GoddessCarlie.com

Learn About the iPhone in Japanese

Is anyone else excited about the new iPhone comming out on the 11th of July? It’s so close yet so far away.

Well, now you can learn more about the iPhone and practise your Japanese at the same time. The iPhone’s guided tour is now in Japanese. It’s basically the same as the English one, but localised for Japan. However, the section on the keypad is awesome, you get to see how to type fast in Japanese.

One of the reasons I’m excited about the iPhone is because of the way Japanese is integrated into it easily. I don’t have to go and change my global settings to make everything either English or Japanese. I can use both easily. I’m also hoping that there will be some good flash card software and other things like this so I can study Japanese on the go.

As you may have guessed, I’m planning on getting it - It’s convenient that my current plan runs out very soon and my ipod is also very old and needs updating. It feels like the timing is perfect! Plus, in Australia at least, the plans are very affordable (even if we still have crap data plans compared to some countries - compared to others though we are lucky). I just hope they don’t sell out before I get a chance to get one!

Anyone else excited about the iPhone? Or is that a silly question?

New Season “Summer” 2008! Yay!

Hi Everyone. I’ve been sick. In fact, I still feel sick, I can’t shake it! Dammit! But, today I’m feeling a lot better - mainly because this week the new Japanese drama season has begun! I’ve spent most of tonight watching lots of promotional stuff of Maou, Ikuta Toma and Ohno Satoshi’s new drama that aired last night. OMG, I’m so excited. I love tarot, and I love Ikuta.

Even though I didn’t do as well as I usually do at university last semester, plus I was suffering from serious burnout, I got better marks than I was expecting, which is fantastic. In regards to my quest to Remember the Kanji, I’m still at the 600 kanji mark, however I’ve been practising a lot trying to get back up to where I was before. Over the next six months I hope to keep reviewing these as well as slowly increasing the amount of kanji I know.

I haven’t been reading manga, however I’ve been going through my copies of the Japanese Graded Readers, level two. For me, the only problem I really face with them is vocab. I can understand the stories except for a word here or there. Some I can get from context, but others I read the whole story and still can’t guess the word. I want to go through them again with a dictionary.

That’s the news, you’re up to date.

8 Random Facts About Carlie

Yes, that’s me in the photo.

I’ve been tagged by Chris to write 8 random facts about myself. I’ll try to relate some things to learning Japanese, however, it is great to know more about the person behind the blog.

The rules are:

1. People who are tagged need to write a post containing 8 random facts about themselves.
2. At the end of the post you should name several other bloggers to be tagged.
3. Leave a comment for the bloggers and link to your own post.

So here I go:

1. I hate following the rules.
   More accurately, perhaps, is that I can’t follow instructions. I just can’t do it. Following a recipe or sewing pattern? I can’t. I just end up tossing what ever into the mix, hardly ever measure anything. I guess you could say it is the same for following instructions for learning Japanese products. It is so natural for me to adapt everything to the way that I want to do it, I often forget that other people don’t do this and need step-by-step instructions. It’s also the reason why I can’t do origami.
   This is also why I wont be tagging people for this meme. If you want to do this, please leave me a comment and I’ll link to the people who respond to this meme at the bottom of this post!
2. I work in a scrap booking store.
   Yes, I get paid to scrap book, I have to make displays for when new products come in. Yes, it is lots of fun. But it’s still retail and so I need to get out. But I am very happy working there (for the most part!) and it is a great job to have while I’m still at uni. Oh, and I can’t wait to scrapbook my upcoming trip to Japan, I already have bought a lot of stickers etc! I’ve always kept a diary and love taking photos, so for me scrapbooking is an obvious step in the journey of keeping memories.
3. I’m left handed.
   Which makes me uber creative. I also write with my book on a 90 degree angle. Not awkwardly like a lot of lefties do, but quite naturally that many people don’t even realise I do it.
4. I listen to Metal!!
   Still searching for good Japanese metal bands that sing in Japanese. So far I’ve only managed to find Japanese metal bands that sound like they are from the 80’s and sing in English. Where is the Rammstein of Japan??
5. I’m afraid of heights
   But I love challenging that fear. I love high thrill rides, even if I’m scared shitless. I want to bungee jump and sky dive in the near future. Also thinking about doing some bridge climbing. I think I’m very fortunate because I think my fear would make rides more exciting. I feel sorry for you non-scaredy-cats.
6. I don’t mind reading cheesy romance novels.
   The thing is, I read books too quickly. It can often be an expensive habit, as often I buy books rather than borrowing from a library. Romance books are cheap. You can get four books for around $11, equalling around 1000 pages too. Often they are satisfying as they are really funny (although, they aren’t trying to be). The only thing is, I only read historical or fantasy romances. I like my books set in other worlds.
7. I love Amigurumi.
   It’s my latest craft based obsession. And it’s Japanese! You can get lots of free patterns at Ravelry.com. Although my creations never seem to go to plan, see point 1.
8. I can read tarot cards.
   Those things freak me out sometimes with how honest they are. I have around 10 packs of tarot cards. I don’t read with them as much as I used to, but it is a lot of fun. As a writer, the archtypes on the cards appeal to me as well. As does the art. My next tarot buy will be Stephanie Pui-Mun Law’s - I love her art work.

Again, if you want to respond to this meme, just leave a comment linking to it here!

ヘ(^_^ヘ)(ノ^_^)ノ Oh Yeah!

OK, you may have noticed things were a bit quiet around here. I was going through a stressful end of semester exam period. But it’s over, and so I’m back and ready to focus on things I’d rather focus on. Like this site!! To make up for my absence, I’ve prepared something delicious for you all to enjoy. Well, at least those of us who have good taste! Enjoy!

Carlie’s Japanese Progress - May 2008

May 2008 has been Major Burn Out Month. I discovered my problem, however - it wasn’t burnout from Japanese, rather it was a burnout from University. I will definitely be making a post on the pros and cons of learning a language in the class room.

That being said, I tried to maintain my Japanese study, even if I didn’t want to touch a lot of what I had to do with a ten foot pole. Some of my activities included the following:

• Manga Reading.

I’ve been reading manga for the first time in Japanese, and I enjoyed it a lot. It was a huge motivation booster, being able to read it, even if I couldn’t understand all of the words, I could understand the story as a whole. My next step will be to go back through it and look up the words that I didn’t understand.

• Anki

Last month I had 619 cards in my Anki deck. Now I have 441. I totally changed my focus in Anki from sentences to mainly Heisig with some vocab thrown in.

However, again, I have barely touched Anki in May. I plan on deleting all the vocab words from Anki and then just using it for Heisig for the time being.

• Drama Watching

In April I watched about 26 hours of Japanese tv. This month it was down, mainly due to it being the end of the university semester. I watched a total of 15 hours and 37 mins.

In May I really focused on listening and understanding. I tried to repeat out loud sentences. I am finding that I can understand more and more, with, again, vocabulary seeming to be the biggest problem I am having.

• Vocabulary

I am experimenting with many vocabulary acquiring methods at the moment. I’ll talk more about this as I explore more about this

Overall, not the best month, but not the worst month. For June, I’d love to focus a lot of Heisig and vocabulary building, as well as keeping up watching lots of TV for enjoyment and to practise my listening/speaking skills.

New YamaP Drama - Code Blue

A new drama has been announced for the summer season 2008 - Code Blue. It is about an emergency service that uses helicopters to get to people in trouble quickly.

While (for me) the premise doesn’t sound that exciting, the cast make this one something I’ll have to check out. We have Yamashita Tomohisa, Aragaki Yui and Toda Erika, all staring as Flight In-Training Doctors.

This drama will air Thursday nights from July 2008.

• Code Blue’s Official Website

New Layout!!

Please excuse the mess, I’m still sorting out my brand new layout! I hope you like it, tell me what you think in the comments!

I’ve been playing around with it all night, and now I must go to bed. Tomorrow hopefully I’ll finish updating it, but for now everything should be in working order.

Hana Kimi Special - Videos

The Hana Kimi website has updated with some videos of the new special that is coming soon. It looks like they are having a lot of fun filming (but I haven’t watched all of the videos yet). I can not wait for the special to air, I really enjoyed this show!

Ohno Satoshi and Ikuta Toma to Star In Drama Summer 2008

Fantastic news! Arashi’s Riida, Ohno Satoshi, and awesome sexiness Ikuta Toma, are both going to star in an upcoming drama called “Maou”. Here’s a video:

This drama is a remake of the popular suspense drama that was aired in Korea last year. Ohno Satoshi will be playing the role of a two-faced lawyer, one of which is a kind hearted soul and the other who is plotting revenge, using his brilliant mind, on the person who killed his relative. On the other hand, Ikuta Toma will play the double lead role of the man, who has become a detective due to his dark past, who is pursuing the mysterious series of murders and fighting against the devil (maou). - from Dramawiki

I like Toma’s hair! - Why does the weather report have to be in the way! And are tarot cards going to be apart of it? (revealing one of my other hobbies here ) I am looking forward to this!

I’m Here!

I’m sure most of you haven’t even noticed my absence, but I moved house and finally I have the internet back. I need to catch up on this season (oh, and my university work, that’s suffered badly :P) but I’m back and ready to update with some awesome content!!!