Japanglish

I had a good opportunity to listen to a lecture by a linguist who is working for The National Institute for Japanese Language. He is an expert of various Japanese; accurate Japanese, words of foreign origin, honorific, dialect etc.
Today's point of the lecture was how medical staff should communicate with patients who don't use medical terms.
It was surely interesting.

During the lecture, I remembered that the institute suggested how to paraphrase words of foreign origin called Gairai-go.
Parhaps you've already known that we've adopted lots of words from foreign languges and use them in daily conversation.
Let me show you some examples with clues.
Can you guess what they mean?

From English
chokoreeto (is sweet)
koohii (is bitter)
basu (to take to go to somewhere)
terebi ( do you watch?)
raihu sutairu ( I'm very interested in your ..)
toraburu (what happened!?)
depaato (I went shopping)
botan (press, fasten, undo)

From Spanish or Portuguese
pan ( for breakfast)
koruku (wine bottles have...)

From German
arubaito (to earn money..)
karute ( square-shaped)
wakuchin ( to guard against infection)

We still keep adopting foreign languages and some of them, especially economic terms and IT terms , are impossible to understand without Google.

Surprisingly, the linguist didn't deny Gairai-go. He also said that Gairai-go can make sentences sound soft and easy to understand by women and young people.

That makes sense.

result

My Chinese examination is getting harder and harder.
Today I only got a mark of 63/100. It's embarrassing.
Our teacher was really worried about our enthusiam. Because she said we looked very disappointed just after the exam. For me, there is no problem.
I tend to be too nervous before exam but I'm optimistic about the result.

But I noticed that I had to change my style.
Do you want to know my new strategy to improve my Chinese skills?

I'm going to take other 30-minute one-to-one lessons besides weekly class lessons.
Fortunatelly, my school offers that kind of lessons which is called "a pronunciation clinic". International students from China teach us as their part time jobs.
We can ask them about prununciation, how to say and anything we want. In stead of their lessons, we can also take 30-minute practice examinations.

Well....*sigh* Chinese pronunciation is TOO difficult for us.
I think Japanese is one of the easiest languages to pronounce, so if you are interested in Japanese, please try to learn convasational short phrases at first. You could improve fast and it must be enjoyable and actually useful.
It's just my opinion but.........I bet!

her name?

Thanks, everyone!
My parents came to see the baby from our hometown today, then they finally met her.

I was asked about her name ;) , so I asked it to my brother.
He said that he had almost decided her name which is including "flower".

That sounds cute, doesn't that?

Well, I have another examinaton tomorrow.
It's a Chinese examination.

After that, our classmates and I are gonna have a "Beijing Ducks Party".
Our previous teacher and current teacher are also coming.
I can't wait!

niece

I've become an aunt this morning.
It means my brother's daughter has been born.

All my family are so happy.
Yay! Yay! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!

The game has started!

The Japan vs. Croatia football game has started.
I'm watchig it on TV at home!!
Go!Go! Now! Shunsuke!

I can't move from here....

Well, it looks so hot and Team Japan looks in a hurry.
The commentator is worried whether Japanese players can keep their stamina in 90 minutes.
I'm worryng, too.


PK? What happened!!?? No way!
Ohhhh, good job, Kawaguchi..
Well, I'll concentrate on the game.

Juanes

He's cool, isn't he?
Is he so popular also in your country?

I'm studying Spanish on the radio almost every morning, and on TV every Thursday night.
At each lesson, both teachers show me popular songs sung in Spanish. Sometimes they choose old-fashioned music , like Julio Iglesias who my mother really liked, but last Thursday's song was "La Camisa Negra" by Juanes from Colombia.
I liked it instantly. I was captivated by its rhythm and his cool voice.
To be honest, at that time, I didn't know how popular he was all over the world.


It's fun to sing with him and wonder what they mean.
I just understand the meaning of "tengo la camisa negra (I have the black shirt)".
The rest of the lyrics? I dunno!

......yet.

Genki!

Thanks to YOUR advice, I'm "genki" now!

I keenly realized that getting enough sleep is very important to keep myself healty.
I swear not to stay up late anymore to watch "Prison Break"!!!!!!

It was a kind of addictions. Please be careful everyone!! It's much more dangerous and interesting than "24".

please...

don't ask me anything about the examination.

I'm going to study constantly from now on.

I'm afraid I've caught a cold again because of this changeable weather.
I have a sore throat...

exam

Today I have an examination.
I haven't studied enough...

I wish the examination will finish soon.

Good night.

kiss on where?

I'll add the information of my last post "Salsa".

My friend meant "kiss on the mouth".

Don't you think it's "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"?

Well, what do you think?

Salsa

Do you dance salsa? Or have you danced salsa?

I'm now very interested in the latin dance. My colleague and I are planning to join a dancing school where my friend is practicing every Saturday.

I asked another friend who had once been in a salsa school. She really liked it but her exboyfriend asked her to stop it 'cause, you know, salsa is one of the most passionate dances that a woman and a guy dance very close together.

She said, "be careful, Peach" and told us one surprising thing: after practicing, they had "free time" to just enjoy dancing to latin music. Some of latin dancers suddenly kissed her while they were dancing. It's weird in Japan but perhaps, it might be natural for them. So she had to dodge it whenever "kiss attack" started.

Scary ( =_= )
I didn't know such a dangerous style!!!

Ajisai

Hydrangeas are called "Ajisai" in Japanese.
We can see them in June, the rainy season.

The photo looks beautiful, doesn't it?

Ajisai is one of our pleasurs in this maggy and dismal weather.

"Ajisai Dera"(Hydrangea Temple) in Kamakura is a popular place to enjoy a nice hydrangea garden.
It's not that far from here. I think it takes about 1 hour from my house.
I'm planning to visit there.

In my opinion, hydrangeas look like rain drops.
Don't you think so?