Coincidentally, I finished the first series of JJBA today and watched the first two episodes of JJBA: Stardust Crusaders. First season really was amazing stuff; I love how they go to the wall, every time, no regrets. I'm still getting adjusted to all the changes in Stardust Crusaders, but I'm loving it, too; I wouldn't be surprised if I end up liking it even more than the first series.
I also watched the first two episodes of Acchi Kocchi today, because @AaronIsCrunchy's avatars were too cute so I bought it on Blu Ray, and it finally arrived today (along with my full Yona of the Dawn set, yessss, I might just go rewatch that, maybe even watch the dub, who knows, could get crazy). Anyway, Acchi Kocchi is really sweet, and yet the characters manage to feel real, rather than being predictable tropes rendered into animation; a rare combination. I'm really enjoying it, looking forward to watching more.
Edit: Just noticed I used three semicolons in this post. I may have a problem.
Certainly it would look messy if there was too many characters. Having something like 1-3 on each left and right side of the middle of the page. Depending on the size of them wouldn't destroy the balance of the page I imagine.
Confession: I can't get used to @AaronIsCrunchy's new avatar, and I keep wondering "who is this guy and why is he posting in all the threads I'm following?" All you people who keep changing your avatars need to simmer down, because it's confusing us old folks. Or at least this old folk.
The first episode of Amaama to Inazuma was absolutely fantastic. If you just want to see something so cute it quite literally hurts, yeah...
May contain feels though.
Excuse me? You mean to tell me Bananya isn't the next anime masterpiece, rivaling the likes of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Spirited Away?
This show is literally the reason anime should still exist!
This sounds promising. Will ensure I check that.
Just watched the first episode of Bananya. I'm pretty sure it's aimed at... 3 year olds, but it was just really nice to watch for 3 minutes. Sweet, kinda amusing, and I think as the series goes on it has the potential to be seriously funny.
Coincidentally enough, I've been thinking about Tae Kim's guide a lot recently, as well as self-studying Japanese in general. Since its summer and classes are over, that means I have to self-study until classes start up again in the fall. Personally I used Tae Kim for my first 4 months or so of studying Japanese, and then I had the privilege of taking actual classes at my University, where we used Genki, and now I am back to using Tae Kim (until the semester starts, when I will be using Genki 2).
I read through Tae Kim's basic, essential, and special expressions sections each around 3 times when I first started learning. I feel that tackling up to 2 - 3 lessons a day is a good amount, and then reviewing those respective lessons after was a good day of learning and practice. And then once I finished the whole section, I would reread it again. Work through it slowly again, and once I finished, would go through that process one last time before finally moving on to the next section. With the lack of practice material, I felt this helped drill in the key concepts to me.
Once I finished through special expressions, I finally started reading VNs with the help of dictionaries and consulting grammatical reference when I needed it. I read 2 moeges (that I hated) in this way. By the time I finished the second moege, University started, and I quit studying this way (with VNs) and simply studied for my class instead. Contrary to what many people in the VN community advocate (and I think often exaggerate), I don't think you can learn Japanese simply by learning grammar, and then reading with dictionaries. I suppose if you do this method long enough, eventually a decent amount of vocabulary and grammatical comprehension ability will get stuck to in your head. But even then, all this will accomplish is an ability to roughly comprehend the written language. And I emphasize the word roughly. Without formal training, you will mostly be interpreting Japanese rather than actually really understanding it. Just because you understand how to comprehend grammar, does not mean you understand how to use it properly. I remember running across this problem when I started classes, since I knew grammar that was above my level, but only on a comprehensive scale. When I tried using it, I usually used it wrong.
That said, I think that reading VNs, manga, etc, is really good practice for formal study. It will help you hone in concepts that you learned, and see how you can use them in ways out side of your textbook's rigid usage. Or rather, your text book's rigid usage, is a good starting point, and reading native material is the next step to further those concepts.
It may sound from my post that I don't believe that Japanese can be learned without the supplementation of classes, and this is not true. I think any language can be learned with both self study and with sufficient exposure from the actual language (and part of expose in my view, includes interacting with people irl in that language). But I think taking the latter route (solely self-study) is a lot harder than it is often given credit. Often in the VN community, especially on Fuwa, I will occasionally see these dumb posts that go along the line of "oh, I just read VNs with a dictionary, studied grammar, and I learned Japanese." This line of thinking, which I mostly associate with Aaeru's learn japanese guide, gives the terrible advice of studying grammar, and then moving on to reading VNs with dictionaries. The dangerous part of this, is the "and then" part. You should not stop studying (or under prioritize) hardcore study of grammar once you move on to native material! Rather, you should continue studying as your primary focus, and reading VNs in Japanese as "practice" to reinforce what you learned. But you don't learn from reading VNs, it is just a means to reinforce material that you learn from either a textbook or a teacher. The moment somebody says something that suggests that they use VNs to learn, rather than as practice aided with serious study, I dismiss them as being full of shit.
With all that said. I think that serious practice material for Tae kim would be really really helpful. Currently Tae Kim's grammar is a great grammatical reference, and also great review, but not so great of a textbook in my view. And a big problem is that I don't think that it has good practice material aiding it. Rather, you can only really passively learn from Tae Kim, without being able to really actively practice what you learned (through writing, speaking, and listening). That said, I think practice problems should be made by somebody who fulfills these 2 requirements. 1) They know Tae Kim's guide well 2) Their Japanese is strong, at the very least N2 level, preferably N1.
In any case, great post. I think you brought up an important issue.
AaronIsCrunchy got a reaction from Zebhra in [CLOSED] The Final Editon of Official Fuwa Anime Club: Revamp Cycle and Fall Seasonal Cycle
AaronIsCrunchy got a reaction from Kawasumi in What are you listening to right now?
AaronIsCrunchy got a reaction from john 'mr. customer' smith in What Anime are you watching now?.thumb.png.ef80b4edeaf4f5215327e33be09f1628.png)
AaronIsCrunchy got a reaction from Dergonu in キツネと私 vol.2 - Kitsune and me Vol.2 - Yuri light novel -