Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a performance of Dracula by the Synetic Theater, held at the Rosslyn Spectrum. A friend of the family who is a professor was on the panel following the performance and was able to provide us with tickets. The Synetic Theater productions are fascinating because they are not like standard theater, but are instead movement based. There was some dialogue within the production, but movement was mostly used to convey the seductive story of Dracula.
Movement was not the only unique thing about the piece, though the passionate dancing, elegant movement, and beautiful people on the stage were certainly captivating. However, there was also a unique use items on a fairly bare stage to convey setting. A long strip of black fabric was used to convey water, soil, and invisibility most convincingly. Stage blocks were transformed into a bed and pedestals, and human bodies covered in the same black fabric also became furniture in conjunction with the rehearsal blocks.
At times, the movement verged on camp. It is certainly difficult to create wild seduction using flailing arms. The majority of the time, the movement seemed appropriate and was able to provide subtext for the motivations of the characters, or to illustrate when the characters gave in entirely to their animal impulses.
The production stayed mostly true to the novel, with one change at the end which I will not give away; let’s just say that it enabled the female characters to gain some power in a story where they are otherwise powerless.
While he focuses on Japanese and Chinese learning, most of the techniques he recommends can be applied to any language.
Spaced Repetition Software
This moves things from your short term memory into your long term memory through reviewing flashcards using algorithms. There are different options for this software.
If you are like me and tend to get sucked into aimless web browsing this addon for the Firefox browser can help.
Here are some other tips:
1) Read stuff in your target language, from blogs, the paper, to books (young adult level can be a good starting place, but avoid kids books they are not interesting and not that useful).
2) Watch stuff in your target language. Movies that you are already familiar with the plot of but dubbed over in your target language, TV shows and movies that only exist in your target language, etc.
3) Make some friends who speak primarily your target language (this is easier when you live in a country where they speak that language, but if not there are great resources on the web). It’s a great way to inspire yourself because you have the drive to communicate.
I haven’t posted in a long time about my study regime or what resources I have been using lately. This post is going to focus on the audio resources I use, which are mostly podcasts (I’ll post about video resources later).
I spend about 30 minutes to 1.5 hours listening to Japanese. Usually I listen when I am getting ready for work in the morning, driving to the Metro and sometimes on the Metro.
For a long time I have used the free audio from Japanesepod101.com. This is a great resource to supplement other listening because they explain the grammar and new vocabulary and the conversations are realistic. The audio blogs are an especially good resource because there is no English but the level is not extremely advanced.
I subscribe to the premium level service because I wanted to try it out for a year, but honestly if you want to subscribe I recommend subscribing to the Basic subscription. I don’t use most of the extra resources you get with Premium, but the PDFs you get with both Basic and Premium are very useful. I will renew my subscription for Basic when my current subscription expires.
This free podcast and blog/learning center has listening for beginner and more advanced learners. Be careful, some of the audio has non-Japanese people speaking Japanese, which is not great for learning correct pronunciation.
I really like this podcast, but they haven’t put up new lessons in a long time. It is two guys who present dialogues and then discuss them and define the new vocab in Japanese. This podcast is almost entirely in Japanese.
This is an all Japanese podcast which has 2 guys and a girl discussing current fashion trends. This is natural Japanese, but uses Japanese which is a little more formal than some podcasts you find.
I think you can guess what this one is about. It’s sponsored by Proactiv so there is some talk of beauty and a little advertising, but it’s enjoyable listening.
The Japan Times will begin publishing thousands of pages of letters written by a young American woman living in Japan during the US occupation. Her letters detail the state of many cities after the war, the first appearance of Emperor Hirohito as a man (and not as a deity), and the well-off situations of the Americans living in Japan while most Japanese were scrounging for food.
The man who found the letters, Ken Alley, is hoping to publish them into a book entitled “Love, Betts — Letters Home from Occupied Japan” and he is currently searching for a publisher.
Read the full article here: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20080905f1.html
The Jouyou Kanji is the government issued list of kanji that everyone should know. However, the kanji placed on the list are not the most commonly used kanji encountered in everyday life, making the list not as useful as it could be.
I recently read Tae Kim’s post about the proposed revisions to the list and the “usefulness” of the list in the first place. Check it out for a great look at the Jouyou Kanji and how studying from the list might not be the most effective way to learn Japanese.
I don’t like many Japanese comedians because I think they are kind of stupid (slapstick humor is very popular) but I think Edo Harumi is hilarious! She mocks the middle aged Japanese women who are still trying to be cutesy and they have very specific mannerisms which she imitates well. She has traveled a lot and while her catchphrase is “guu” (Japanese appropriating the English word “good” which then morphs into “guu”) I think she has a lot more awareness of foreign cultures than most Japanese people. It’s nice to see a female comedian in Japan, too; with a few exceptions, most Japanese comedians are men.
Recently I have tried to up the amount of Japanese study that I do every day and I have been seeing an improvement in the rate of my language learning. I feel that I am retaining a lot more new words and grammar with my new study regimen.
The main part of my study is using Spaced Repetition Software (SRS) to review vocabulary every day. Depending on how well you know or understand the word or phrase, it brings up the words at different intervals to increase your brains retention. I first learned about SRS from All Japanese All the Time and after reading about his method, I also read a few reviews of the different types of SRS on Nihongo Pera Pera.
Since I have a Mac, I use Anki for my reviewing. With the function to sync to the internet, I can review from my PC at work and my computer at home without losing anything. I try to review every day, and whenever possible I add new vocabulary and sentences. Khaz on AJATT recommends using sentences as much as possible, as it teaches both grammar and vocabulary. When using sentences in my SRS I use only recognition, not production. When I use vocabulary I use both production and recognition.
As my vocabulary increases, I am trying to use more Japanese within the the answer portion of the SRS. For example, I will look up a word in the Sanseido Dictionary and use the Japanese definition as the question, and for the answer I need to guess the word. This is useful, but is slow going both to look up the word, and to be able to understand the definition. As my my vocab improves I will use this more and more.
Next Japanese language post I will talk more about my listening practice.
Some of my frequently used links are below. If you have any good links or books for Japanese practice, please comment below and tell me about them.
