korean/japanese. yo know i read somewhere!!! it was on a language forum and they were talking about languages they’d forgotttten. someone said i forgot my damn german because all the common/daily convresation words are really similar to english and all the more advanced/difficult/beyond daily conversation words  are not similar to english THEN for french all the daily/conversation stuff was not similar to english but all the advanced words are similar to english… so they were saying german was more easily forgotten? unless they said it the other way around. so maybe learning french will be helpful  provided it is the way i wrote it.

EXAMPLES

A self-proclaimed “rooster,” he shows Dick how a cock behaves, taking what he wants from women — both money and pleasure — without compunction.
+   a feeling of deep regret (usually for some misdeed)
After blithely saying that they’re both good company that he enjoys,
+  in a joyous manner

t was evident that Pete’s a whiner not a fighter, using aggrieved complaining to get what he thinks he deserves — and to deflect blame for his bad behavior.
+ aggrieve
v.
1. infringe on the rights of
+++ 2. cause to feel sorrow

patrician  [pə’trɪʃn]
n.
1. a person of refined upbringing and manners
2. a member of the aristocracy

let Ted Chaough know that Heinz ketchup (“the Coca-Cola of condiments”) was pursuing potential suitors, and what was thought of as a clandestine tryst
++ adj.  conducted with or marked by hidden aims or methods

it was something of a softball episode for the nascent director to undertake
+ the event of being born

and his sycophantic task of picking Pete up some toilet paper.
++
attempting to win favor from influential people by flattery
2. attempting

The fight between Peggy’s conscience and ambition wasn’t her only duel this week, there was also a pocket of resistance to quell from her male copywriting staff.
++
quell  [kwel]
v.
1. suppress or crush completely
2. overcome or allay

One line in particular of Trudy’s was a pithy summation of her lot, and strongly reminiscent of season three Betty,
++
adj.  concise and full of meaning

), Megan awkwardly tries to simply placate Don, walking on eggshells and cooking him a fancy chicken dinner (which came first, we wonder).
++ cause to be more favorably inclined; gain the good will of

But the real meat of the premiere (for me) is Don and Arnold Rosen. Don’s eagerness for Rosen’s approval has the tenor of a teenage crush.
++ Tenor: atmosphere, appearance, similarity to.

But Don, like Pete, is still stuck in the old model of infidelity, in which deception was de rigueur, even – or especially — when your spouse was knowing and   – or especially — when your spouse was knowing and agreeable (as Trudy was with Pete)
++ : prescribed or required by fashion, etiquette, or custom : proper

litigant
(law) a party to a lawsuit; someone involved in litigation

litigation  [‚lɪtɪ’geɪʃn]
n.  a legal proceeding in a court; a judicial contest to determine and enforce legal rights

palimony
palimony
n.  support paid by one half of an unmarried partnership after the relationship ends

A court-martial (plural courts-martial, as “martial” is postpositive) is a military court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment.

paleolithic  [‚peɪlɪəʊ’lɪθɪk /‚pæl-]
n.  second part of the Stone Age beginning about 750,00 to 500,000 years BC and lasting until the end of the last ice age about 8,500 years BC
adj.  of or relating to the second period of the Stone Age (following the eolithic)

assignation  [よs?g’ne??n]
n.
1. a secret rendezvous (especially between lovers)
2. the act of distributing by allotting or apportioning; distribution according to a plan

The season kick off is heavily preoccupied with death. It’s roughly two hours of Don and Roger looking, for different reasons, into the yawning maw of death and wondering what the whole point of their lives is.
maw = mouth
informal terms for the mouth

Here in paradise they look like the future, and this woman with her decrepit hairdo worships

foundling  [‘faʊndlɪŋ]
n.  a child who has been abandoned and whose parents are unknown

What has many times in the past been cited as a program about change came out screaming that it is more likely about similarity, repetition and the ephemeral nature of human life.
ephemeral  [-rəl]
n.  anything short-lived, as an insect that lives only for a day in its winged form
adj.  lasting a very short time

has ideologues arguing over gay marriage and austerity while people are starving and dying, and a public that has lost all hope for a better future.
_++ n.  the trait of great self-denial (especially refraining from worldly pleasures)

Only when we are back in the bitter cold of New York do we see that despite their beauty, their ruddy success, Don and Megan lack contemporary hair
++ adj.
1. inclined to a healthy reddish color often associated with outdoor life
2. of a color at the end of the color spectrum (next to orange); resembling the color of blood or cherries or tomatoes or rubies

She admires Joan as an intrepid groundbreaker who has conquered the big city and a male-dominated profession.
++= adj.  invulnerable to fear or intimidation

In that, they’re contrasted with the passivity and acquiescence of women like Sylvia,
++ v.  to agree or express agreement
acui-es (letter s)

t’s not entirely accurate to say that Joan is the distaff Don Draper—i
++ adj.  characteristic of or peculiar to a woman
++ the sphere of work by women

Mad Men nights of drunken revelry, involving making out with strange young men and visiting hippie haunts—disappearing into other guises in other words, flexing whatever privilege they have, be it glamor, money,

++ bar

Learn korean frm super junior. kpop song

So I listened to the song sorry soryr because IU performed her cover on some tv show. and a japanese tv show aired a clip of that TV SHOW. the tv show has NAKATA from oriental radio/rajio who is ALSO on that japanese show called nakayoshi terebi which deals with japan and foreign countries and their differences and ways each country is proud of itself etc etc.

BUT ANYWAYS that’s how I got to IU singing this song and me watching super junior on youtube. I usually have low tolerance for kpop and to be honest I did’nt like the song that much … the version sang by super junior that much till I herad it a couple times.

Because there’s so many guys… members. at certain points in the song I go oh I like that guy’s voice etc etc even though it has that distorted effect on it.  I was thinking while listening to it that’s it’s repetitive which is good for learning.

I just wanted to point out korean you can learn/remember from the song .

this song really works cause it’s mad repetitive and if you like it , it obviously helps.

so first of all this link    – hmm I can’t find the exact page of his grammar guide that i was thinking of but this one has it. It just has the rule I’m gonna put here below.

The conjugation  ㅣ 다 -> ㅕ is rampant in this song !

빠져 -> 빠지다

부셔 -> 부시다.

미쳐

막혀

버려

so it’s clear what michuh and makhuk unconjugate to right? Then you can look up the unconjugated verb with lingoes or whatever dictinoary you like.

once you conjugate the stuff to ㅕ form you can attach mad crap to it

examples  막혀+ 버리다-> 막혀버리다

in the song they also conjugate   버리다 to 버려 to make it informal and casual and cool lol.

막혀버려

막혀 + 보다 -> 막혀보다 if you want to make it conversational you turn it into 막혀봐

막혀 +  주다 -> 막혀주다and to turn this into conversation/casual  막혀줘

빠져  + 요 -> 빠져요  and now you have polite form just from attaching YO to this form.

there’s definitely more right? it’s like the -te form of japanese… it’s mad useful and basic and songs are definitely helpful remembering the fun way as opposed to grind-grind-cram-

It’s interesting how the person who wrote the lyrics like did it like this.

For further conjugation rules go to link I put above. I just felt like pointing out this rule cause it seems like this song would be a really easy way to remember since it’s repetitive and if you happen to like the song too then that’s also helpful, for me the song grew on me lol and I don’t have much to learn from this song… maybe a couple words but I don’t care enough to go through this song lol. singing along with the ㅕ conjugated crap and the english parts is enough for me. lolz.

and FYI I think the stuff in this song caan be used in daily conversatoin if want to say “I can’t breathe or  I’m gonna go crazy or I’m obsessed with you or my eyes are in agony from the bright light (my eyes are blinding)”. korean people do say I’m gonna crazy/i’m gonna go insane frequently in daily conversation though lol (Japanese people dont’ though…) . but they don’t do this conjugation they do 미치겠어 . and remember, just stick on the yo and it’s polite! 미치겠어요.

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry, Sorry
내가 내가 내가 먼저
네게 네게 네게 빠져
빠져 빠져 버려 baby

Shawty, Shawty, Shawty, Shawty
눈이 부셔 부셔 부셔
숨이 막혀 막혀 막혀
내가 미쳐 미쳐 baby

바라보는 눈빛속에 눈빛속에 나는마치
나는마치 뭐에홀린놈
(이젠 벗어나지도 못해)

걸어오는 너의모습 너의모습 너는마치
내심장을 밟고왔나봐
(이젠 벗어나지도 못해)

어딜가나 당당하게 웃는 너는 매력적
착한여자 一色이란 생각들은 보편적

도도하게 거침없게 정말 너는 환상적
돌이킬 수 없을 만큼 네게 빠져 버렸어.

*Sorry, Sorry, Sorry, Sorry
내가 내가 내가 먼저
네게 네게 네게 빠져
빠져 빠져 버려 baby

Shawty, Shawty, Shawty, Shawty
눈이 부셔 부셔 부셔
숨이 막혀 막혀 막혀
내가 미쳐 미쳐 baby

딴딴 딴따다 따 따란딴,
딴딴 딴따다 따
(네게 반해버렸어 baby)

딴딴 딴따다 따 따란딴,
딴딴 딴따다 따 따라빠빠라

(Hey, girl) gir, gir, gir, gir, gir, girl, i 눈만뜨면 니 생각
(Hey, girl) 자나깨나 사실 너 하나밖에 안보여

(말해봐) 니 맘에 내가
(말해봐) 자리 잡았는지
(말해줘) 내게 말해줘
(나는 바보 바보 바보)

주변사람들은 말해. 내가 너무 적극적
이 세상에 그런사람 어디 한둘이냐고

그걸몰라, 그녈몰라 시기하며 하는 말
내가 부럽다면 그건 그대들이 지는 거

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry, Sorry
내가 내가 내가 먼저
네게 네게 네게 빠져
빠져 빠져 버려 baby

Shawty, Shawty, Shawty, Shawty
눈이 부셔 부셔 부셔
숨이 막혀 막혀 막혀
내가 미쳐 미쳐 baby

딴딴 딴따다 따 따란딴,
딴딴 딴따다 따
(네게 반해버렸어 baby)

딴딴 딴따다 따 따란딴,
딴딴 딴따다 따 따라빠빠라

Let’s dance dance dance dance
Let’s dance dance dance dance
Let’s dance dance dance dance dance dance

Hey 이제 그만 내게 와줄래. 정말 미칠 것만 같아 yeah
난 너만 사랑하고 싶어. 절대 다시 한눈 팔 생각 없어 hey-

애인이라기보다 친구같은 내가 되고 싶어
너의 모든 고민, 슬픔, 함께 간직하고파

다시없을 만큼 만큼 너를 너무 사랑해
내가 바란 사람. 니가 바로 그 that that that girl.

*Sorry, Sorry, Sorry, Sorry
내가 내가 내가 먼저
네게 네게 네게 빠져
빠져 빠져 버려 baby

Shawty, Shawty, Shawty, Shawty
눈이 부셔 부셔 부셔
숨이 막혀 막혀 막혀
내가 미쳐 미쳐 baby

Example of learning Korean from Korean Music!

Basically I’ll just highlight certain things in the sample songs to show like how you have to unconjugate crap to actually look it up. Little example/tutorial.  It’s like one of the reasons why learning songs from japanese is so frikin’ easy especially compared to korean with the rikai-chan and no worries about conjugating even cause rikai-chan does it for you.

But anyways for the resources like that grammar guide that teaches the conguation + dictionaries REFERENCE the previous entry.

https://choronghi.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/learning-korean-from-korean-music/

I’m gonna do it all K->J for the example, if you wanna do english well use the english/korean dictionaries.  . I would do K-> K at this point but I haven’t found fast-reliable way to do that… in the end k->J is faster to look up so until I find some nice k->k- I dunn wanna do that.

웃음 Lucia + (Duet With Epitone Project)

This song’s not on youtube but you can download it somewhere on the internet…

Gonna put a * for all the lines in the song so it doesn’t get so confusin loking.

Underline is particles.

***벼랑 같았던 시간에 끝에서 널 만난 건***

같았던→같았다→같아→같다

널→ 너를

만나다→ 만난

건 → 것은

***어쩌면 우연인걸까 아직도 웃음이나***
인걸까 = grammar thing

나 → 나다 So this one might confuse you. 이나 also has a meaning but it’s clear from the context                 and the way she sings it that it’s obviously 이 the particle + 나 from 나다

***두 손을 마주 붙잡고 걸었던 많은 시간***

붙잡고→ 붙잡다

걸었던 → 걸었다 → 걸어 → 걷다

많은 → 많다
***때론 거짓말 같아서 아직도 웃음이나***
때론 →때로는

같아 → 같다 . 서 = grammar thing

***어쩔 수 없던 시간은 누구의 탓도 아냐***

어쩔 수 없던  → ~~없다

아냐  아니야

***어쩌면 우연인걸까 그래서 웃음이나***
***두 손을 마주 붙잡고 걸었던 많은 시간***
***때론 거짓말 같아서 그래서 웃음이나***

***아직도 나는 기억해 우리의 모습들을***

기억해. 해 → 하다
***때론 어제일 같아서 그래서 웃음이나***

*가끔은 꿈만 같아서 그래서 웃음이나

꿈 만 are 2 different words so you got look up 꿈  and 만 but they’re both really common words  so                 I doubt anyone got all confused because of that.

The song’s pretty simple so I only learned 2 words but it sounds really nice so I listened to it a lot. So go find it and listen it. ‘sall

This is lingoes. the setting i used to make it show the definition by clicking shift and clicking furiously (cause the program is glitchy) to get it working… is..

LONELY by 2ne1

I’m only gonna talk about one line with this grammar point

지금 내가 하는 얘기 널 아프게 할지 몰라
아마 날 죽도록 미워하게 될꺼야
내가 예전 같지 않다던 네 말 모두 틀린 말은 아니야

I believe that luke park did’t cover this on his grammar guide as far as my memory goes but anyways it’s pretty easy to google grammar points and finding explanations at least in japanese.and honestly he explains all the common /useful crap so by the time you get through that i don’t see why you can’t figure it out with google and shit with your knowledge of korean grmamar.

so the last line of the thre lines I posted . 다던 conjugation in 않다던 means 　引用：～だといっていた（過去の継続回想）

◆動詞　母音語幹　-ㄴ다던
子音語幹　-는다던
その他（補助語幹含む）- 다던

which means that the guy “said that”  that’s the 다던 part. so it means that the guy said “내가 예전 같지 않다” actually can’t you think of 다던  as “” marks. does that make the explanation easier?

There’s also

◆動詞　母音語幹　-ㄴ다는　　引用：～だという
子音語幹　-는다는
その他（補助語幹含む）- 다는

but it makes sense that she used the one above instead of this becaues the one above has that nuance 過去の継続回想.  回想 means reflection/ reminiscence and 継続 which means continuing.

FYI if you care I tried singing along with it and like for the first couple times it was really heard to pronounce that part 않다던 for some reason just because of the da-dun part AND AND i keep pronouncing it like anata or anta in japanese which is really bad lol. I really am trying to pronounce it correctly but the japanese is just in me  😦 .

OR MAYBE I’m just being over-sensitive because 않다던 sounds like anta and i might be just saying it fine. I can’t help but feel like I’m saying it like anta just because the line is just fast and when it’s fast whatever comes out, comes out. 😦

the japanese really is not good for my korean pronunciation cause japnaese makes me move my mouth less (it’s very minimal especially compared to english/korean.) like i’m prety sure japanese people’s katsuzetsu would be better if they also can speak another language… like the geinin on ame talk for katsuzetsu warui geinin ) and when i try to read korean my mouth won’t open lol because of the damn japanese….  . ii’lll get over it soon enough hopefully but you know i don’t have the shitty american accent or the korean accent with my japanaese (thank god… those accents are annoying like the ZU -namari with the korean people) and I have that intonation shite down! 🙂  AND like I’ve seen foreigners since this song on the korean talent shows and they always fuck up that part and THAT PART ALWAYS SOUNDS like chinese or something. that pisses me off lol. I get it’s hard to pronounce. I experienced it too but if you can’t fix it, please don’t sing it lol. it sounds like chinese. nothing against chinese it s just the pronunciation is just dirty and ruins it.  😦

LIKE THE REASON I sorta gave up on shadowing that I said I was gonna do in the previous post is because the korean actors have really really good enunciation. They talk fast but their pronunciation/enunciation is really good/impeccable too which obviously they are since they only speak korean except for those speakers that also speak awesome english. Basically ,it’s just hard to keep up. well nothing AKATT can’t fix but i mean is very um… disconnected lol which kills the last three letters.. ATT but alas I guess my goal as of now is improving vocab and increasing my ability to conjugate/unconjugate verbs and adjectives and all that stuff in the non-painful way (which means i’m not gonna memorize the conjugation rules. I’m just gonna be aware and if it shows up I go oh they conjugated like ___ since it’s ___). Fun enlightenment as opposed to drilling.  It’s like one of the reasons why those people that post videos of themselves speaking korean think so long and hard and give us mostly silence then…. actual content with words and shit.

and another ting concerning the song

미워하다 . I saw this and I thought of 미웝다 (which conjugates to 미워운 for describing crap while for japanese you don’t even haｖe to conjugate you just put the word next it ie 憎たらしい→憎たらしい人　but then again you have to for -na adjectives but all you do is stick -na. that’s so easy right? ) and I thought oh shit don’t tell me this is some verb conjugation shit but it’s not cause they’re 2 different words (thank you dictinoary)…. I think they’re adjectives. the thing with korean is the adjectives are like verbs so I just want to just call them verbs….

Secret Garden UPDATE

Yes it’s been months and I’ve finally seen episode 6. and yes this is where the fun begins. Episode 6 is the episode I watched with the least fast-forwarding in fact I watched like the whole thing? Wait Iskipped a scene or two with people that i don’t care about…. you know those old people… over 40 or 50 lol.

Well the acting is good. If the acting was crap the drama would be ruined… it wouldn’t be funny at all. I’m sure or at least it seems like both actors really put in a lot of effort. even if you don’t understand korean I’m sure you can tell what they’re doing with their voices and obviously even if you don’t understand you can tell with their facial expressions that the acting is top-notch.  I didn’t see the last part of episode 5  so i have no idea happened. I’mm gonna go back and watch the episode 5 and then keep watching while it’s still fresh and fun. and then if it gets boring then I gues si’ll through the lines of episode 6 especialy in particular and find out what was said… what i didn’t catch etc etc.

There were also bloopers at the end of ep 6 which were fun to watch except i couldn’t catch some of the stuff being said like the talking in the background.

Recently I estimated the number of words i learned over the sumer for korean  since ihvae paper cards so i have estimate otherwise it’s a waste of tim.e it’s like almost 600 so I want to do monoligual once i hit 2000. this is because i personally feel that korean has more words/vocab etc that is used in daily conversation… it must be at least twice the amount for japanese  (khatz said monoligual when you hit 1000 cards which i’ll just take in as 1000 cards for japanese = 2000 cards at lesat for korean). Somebody tell me if i’m just deranged and confused but i seriously do believe that japanse is easier because the daily conversation just really involves a lot of vague language and all that stuff... while in korean they don’t. they describe they want to say in all the details and facets and nuance.

I think I’ll give tofuguben’s shadowing method a try. just the shadowing part not every single step cause i don’t personally believe in it. It seems fun and like I said I skip any scene with old people lol… you know anyone i don’t care about and so I would only shadow scenes of interest either before looking up words or after because you don’t need to read kanji with erratic readings with korean.  🙂 I think it’ll help remember the words the conjugation/ sentence structure etc etc. I think more so with korean than japanese. practice saying korean is more important because the verbn conjugations is realy logical and easy to learn if you teach your mouth/tongue.. notice i wrote say and not speak. because it’s hard to speak korean with the verb conjugation crap and my tongue always just goes opposite of what  i want to say you know like ㅗ instead of ㅜ for some reason so it’s just best just read what is correct.

and reading in korean on the comp like websites doesnt really work for me becase i just start reading japanese crap or do youtube in japanese or english lol which all starts with me looking up something that i want to know. someboody give me an interestin’ korean site?

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and for fun I remembered the nihongo kentei shiken. ting.

I remember reading a wikipedia article on it and iwas surprised that some guy from kat-tun and thsese other japanese people have the highest level on that. it’s like really hard.

Link to 2 questions Igot right. (it this sheer luck? cause after that i kept getting crap wrong lol) I set it at 1 = hardest level, and keigo because i have no idea what’s correct for keigo sometimes. this is why i wouldn’t say i’m fluent in japanese or anything because I’m useless at talking to customers correctly if i was hired and working in ajapan. how do you know keigo? do people just learn from experience from what they hear/what they get said to them when they go to a store/movie theater and so forth. do they memorize it? I don’t get it. I just answered based on feeling so iknew like 2 of the choices are definitely wrong and all that stufff. I rememberd yet again that I still suck balls at japanese cause I don’t know keigo. I keep thinking i’m gonna read the articles online about the keigo but i keep forgetttttttting.

Link to the test click on the left side box

WAIT WAIT WAIT. I made a mistake.  The hard test that I was shocked that random talent people passed was the kanji test. 　It’s called　日本漢字能力検定

nihon kanji nou ryoku kentei.

I was so surprised that those talent on tv actually got it. even level 2 is like really hard but anyways this is the level 1 thing which is like 6000 kanji and basically they’re like we’ll just test you on rare crap that no one will ever see or we used to use but no longer anymore. and obviously all the kanji readings you’ll be tested on…. will have no pattern… they’re just like pure memorization right? it is1-kyuu.

1級（大学・一般程度、対象漢字数5657字）
程度 常用漢字を含めて、約6000字の漢字の音・訓を理解し、文章の中で適切に使えるようにする。
領域―読むことと書くこと 常用漢字の音・訓を含めて、約6000字の漢字を読み、その大体が書ける。

• 熟字訓、当て字、対義語、類義語、同音・同訓異字などを理解すること
• 典拠のある四字熟語を理解すること
• 国字を書くこと（怺える、毟る など）
• 地名・国名等の漢字表記（当て字の一種）を読むこと
• 常用漢字体と旧字体との関連を知ること

領域―故事・諺 故事成語・諺を正しく理解する。
※約6000字の漢字は、JIS第二水準を目安とする。

ただし、上記の出題範囲のうち、平成14年度第3回からは、「地名・国名等の漢字表記（当て字の一種）を読むこと」と「常用漢字体と旧字体との関連 を知ること」に関する問題が出題されなくなった。一方、動植物名その他の熟字訓・当て字の読みを問う問題は依然として出題されている。

一般的には用いない難解な漢字や読みが多く出題される。

But seriously even if you read a lot of books i doubt you’ll encounter all that stuff… I would feel like most of te people who passed this probably just studied cause how else are you supposed to see these rare kanji. or are therebooks that are written for really smart people that i have yet to come across yet that has lots of weird kanji. i looked at example problems for 1kyuu and i knew the reading for like 1 or 2 kanji out of the 30. the rest i’ve nver seen ever lol.  I just personally see no point memorizing stuff just to get the 1kyuu or 2 kyuu and then just forget it…. it just seems like such a waste of time.  if it’s like you read lots of books and you’re at leevel of _kyuu and then you ge t it it’s fine. you’re just proving what you know. But seriously can you really encounter all the kanji in the 1kyuu just from reading ??? do you have to read mad jidai geki crap? meiji era crap? heian jidai crap? lol. seriously where the hell do you encounter that crap?

I tried taking the kanji test a wee-bit just to see where I stand with my self-educated japanese knowledge formed over the the past 4.5 years. It’s really more like 2.5 though cause for the first 2 years I wasn’t using effective methods… maybe it’s more like 3. just going by ACTUAL time with Japanese by seconds /minutes.

2級　高校卒業・大学・一般程度（1945字、他に人名用漢字）
so out of the readings . the first section I knew 18/30 for 100% sure. well for a couple I typed out what Iwould guess and then it was correct so I included those… it’s like I knew the onyomi read for both kanji but i’ve never seen that word so i wouldn’t know if the word was that conventional with the kanji it’s made out of.

3級　中学校卒業程度（1608字）
3kyuu-am i smarter than mdiddle schooler lol. so this is what middle schoolers, I’m going to guess 9th graders know… which is when middle schoolers graduate middle school.
28/30 for the first section! yays.

OMGS I realy need graduate from da japanese high school. lolz. I wonder how long it’ll take lolz.  I graduated middle school with flying hours in my 5 years j/kj/k which is more like 3 yeras or 2 years even to be honest.
18/30 is passing? or maybe it’s not. I’m too lazy to lookup.

I only took the first section of the mock test they have on the site. FYI seriously I defiitely know how to read more than 1945 kanji… I don’t know how many exactly it’s definitely 2000 something. AT LEAST.. I don’t think I hit 3000. It really depends on what they ask and sometimes I know the reading for onyami for both the kanji but for some reason when you put them together neither or those matter anymore or there’s some weird onten or whatevers.  to be honest sometimes you don’t know really need to know how to read it, you just need to know the meaning which you can tell form the 2 kanji.

But anyways I would never take either of those tests just because it’s a waste of my time.  and i don’t see myself going to japan or wokring gthere and i already my mention whole thing with keigo. you can’t work in japanese if you’re not gonna learn keigo. before isaid memorize but it’s more like learn because you have the analyze the wohle situation with who you’re tlaking to and if you’re inferior them or ont and all that crap lol or whether you’re tlaking about the person that you’re supposed to put above or a thing that’s associated with the person who’s superior to you cause apparently you don’t have to use keigo or some verb conjugation that makes it less direct for the thing associated with the person but there’s also the o/go thing but i’m sure they’re two different things you know the sonkeigo vs. KENJOUGo or somethin. what i just mentioned was one of the explanations to one of the answers of the quiz i took on that site.

Random Progress in Korean I noticed…

Okay so korean doesn’t have the kanji… everything is written in hanguel so in that sense it’s harder to figure out what’s what in the first place and whatnot + RIKAI-CHAN cannot save me lol. obviously the advantage is i have no problem reading it.

For Japanese, what happens is I know all the readings of the 2 kanjis that make up the word but I don’t know which they are or I don’t know if there’s onten etc etc… the only I would know is if i heard it somewhere and then remembered or look it up. So in japanese i think it’s better on focusing on what you understand and not what you can read out aloud… after a while it just gets so tedious and pointless past the useful/everyday stuff…. like when i read books (since that’s what you’re supposed to do to improve speaking and vocab and understanding etc tec) plus with speed-reading or just reading faster in general what’s important is the meaning not whether you prnounced it right? but then i was reading something else online (japanese site) abt training brain by reading it aloud but i didn’t feel like reading it thoroughly.

PLUS I was watching a cli pfrom a quiz show and the category was kokugo and couple of questions were stuff in my anki deck and  of course those dumb idol bitches did not get that stuff correct so I’m tinking should i just stay as dumb as idols? lol. but then again mitsuman glove didn’t knwo what omomuro ni meant (he thought it meant the opposite of its actual definition) and he graduated from keiou which everyone also reacts like OOOOOOOOOOOH this peson’s probably really smart since he/she graduated from there. but arent’ a lot of talent people graduated from these… well not a lot but I know a handful. is it really that good? do you have to be that smart? well i don’t feel like researching that but probably ..

But anyways my little progress was with the Drama secret garden.

(I got the scripts for the drama… obviously ‘s why i’m doing the k-drama – for method to get the script go to the thread in koohii on korean resources)

here’s the link to the secret garden korean scripts  that I downloaded from the site that I mentioend in my koohii post on the koohii forum with the thread title korean resources! It’s in docx format. suck that HPW file handling program! no seriouly, people were like oh you can get around hpw by converting it to pdf by going to print on the hpw-file-handling-program but ever since i replaced the harddrive on my computer i cannot do that shite no more lol. so please download up from the sites i mentioned… convert the shit pdf for me and i upload it and link on the koohii forum lol.

I don’t know how good this drama is but I know there’s people who were addicted to it and loved it as with any comedy/romance K-drama. I tried the first 10 minutes of that drama or so and I was like going WTF at some parts cause it’s like I don’t even know how to look up some of the stuff (I just had no idea what IT was ) even with the conjugation stufff I learned from luke park’s guide.I’m thinking why the hell is the dialogue like this… why don’t they make it more clear and less roller coastery.  but now the dialogue is more clear but that complaint still remains for me. watching the first ep second time around the drama seemed more fun … well maybe it’s because  i saw more of it . but I will stop watching it or skip to last episode if it gets bad… no mercy or anything for boring korean dramas 😉 and what I do to learn from drama is the same thing I do with song lyrics with lingoes and if I REALLY CARE about that line then I’ll attempt to look it up on google translate – j-k (has not happened yet).

there’s one part they used the word 融通性 – WHATEVR the korean version is i don’t remember but it sounds similar (well if you’re used to korean and japanese lol) so even without looking at the script I was like oh she said yuuzuusei in korean . that plus the context. i mean i guess if the word if close enough to japanese it i would have this connection . in that moment i felt like if i watched more k-dramas my korean would get better (b.c. it’s like context + word that sounds similar to j. version) but i really dont like k-dramas (as far as i know). i mean so far this drama is okay/somewhat interesting. I know I dropped full house after 2 eps becaue the way ep2 ended was gay( the main girl is annoying and i wasn’t falling head over heels over bi.) and the same game thing happened in hana yori dango too but for that I waited a whole week to watch the next ep  instead of stopping my watching…

so watching the 1st ep second time around a lot of  stuff became more clear and obvious now…

about a month passed since my first viewing (of the first 10 minuets). I just basically forgot about it for a month. What I did between then and now was read korean books (well obviously parts/pages of books that look interesting and not the whole books)/news articles and look up everything or almost everything and go damn I shoulda recognized that since it’s like similar to Japanese with the kango (kanji words)  and made flash cards for words that seemed more common useful compared to the rest of the words i looked up  (doing my manual srs since I don’t want to stare at the computer screen for that crap unless it’s japanese because hand-writing korean is less time consuming than japanese for obvious reasons) ++ luke park’s grammar thing and more… The reason I did the articles and books is like I said before I cannot stand the talk/variety shows since they don’t talk enough lol. seriously i don’t need to see DANCING OR SINGING OR EATING or whateerother crap that does NOT involve telling interesting stories. and i’d just rather watch the japanese talk/variety – i love their profuse usage of kanji . but serisuly if ther’s anythign like zotto suru hanashi in korean tv TELL ME! But I found a site with korean shows soI’m sure I can find an educational/stimulating show I like…….

from the reading besides the vocab and whatnot if just helps me figure out what’s going on in the overall picture more since there is no kanji to separate anything/help make sense of anything with the verbs and nouns and all that shit so you can actually figure out what the hell should be looked up.

The next step is to go K->K which would be lovely but I want to get more used to korean before. but it might be less efficient if like the dictionary site online is laggy as compared to lingoes which doesn’t lag obviously since it’s on the computer .. but there’s no k-k for lingoes last time I checked.

little tidbit on japanese and the state of anime: um… yeah i stopped watching after 2007 or something. 2006 was fun 🙂 but then as of now it’s like complete crap with shitty characters, horrible animation (in the sense that i see the picture of the show and i can tell it’s crap plus just the laziness with animation with some of the shows but then again i wouldn’t know since istopped watching) and lots of OTAKU PANDERING. so anyways I was on youtube watching my japanese talk/varitey shows and ao no exorcist was like in the top entertainment or comedy video  (that section) so I saw a little bit of it just to see how the low the state of anime is right now. I only saw a few minutes or less but they rubbed me the wrong way . the dialogue was just annoying. It’s just unnecessarily dragged out and umimaginative/boring. it was the scene where the teacher was like saying I’m the teacher blahblah and then the main protagonist goes what? you’re the same age as us etc etc. the reactions they did with the main character over thing that was so bland and tired and draggy and pointless to me.  It’s not enough for me to judge or the show or hate on it but just from that dialogue I felt irritated at it and I felt no value of watching it at all. i’m sure there’s negative reviews MAL explaning stuff more thouroughly but I can just tell just from this scene/dialogue.

and then I was curious about ano hi mita hana~~ and so I read some neg reviews and then I was just curious what it looks like so I just ran some video stream site  with the sound off and MY initial reaction was “this show is unwatchable/ there’s a 99% chance I don’t like it. besides that lame white haired loli + lame guy with red shirt… just from the animation I could just tell this show is not worth watching…. I can’t explain it. I had the same thing with naruto… I can’t stand those colors. Maybe it’s all becasue I’m super apathetic to anime after 2006. For ano hi mita…I can just tell the crappiness or the nothingness of the characteesr from the animation… one of the biggesyot reasons anime is so shtity now a days is that the characters are so shitty…. they just don’t have anything that gives them anything that’s worth so if you have shitty characters you’re not going to get any chemistry… interesting character interactions which was so awesome about dash kappei or slayers next etc etc. that’s why it’s so unwatchable. also, I cannot believe people actually obsesss over k-on characters… I don’t even have an ounce of anything to care about them enough to remember any  of their names not that I’ve seen that anime nor will i ever wach it unless somebody made me watch it lol. they’re really shitty and crappy as anyone tell… but yo know if moe is enough go ahead… you know they uesd to develop characters, give them ddepth/history/character design/ chemistry between the characters…. so much soullessness nowadays or rather i don’t know bc i don’t watch it. thank god!

English Words I Don’t Know that I Heard Today from the TV

Me + TV: I could type a lot of shit but I’ll keep it short. There was a time when I was a kid where I would mostly watch Nick + Disney and then somewhere after or between or whatever MTV got into the mix . The problem with this is all they run is re-runs so I wasted a lot of time watching the same shit over and over and it’s not even like the shows are that good but as a kid in America that’s all I have  for TV 😦 I mean there are some good ones among the most of the crap. MY friend is still stuck in this phase while I escaped from it years ago 😦 I’m not that assertive… I remember we used tobitch about how all the shows are so crappy and how they re-run it so much and how she’s seen that _ amount of times and how she knows all the lines and it’s just utterless crap. So one day in middle school I’m like Wow I’ve wasted a lot of time watching this shit so I decided to A) Turn the TV off if there’s nothing on. B) Check out other channels more while “boycotting nick + disney” like forever except for one show? while checking out MTV “sometimes”   So now I’m more efficient and selective about watching TV. I look up all the shows right now for this summer on tvguide.com/listings and then watch I haven’t seen/want to see (The point is so I don’t miss it). Sometimes I just turn the TV on and watch whatever

So I have a thought about learning Japanese and English. Basically if I spent all the time I spent on doing something Japanese on doing something English would I know these words or at least feel like heard of them or be able to make a guess at what they mean.  I’m gonna guess No… cause most of these words are pretty weird and isn’t reading a shit load books effective for rare words which I have no desire to do. Most of my reading of English is the captions on TV 🙂

I can’t help but write down words I don’t know while I watch and look it up during the commercial…  cause obviously I want to know. Certain shows like BONES is always like oh shit what does that mean but obviously almost all of the characters are mad smart so… it can’t be helped. Speaking of which Mad Men is MAD hard to follow/understand sometimes with those convos making references to crap and just talking about crap that seems to have nothing to do with a conversation, etc but I try my best! I guess it’s stimulating to watch.

I got these words from watching  TV.

minutiae – minute or minor detail

stimulus check – well this isn’t a vocab word but I still don’t know what it is exactly. Kay, read up on through google search now I know…

biped-2 footed animal. Hmm well now that I think about it’s obvious what it means..

harleniquoid… some word that looks or sounds like this. It’s killing me now.. It’s NOT Harlequin.

Lark = a source of or quest for amusement or adventure <tho

Magazine = : a holder in or on a gun for cartridges to be fed into the gun chamber

remiss = : negligent in the performance of work or duty : careless2 : showing neglect or inattention

Salacious = 1 : arousing or appealing to sexual desire or imagination : lascivious2 : lecherous, lustful

exonerate=I remember trying to learn this word for the SATs. I think I knew it then.

1 : to relieve of a responsibility, obligation, or hardship2 : to clear from accusation or blame

fey = a chiefly Scottish : fated to die : doomed b : marked by a foreboding of death or calamity2 a : able to see into the future : visionary b : marked by an otherworldly air or attitude c : crazy, touched3 a : excessively refined : precious b : quaintly unconventional : campy

ferroequinologist = enthusiast

parvo = a virus that attacks the lining of the digestive system (dogs)

mandocello = insturment that looks like guitar-ish. ) is a plucked string instrument of the mandolin family.

spry =nimble

effervescance = to show liveliness or exhilaration

panache = an ornamental tuft (as of feathers) especially on a helmet2 : dash or flamboyance in style and action

usain bolt = is a person! He is a Jamaican sprinter. Bolt holds the Olympic and world records for the 100 metres at 9.69 seconds, the 200 metres at 19.30 seconds and, along with his teammates, the 4×100 metres relay at 37.10 seconds, all set at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

hothe… can’t find nothing for this. From the context which was I think was “Live/Go to a hothe” I don’t know… 😦

harlot = prostitute. ‘S what I thought.

alpaca = sheep

convalescence- : to recover health and strength gradually after sickness or weakness

write-off: : an elimination of an item from the books of account
2 a : a reduction in book value of an item (as by way of depreciation) b : a tax deduction of an amount of depreciation, expense, or loss
3 chiefly British : something (as a damaged vehicle) or someone regarded or conceded as a loss

uncouth =not known or not familiar to one : seldom experienced : uncommon, rare b obsolete : mysterious, uncanny2 a : strange or clumsy in shape or appearance : outlandish b : lacking in polish and grace : rugged <uncouth verse> c : awkward and uncultivated in appearance, manner, or behavior : rude

lingcod  = : a large often greenish-fleshed fish (Ophiodon elongatus) of the Pacific coast of North America that is an important food and sport fish and belongs to the same family as the greenlings

OH AND I REALLY DON’T appreciate the reports about how tv is bad for you or children and all that. It’s like it depends on what you’re watching, if you’re watching a re-run etc. There’s some really entertaining/educational shows on TV like these drama shows using all those words I don’t know (it’s only like 3 per ep, 5 at the worst) or making references to people that I don’t know or movies (?) I haven’t seen or shows I haven’t seen 😦 (know what show i’m talking about?) or just those crazy medical-type show TLC like billion calories thing. There’s just a big variety of programs so I just feel like “TV” is just too broad… just say the name of the TV show instead of TV.

 

OH BY THE WAY these words are probably almost all from the drama PSYCH on FX. I unfotunately have onyl seen maybe a handful of episodes because they keep airing it at10pm or some ridiculous time I’m asleep and I just can’t record it plus I want to wach it HD. But the good thing is it’s on hulu and the price of seaso n1 dvd set is like mad cheap. It’s just well-written, funny, they use lots of references to stuff i don’t know or vocab i don’t know as you can telll…. so you know it’s good quality stuff. It’s a hell of a llot better than castle and that other show on CBS which is like psych but like is not funny whatsoever.

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별의 속삭임  – Belle Epoque: I love this song. I listened to it over and over at one point. This artist is GOOD like I like all the songs on the album, the one with the girl and the white hat in france or something cover.