さくぶん ＃３

There's another post below this one, in case you missed it.

Anyway, the さくぶん... Sorry about the "セーター" line. I'm an Ingrid Michaelson fan...

    にじゅうねんごのわたし


     さんがつ　から　はちがつ　まで　フランス　の　ルチョン　に　います。　せあき　で　いちばん　きれいな　ところ　です。　ルチョン　の　せいかつ　は　いそがしくない　です。　そして　てんき　は　いつも　いい　です。　　まいにち　やま　を　さんぽします。　そして　ほん　を　にさつ　よみます。
    くがつ　から　にがつ　まで　パリ　に　います。　しずかな　せいかつ　が　すき　です　が、　にぎやかな　せいかつ　も　すき　です。　そして　かいものしたい　です。　まいにち　じてんしゃ　で　きっさてん　へ　いきます。　パん　を　たべます。　いっかげつ　に　にっかい　えいが　を　います。
    ほにゃ　で　はたらきます。　しょして　ゆうめいな　まんが　を　かきます。　たくさん　ドラ　が　あります。　いい　セーター　を　かいます。　それから　たくさん　ひと　が　あげます。
    けっこんしません。　こども　が　いません　が、　いぬ　が　さんびき　と　さかな　が　ごひき　います。　まいしゅう　はは　に　でんわ　を　かけます。　あに　が　カリフォニア　に　いあす　から、　まいとし　カリフォニア　へ　いきます。　わたし　は　さびしくないです　よ。

i was never very good at fps's, even as a small child

I've been remiss in my blogging--すみません！

I hope everyone had a good break. Here's a 4こま about mine.　（ヴィルジニア　から　きました。　ひこうき　で　かえりました。　The first panel is supposed to be me in ひこうき　の　中, sorry if this isn't clear.)



I've been trying to play through ふるい games, since they're the only ones I can afford... I might buy a PS3 in say, five years?

of grainy photographs

So I actually worked pretty hard on this sloppy little comic, but it got killed dead by my digital camera (my roommate's scanner was even worse, though). Sorry for the graininess.

It actually reads RIGHT TO LEFT, even though I wrote out the characters from left to right...oops. I don't really read manga so my panelling's pretty bad, too...

It's pretty hard to see some things due to the carnage perpetrated by my camera, so let me explain them/my katakana use to you!

On the first page, I use スタタタ for running footsteps, チラ meaning a quick glance backwards, コロ as something rolling--she's tripping on a little rolly robot there :O --and バン as an impact sound.


Page two, I use katakana for the characters' names (little monocle girl's name is March). Panel nine, I use the katakana ジロ as in a hard stare. Panel ten, the dude in the hat is showing her the wrench he's taken from her Q_Q. Last panel, I use ルンタタタ as the lady hummin' a song.


Page three, on panel two I use ピト　as the noise of something being lightly touched. Later ピリ as a sound of electricity/pain, even though technically I guess it's supposed to be ピリピリ. Lastly, ガクン...another impact noise. She sure seems to fall down a lot, huh?

Sorry if it seems like a snippet of a larger work, because it kind of is...I came up with this girl/world for my AP Art portfolio last year, and I just turn to it when I need to do art of some kind. I'm a bit out of practice, though, as you can see...

All my sound effects were taken from http://www.lolikon.org/misc/soundfx.html.

je ne wakarimasu pas

First of all: to anyone reading this ブログ who considers themselves a Japanophile, I would really love to interview you for my sociology project! It should only take about fifteen minutes, you'd get to talk about something you like (Japan), and I would appreciate it so much. It's not one of those nifty surveys where you enter a raffle for participating but I could...draw you something if you want? :D

So anyway, I haven't posted a 4-koma here for a while...すみません。　Hope I can make it up to you with some rabbits. Word on the street is しゅくぼ　means "aunt younger than parent," "しゅくふ" means "uncle younger than parent," and しゅうてい means "cousin younger than writer." I could be wrong, though.



And for the "assignment" portion of this post...voici mon てがみ。

やまださんへ
　　　「すみません。にほんごがあまりわかりません。」
　おげんき　です　か。　わたし　は　メリッサ　です。　アメリカ　から　きました。　　わたし　の　はは　は　フィリピノじん　です　が。　ちち　は　さんせい　です。
　じゅうななさい　です。　たんじょうび　は　十一月　十六日　です。
　バーナード　の　いちねんせい　です。　だいがく　の　せいかつ　は　いそがしい　です　が、　とても　たのしい　です。　いつも　ともだち　と　しょくどう　で　ごはん　お　たべます。　とても　べんり　です。　まいにち　りょう　で　べんきょうします。
　バーナード　は　ニューヨーク　の　だいがく　です。　ニューヨーク　は　しずか　じゃ　ありません　が、とても　おもしろい　です。　やまださん　の　まち　は　どんあ　まち　です　か。　さむい　です　か。

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　メリッサ


Still don't know how to end a letter...or a blog post, really. じゃ、また。

Katakana Analysis

...a little late.
It makes me a little さみしい that we are changing our ブログ groups, but rest assured that I will go on drawing and failing as always!　<3
Now, onto analysis...

One source I drew from was the Japanese children's show Kogepan, about a burnt bread bun and his struggles to fit in with the other パン. I kind of sympathize with him:



...up to a point. Anyway, こげパン　often interacts with キレイパン, "pretty bread," on the show. But why is "kirei" written in katakana? I thought maybe for emphasis--the katakana stands out because it is more angular and blunt than the other characters--because the artist/writer is trying to emphasize that these are non-burnt, pretty bread, since こげぱんはきれいじゃありません ;_; But once ユジンさん said キレイパン　is a character name, I thought maybe the emphasis was because they were introducing a new character? Maybe it's both!

Another source I looked at were tanka by a modern poet, Machi Tawara. The translation of one of them is:

Suddenly it's there, and in the end it makes a stain across your heart:
like a streak of lily pollen is the mark of jealousy.

Jealousy, in the poem, is written "ジェラシー". But the word "jealousy" in Japanese is しっと, so Google tells me. So why use the katakana--and indeed this word at all? One would think in something beautiful like たんか　you wouldn't want some word in English cluttering things up. Well, I'm not one to interpret poetry, but maybe her point is that jealousy is something foreign, something strange, especially after the benign image of "a streak of lily pollen." And the way that the poem suddenly ends with this strange word, in bold katakana, goes along with the "suddenly it's there" line. Does that make sense?

Let's...not answer that last question, and think instead about the different ways textbooks describe katakana! "For writing loan words and foreign names."　"For words borrowed from other languages." "To write foreign names and loan words." "Loanwords, onomatopoeic words, and words the writer wishes to emphasize." That last one just had to break the mold, didn't it?...

I guess how you describe katakana just depends on how deep you want to go into it. "Loan words and foreign names" pretty much covers how we've been using katakana in class so far, and it would make sense for that to be the description in a textbook. Then, one textbook went into onomatopoeia and emphasis, which went a little further. But there are other uses we went over too: for slang words and for being "fashionable." There may be more as well. As the writer of a textbook, you just have to make the executive decision of what to include...

And as the writer of a blog, you just have to know when to stop writing. じゃあまた。

フェイル

So I tried to spice up my blog a little, and the result is a little faily. But hey, my blog title didn't just come out of nowhere, you know. I had to earn it, and fail is something that has to be cultivated over several years. This is one of those years.

Here's a bitty 4-koma about what happened... (The first panel is me thinking up a きれい　template.)


Have I mentioned I'm really, really bad at CSS?

Anyway, I feel bad because I haven't actually been posting about Japan/Japanese culture. I guess I could always pimp わたしのそぼのほん. (Google tells me "そぼ" is the word you use when talking about your own grandmother, but this wouldn't be the first time Google has lied to me.)

So my grandma is a にほんじん, and she wrote this book, Snow on Willow, about growing up both in にほん　and in アメリカ around the years of WWII. Apparently someone in a school is trying to make it part of their curriculum, which I think is pretty cool! I could only hope to end up in a curriculum one day...maybe in AP Fail?

じゃあ、また。

still trying to post まいしゅう

...even if no one reads this. Er, even if これ　お　だれ　も　よみません. Is that correct? It's ridiculous how much I fail at this new grammar. Not as much as my failures with telling time though...

anyway, you guys have to deal with だめだめ　traditional art since tablet's still acting up.



Anyway--anyone reading this have any suggestions on what I should play next? I never actually played the original EarthBound, but I already know everything that happens...should I play it anyway? Hm...

and to end on a happy note:

mr. saturn you aren't fooling anyone. <3

Don't feel like doing your しゅくだい? Update your blog!

I mean, what do you do when you have a lot of homework? Actually do it?

Anyway, last にほんご　の　クラッス　we looked at some people's blogs, and they had posted some stuff about anime. Instantly I felt a need to assert my Japanese nerd cred, too. So...let me just tell you a bit about a game I've been playing recently, and then I'll get back to my two papers.


Are you guys familiar with the Earthbound series? This is the third (kind of) in the series, only released in Japan for the Gameboy Advance. So, obviously, I'm playing it in America on my netbook...






There are lots of things I like about this game, but first and foremost would have to be Mr. Saturn (directly above). You just don't understand happiness until you have been to Saturn Valley. ...Have I out-nerded everyone yet?

(To Josh: Yeah, I'm a mainstream girl, I run Ubuntu. But then I instinctively avoid anything shiny, assuming it'll slow down my computer in horrible ways...)

and one らいしゅう later...

こんばんは　みなさん！

On my previous post I received a question about anthropomorphic penguins. As a Linux user (mostly), I can tell you that this is not entirely unlikely.

Anyway, the comics are going to be a bit shoddy for a while because...it's a long story but I can't get pen pressure on my tablet right now. It'll happen.

This comic is about my love of sleep verbs. Also I feel for whoever asked what the verb for "sleep" was, because we did learn "to fall asleep" but not "to sleep," like "se coucher" vs. "dormir" en francais. (I guess it's the same in にほんご but I understand the reasoning behind the question)



That's all I got. A demain (maybe)!

Now with えいご！

Hi everyone (? who is reading this?), this is Melissa, a Barnard first-year full of fail. I hope that through my fail, you all will learn valuable life lessons.

I am taking にほんご because I've always wanted to, and because I love languages (and am finding it very hard not to lapse into フランスゴ--French--as I write this).

I am not good at writing, art, OR Japanese, so I plan to make this a bit of a comic blog to put these three fields together and somewhat mask my fail. My two roommates make an appearance in this one, and are actually very understanding of the "melissa-learns-by-saying-things-over-and-over-while-you-are-trying-to-study" thing. Sorry about the bad handwriting!

こんばんは！

こんばんは　みなさん〜　どうぞ　よろしく。わたし　は　メィッサ　です。　バアナアド　だいがく　の　いちねんせい　です。ヴェルジニャ　から　きました。　じゅうななさい　です。

さようなら！　
：D