maxiewawa

I looked at my blog this morning, and realised that there’s a lot missing.

I promised that I’d make some material in those languages every week. But for the past two weeks I’ve (seemingly) done nothing! This blog doesn’t have anything in either language!

Not so though. I’ve been reading a story over at youtube but have just forgotten to put a post up here.

What I’ve done is recorded myself doing the voices for a manga called Conan: the Detective. Basically just a whodunnit.

In the show notes of each video I’ve put a link to a translation of what I’m reading, so you can read along with me.

Here are the videos. They are alternately in Chinese and Japanese.

Part 1 (Chinese): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BcyQopKEiw
Translation: http://www.mangafox.com/page/manga/read/88/detective_conan/chapter.28039.61-635.0/
Part 2 (Japanese): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsOpQAbjOqw
Translation: http://www.mangafox.com/page/manga/read/88/detective_conan/chapter.28039/page.12/

Part 3 (Chinese): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-vx61nAvZU
http://www.mangafox.com/page/manga/read/88/detective_conan/chapter.28401/page.3/

Part 4 (Japanese): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw0JGej8BEo
Translation: http://www.mangafox.com/page/manga/read/88/detective_conan/chapter.28401/page.8/

This is the 5th post in a series where I’m documenting how I’m teaching English to my student. Her first language is Japanese.

My student is getting better at “gonna” and “gotta” but another problem has come to light. She’s applying Japanese grammar to English when using “gonna”.

She’s leaving the verb “to be” out of future sentences that involve adjectives. For example, “She’s gonna happy” instead of “She’s gonna be happy”.

Anyone who has learnt Japanese will know that, there are times when Japanese adjectives function like verbs, and I guess this is the reason that Aika has been leaving the verb “to be” out.

My assignment for this week is to get Aika out of this habit!

Listen to my musical composition for today here. Or watch it here.

There’s an interesting story behind today’s tune. It’s not mine though, so I won’t bother telling it.

Callum Macrae of the BBC does a much better job of it than I ever could; he has made a documentary about the civil war in northern Uganda. The synopsis is that a militia leader called Joseph Kony has been raping and pillaging that part of the world, and forcing children participate.

While listening to the podcast of the documentary, I heard part of a song written by a blind Ugandan about the war. Although I couldn’t understand a word, and only heard a few seconds of it, it grabbed me. I haven’t copied it exactly (I couldn’t from the few seconds I heard) but suffice it to say that I didn’t have an original idea when it came to this little tune, all of it was taken from the Ugandan musician that played it on BBC’s podcast. Can you hear how the fourth of the chord part is a little bit sharp? Even that was his idea.

If you want to hear the original, have a listen to the documentary podcast here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/7609324.stm

The original tune comes in at 20 minutes into it. Don’t let that put you off, it’s an interesting podcast.

I called the tune “Free Uganda” because I couldn’t think of anything particularly profound to say, but thought I should mention Uganda.

Listen to my music here: http://media.libsyn.com/media/maxiewawa/Free_Uganda.mp3

The original podcast is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/7609324.stm
(Click on “listen” to do just that, or “Podcast” to subscribe to it.)

Hope you like the tune! The whole explanation has been quite depressing, but I just in case you thought I pulled this composition out of thin air I thought I’d explain how I came up with it.

Cody, my partner in the Take Control Campaign (more on it here and here) was slacking off on one of his assignments. He made a commitment to stop biting his nails, but wasn’t having much success. I, being the helpful friend that I am, told him to “pull his finger out” (as we say in Australia) and he’s gone a day without biting his nails. Well done!

Cody pointed out to me that I haven’t been honouring (honoring) my side of the bargain either. You might have noticed that I promised some material in Korean, but haven’t done so yet.

Well Cody, here you are. Cody suggested a paragraph in Korean, but that’s not really an option at my current level. Instead, I called up our Korean teacher Hyunwoo-sonsengnim and told him about Cody’s recent success in his anatomy exam.

In case you don’t realise, “ummm” and “ahhh” and “ahrr….” don’t actually mean anything in Korean, I’m just not that good yet.

Listen to my conversation with Hyunwoo here.

This is the 4th post in a series where I’m documenting how I’m teaching English to my girlfriend. Her first language is Japanese.

Gonna and gotta. My student has always got these two mixed up. Over the years I have learnt that when Aika says “We gonna hurry up or we’ll be late” she actually means “We gotta hurry up or we’ll be late”.

So by the end of this week I hope that my English student won’t make this mistake again. Any ideas? I’m going to ask her what she has to do tomorrow. But that might be a little confusing, since ‘gonna’ has to do with the future.

Anyway, I’m open to suggestions.

And I realise that ‘gonna’ and ‘gotta’ are very slangy, and that we should probably say “I’m gonna…” and “I’ve gotta…” but I’m going to make sure that she knows the difference between the two words before moving on to that level.

Oh and also, I forgot to upload my musical post for yesterday. Here it is.
http://media.libsyn.com/media/maxiewawa/34.mp3

Here’s the recording of this short story. It’s a little peculiar so I’ll just let you listen without me telling you anything beforehand.

Here are the words:

嘿！你是谁？
え！あなた誰？
Hey! Who are you?

我叫［转］。
「曲がる」と申しますけど。
I’m “Turner”.

你在我家干什么？偷东西？
私の家で何するの？盗む事？
What are you doing in my house? Stealing?

不是，我是你儿子的朋友。
そうじゃなくて、私は息子さんの友達ですよ。
No, I’m your son’s friend.

我儿子的朋友？
息子の友達？
My son’s friend?

啊。。。女儿的朋友。
哦。。。娘の友達。
Ahhh… I mean your daughter’s friend.

是吗？奇怪，她没有告诉我今天会来一个朋友。
そうですか。妙ですね、彼女は今日友達が来るって教えなかったよ。
Really? Strange, she didn’t tell me that a friend was coming over.

她可能忘记告诉你了。她最近忙着读书。
忘れたかも知りませんね。彼女最近勉強をよくして、忙しい。
She probably forgot to tell you. She’s been busy studying.

忙什么？她最近轻松多了，都在家看电视！
忙しい？彼女は最近楽、家でテレビを見るばかり！
Busy? Recently she’s had it easy, doing nothing except sit at home watching TV!

是吗？我可能来错地方了。
そうっか？間違ったね。
Really? I guess I’ve come to the wrong place.

In today’s Chinese commentary, I meet several people who try to recommend prostitutes, notice several beggars, am almost run over, and interview someone about a huge line of people waiting for something.

It’s here. Or if you can’t see the link, here it is in longhand: http://media.libsyn.com/media/maxiewawa/Commentary_2.MP3

Language warning, I say the ‘f’ word in this one! Someone almost runs me over, so my natural reaction includes the word ‘f***’.

The most interesting part is probably at around 7 minutes. Someone tries to sell me something, and I try to draw her into a conversation about all the people lining up. Here’s the transcript:

Buy shopping.
Shopping 不要。You want something? 你要买什么？
我不要。我卖东西，你要买什么？
哦，你卖的！(Max pretends to not speak Chinese very well.) 我是记者。哦，你是上海人？
我不是上海人。你们来拍他们买月饼，对吧？
我不是，就是想走路，看到那么多人排队，排什么？买月饼？
买月饼，对。
你是上海的记者，对吧。
不是。澳大利亚。
澳大利亚记者。
他们。。。为什么那么多人想买月饼？
因为今天是中秋节。
今天啊？
不是，快到了呀，(???)就是gift差不多。
Gift. 你也会。。。
(???)就是说，有时候喜欢吃，有时候就是送人。
就是一种传统。
对。(???)好多人每天(???)
每天？不是一年一次？
对，一年一次但是到八月份这一段时间就是半个月之内。。。八月份这个时间，每天就是这样。大概从十点种(???)
谢谢你。听众也谢谢你。

Buy shopping?
I don’t want “shopping”. You want something? (repeated in Chinese)
I don’t want anything. I’m selling things, what do you want to buy?
Oh! You’re selling! (Pretends that it was all a misunderstanding; actually I was just trying to draw her into conversation) I’m a reporter. You’re from Shanghai?
I’m not from Shanghai. So you’re here to photograph people buying mooncakes, right?
I’m not, I’m just going for a walk, saw so many people lining up… why are they lining up? To buy mooncakes?
Buying mooncakes, that’s right.
You’re a Shanghai reporter, right?
I’m not. Australia.
An Australian reporter.
They… why do so many people want to buy mooncakes?
Because today’s Mid-Autumn Festival.
Today?
Not today, it’s almost here. (???) They’re kinda like gifts. <—she said ‘gift’ in English.
“Gift”. You can also…
It’s like, some like to eat them, some give them away…
It’s a kind of tradition.
Yes. (???) lots of people every day(???)
Every day? Isn’t it once a year?
Yes, it’s once a year, but in August, in the space of half a month… at this time of August, it’s like this every day. From about 10 in the morning (???).
Thank you. The listeners thank you too.

I hope that learners get something out of this short conversation. Although not everything is grammatically correct, and neither of us talk in a very standard accent, I hope you can hear a normal, everyday conversation, instead of the hermetically sealed material that one usually gets when learning a language.

• What do you think of people that eat junk food?
  What do you think of people that try to trick foreigners?
  What do you think of the woman that wants to be the next Japanese Prime Minister?

I’m going to ask my English student these questions when she gets home. They all require an answer in a format that she always has trouble with. Also, they’re all on issues that I think she’ll have an opinion on.

The grammar used to answer these questions in Japanese is quite simple, which is why she has so much trouble with the English. In Japanese we’d say the equivalent of:

Junk food eating people are…
Trying to trick foreigners people are…
Wants to be Prime Minister woman is…

…where as the proper English would be:

People that eat junk food…
People that try to trick foreigners…
The woman that wants to be the next Japanese PM is….

If you have any opinions on these issues, better ideas for teaching this pattern, or just want to say hello, please leave a comment!

I recorded a tune just now. Here it is.

The first time I heard it in its entirety I just had to laugh. I had been trouble getting all the parts down just right, but when I heard the completed thing I just… well, I like it anyway. Funny in a gruesome way.

I made a video too, but the card-reader-thingy I have broke. I’ll have another tomorrow and you’ll be able to see me recording the recorder part. For all those people who didn’t believe I actually played the guitar in the last musical video I made (you couldn’t see my hands) I made sure to capture me actually playing something.

Cody put something interesting in his blog the other day; he’s drawn up a plan of action for this calendar month. In it he’s put everything that he wants to achieve. Good for him! I suspect that he’s been procrastinating too long on things that he feels that he needs to do, and feels that putting them up somewhere for everyone to see will help him do it!

Well I’ve decided to do the same thing.

I’ve always liked writing stories/blogs/making youtube videos, but have always been lazy. Well not this month.

From this week, and for the next four weeks afterward, I’ll have a post (or at least some kind of content) in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English, and have a new musical recording. I’m planning to have:

Music on Mondays,
English on Tuesdays,
Chinese on Wednesdays,
Japanese on Thursdays,
Korean on Fridays

If I forget a day, I’m sorry, but feel free to pester me by leaving a comment. Why not join our campaign by making a plan of your own?