Tumgik
#Japanese is just very repetitive I feel and that somewhat shows in translation even if I try to avoid using the same terms
cto10121 · 3 years
Text
Thoughts On Aimer (Multilanguage)
Back into another Aimer hyperfixation, so here’s some meta on the translations of various versions! Note that this comes from the perspective of a non-native speaker of most of these languages (except for Spanish) relying on English translations. I’m mostly basing my analysis on the lyrics, not so much the arrangement or singers. And so, in no particular order:
French: The simplest but purest expression, almost to the fault of triteness. That said...weirdly enough...it’s still the best version. I really can’t say the other versions do it better (except perhaps the Hungarian). I think it’s the juxtaposition between Romeo’s light/heaven/flying imagery vs. Juliette’s the time/life/fire/burning imagery that works so well—it even forms part of the imagery in the Shakespeare as well, even in the equivalent scene in the play. I’m so amazed Presgurvic had picked it up even in translation. The other versions do not quite understand this (even the Hungarian mixes it up) and when they do, it’s not as powerful. Otherwise, I’m stumped. Maybe it’s the power of the infinitive? French being a Romance language? The privilege of being first? The D&C dream team? That splendid Chorus backed with the power and might of the Budapest Symphony Orchestra? All of the above?
Hungarian: The best apart from the French, no question. Faithful in both translation and intensity, while resolving some of the repetition of the French. That new Chorus verse before the Juliette one is super nice, and R&J not singing it really works. That “Nincs szebb, égni e tűzben!” line especially hits so. damn. hard. The only thing that maybe makes it not surpass the French is that it’s a little too smooth and lacks a bit of emphatic punch that the French gives. YYMV. Also, show-wise, after the showstopper of La Haine in-show, it does feel more of an anti-climax. Still my most revisited version, and even the covers are a bop.
Spanish: The most faithful of all the translations—that Hector King had it so easy, I’m crying in envy. Probably too easy, though: A lot of it is grossly simplified and awkwardly kiddish. First of all, I would have translated it as “Amar” instead of “Te Amo,” frankly, since the latter is much more awkward to sing; we don’t do that nifty Italian trick of using contractions so “T’Amo” is out. Also “Amar” is much more impressive in the infinitive. “Y soy como un ave en vuelo” (And I am like a bird in flight) is probably nicer than the French equivalent, (And touching the wings and birds) but Juliet’s “Et brûler au cœur d’un volcan” (And burning in the heart of a volcano) is turned into “Y quema en mí este fuego” (And this fire in me burns), which is just lamer. Their shared verse is inferior to the French. I would have been much more adventurous; at least the Italian had “E brucia nel desiderio”—“y quemar en su/mi deseo” would have worked. King obviously wanted more of an intimate address, but the infinitive works just as well in Spanish as in French, right??? It’s only in English that the direct “you” has more power. And “Aimer,” despite being a love song, is just not an intimate one. It’s emphatic, triumph, occasionally sweet and longing…but not intimate. But at least it’s coherent and they kept the “paying the price” part!!!! They’re the only version that manages this and I am so grateful. I always do like my foreshadowing.
German: The Austrians are always professional, though Michaela Ronzoni’s translation is uneven in the Austrian (her Les Rois is especially lame). I do like her Liebe, though. They use the united/binded motifs to especially good effect at the end especially, which is always strong in Germanic languages. It’s only too bad they had that slowed-down concert-hand-wavy arrangement—no doubt they were inspired by that Production That Must Not Be Named.
Dutch: Always awkward with the zijns, which the German managed to avoid, but there is at least some good lines, namely “Liefde—haar kraft zu leven.” I’ve always liked the sound of Dutch, those nasals are attractive, but overall it’s definitely one of the weakest of the official versions.
Russian: It’s hard to judge this because they went in a way different direction, pretty much writing original lyrics more in the lines of a wedding vow song. In general I prefer this direction over others the Italian one, but it could have been much better done. There is intensity in the “Give us, in the name of all lovers” and “Time, prolong this moment!” lines, (hardcore) but the beauty, passion, fire of their love...it’s all gone. :/ Can’t say I prefer it. Exchange vows as you like, but where is the love??? One amateur Russian production had lyrics closer to the French; no idea if they were better, but the Russians seemed to approve if the comments are anything to go by. It at least sounded less strange.
Japanese: Again, this is part of the Russian-Japanese-Romanian trio that make it more of a wedding vow song. The first half is very weak, a too-simple paraphrase of religious wedding vows, but it does get better and the last two choruses do deliver the intensity needed and they fit with the soaring melody. So it does redeem itself somewhat, but it’s still the weakest sung. But I do have a soft spot for the Toho, and Japanese does have a kind of pure sound that is apropos for the song and lyrics.
Romanian: Pleasant surprise with this one, introducing a pinch of Hungarian into the mix (with the hearts and the flying) but otherwise going its own way. More eternity motifs, and a nice imagery about two dewdrops always united (dos pequeños rocíos...your Latin is showing, Romanian). It’s not as developed as the Hungarian, though; Romanian’s Latin may have impeded it from following the Hungarian too closely, or perhaps they wanted a purer imagery on the song. They may have done better just by going with the French.
Italian: Not the worst, but by far the biggest disappointment. “Love and change the world” is especially lame; it sounds like a self-help slogan. Love and change and the world! Light up the darkness! Shout out your presence! Learn how to be your best you for only $29.99! I feel like ReG are trying to sell me something. They could have been much more faithful to the French imagery, frankly, which is much more impressive. At least “Ama” is a good starting note. “T’Amo” could have been another option. I remember there was an amateur Italian version on YT that began with “Cosa ti fa sognare?” Still remember it after these years, so maybe they were on to something. (Ed: Found it! YMMV, but it doesn’t sound too bad. Much smoother than the Incenzo and less dry, but it does lacks punch). Overall, it feels much more shallow than most versions, which have at least some gravitas.
Korean: Never mind, this may be the most faithful translation yet, as far as I can tell. Incredible for an Asian language. I like how the Chorus obscures the subject until the last line—gives it more punch that way. Def one of the nicer versions.
English: Hi, we interrupt Romeo and Juliet to bring you National Geographic: The Musical! The worst, hands down. Nature metaphors /= love. Don Black actually has a good track record with translating otherwise tricky French songs (re: Legrand’s Les parapluies de Cherbourg as “I Will Wait For You”), but he was obviously too out of it or just too old to do a decent job with Aimer. This is a song that really does not tolerate much deviation from the original meaning or even the original arrangement. I would have assumed he would have at least glanced at the Shakespeare or did an indirect translation with the same theme. Not...whatever the hell this is. The best that can be said for this is the meme-level quotability; once you hear British Romeo shout-sing THESE ARE MY MOUNTAINS!! you can never go back again.
17 notes · View notes
four-loose-screws · 3 years
Note
I have a another question about localization since you say all of the FE localizations are good but then there's the localization I hear about of FE fates a localize game that I hear so many Nintendo and FE fans say really bad things about it such as a lot of Mistranslations, Big Script changes, Memes being add in, etc also there was some censorship that got some of them really mad and with some of them saying that it's the wrost localize game of all time is it really that bad as they say?
Whew, this ask has been sitting in my inbox for actual months! Sorry for taking so long to respond! It’s probably unsurprising, but there’s so much to unpack here, and just deciding what to write had me going in circles for a long time.
I’m not entirely satisfied with this answer, but if I tried to discuss everything I have in mind about the Fates localization at once, I’d never be done. So I stuck to 5 topics to give a basic summary. If anyone wants to follow up on one particular issue for more info, or know more about something I didn’t discuss here, please do! I’d love to round out my argument.
First off - a little history just to get our minds situated into the history of localization. Bad localization has always existed, in fact that’s pretty much all we had in the 80’s and somewhat into the 90’s until it became clear that video games were going to become very complex in story and text going forward. Even a surface look into old localizations like this one tells a very long story. We have to remember that “bad” localization is everywhere, and it’s just always going to exist, even now that we have professional teams dedicated to localization, so long as humans aren’t perfect, time crunch is standard in the gaming industry, and we all have our own definition of “good”.
Next, here’s the short answer to the question:
When I say “overall” good, I do stress that pretty heavily, because of course there are plenty of changes that each individual player of the game will have their own take on. The Fire Emblem games simply have so much text in them that even a hundred small mistranslations or changes are just a drop in the bucket.
But I do agree that Fates is one of the worst of the FE localizations, if your terms are in number of changes from the Japanese. Awakening’s is up there too. 
Yeah, Awakening’s localization has a lot of questionable moments too. I know this take isn’t a surprise to all fans. But ever since Fates came out, I’ve seen people praising Awakening’s localization, and saying that 8-4 (an outside studio often hired by Nintendo, they localized Awakening) is an amazing localization team and Treehouse (Nintendo’s own team, did Fates) is garbage. TBH… They both did a job that has huge ups and downs. Are people really doomed to always forget the flaws that the previous installment in a series had as soon as something new comes out? Ha ha.
I think it’s common knowledge at this point that localizations are not made for the people who want a more direct-to-the-Japanese version. And that sucks, and the feelings of anger, disappointment, etc. in those who wanted a more direct translation are perfectly valid and entirely understandable. 
But we really, really need to understand and accept that localizations are made for the target audience/culture as a whole, and to sell to the most people possible. By getting angry and rejecting the entire game’s script as “total changes,” “butchering,” “changing the games to fit the localization team’s motives,” and all sorts of other toxic nonsense, we miss out on all of the nuance that actually exists. We rob ourselves of the fun that could be had analyzing whether or not the localizers did their job of adapting the game to the target audience, and how they might have done it better. And we can’t notice and appreciate all of the times the team did do a great or good job.
In the vast majority of cases, localizers only want those who play their games and read their scripts to have fun! To imply anything else is just wrong.
What I feel I can do here, to define if “the localization is as bad as they say,” is debunk these “all or nothing” arguments, and show that the changes aren’t usually anywhere near as drastic or simple as people make them sound.
Now let’s goooooo!
I read these two articles to prepare myself to write this, link here, and link here, which I got off a quick Google search. They are from the time of Fates’ release, and report on how a lot of people generally felt back then, so I found them to be good references to put myself back in time with the thoughts people had then.
Character Changes
These often tend to be the biggest topics of conversation. Hisame will be my topic of more detailed discussion today, but I’ll bring other characters up for a hot second too.
Tumblr media
I can never stress this enough, but Hisame made pickles in the Japanese. He was always talking about them in the Japanese, too. (Fates loves supports revolving around food in general, really.) I think people generally know this to be true? But I did read some comments saying that the pickle love was totally made up in the localization, you can see the proof above, so I had to point it out.
I don’t think a lot of people who have talked about his character picked up on this - admittedly, I didn’t until someone close to me explained it - but the main gag of Hisame’s character is that he’s young, but already acting like an old man. He lectures his own father on how to behave, etc., and makes pickles. And the “acting like an old man” is not totally lost in translation, with him still acting serious and lecturing his father. But the making pickles trait… I’d never pin that as an “old man” stereotype as a US American. Well, now I would, because I know Japanese culture well enough… but anyway.
And this is where the cultural differences come in. The number of people farming and making traditional foods from scratch is dwindling fast in Japan. In just five years there, I watched countless rice paddies and other small produce fields be turned into houses or apartment buildings. The elderly farmers are becoming too old to care for their crops, and their kids choose to pursue other careers, so the family sells off the farmland. Following along this trend is traditional pickle making. You can just buy them ready to eat in the supermarket, so why make your own? Most people don’t even have the space to be making them if they wanted to. And so, pickle making has come to be seen as something old people do. It fits in with Hisame’s “old man” character perfectly.
But again, as an American, I never would have figured that out without knowledge about Japan. Of course you could argue that the localizers didn’t need to change anything about him. The making pickles was quirky and unique, and would give you a chuckle as is. But there was space to make him funnier, so they did. That is, after all, was what the Japanese intended, for it to be funny. It’s not funny in the same way… but sometimes it’s impossible to be.
And that is what is most important in localization between two wildly different languages like Japanese and English - not retaining the same words, but the same intention or mood. The same words can convey a totally different meaning or mood, or make no sense, because of cultural differences. So localizers need to achieve the same mood, not the same words. I have come to see people understand this much better as the years go on, and the general gaming population becomes more learned about what localization is.
Of course, that’s a pretty simplified way of looking at it. But that’s how I summarize localization as a whole, in an easy way to understand. You might not agree with exactly how the localizers did what they did, but I think we might all be able to agree that they were trying to do their job and had no malicious intent to butcher the Japanese original or something absurd like that.
One more thing that’s relevant to this - Japanese people don’t care about repetition so much. The same character tropes are repeated over and over, the same lines are repeated over and over… In the US, we don’t like that! It’s boring and dull! This cultural difference is a constant struggle in localization. A lot of the people who think they want a direct translation don’t realize that it will be boring to them… So localizations alter and add details and lines here and there to give some more variation. This also helps to explain Hisame’s changes to talk even more about pickles.
And I’ve seen many a comment from people saying they liked Hisame in the localization. They found his exaggerated pickle lines fun, and enjoyed many good laughs. How can we call his new characterization outright bad when it worked for some? When they like it more than a straight Japanese translation? He’s still essentially the same guy… just some of the things he says are different. That’s not much of a change at all.
...And back to that original screenshot I showed. Isn’t Hisame still serious in the localization? His lines are funny, but I’m under the impression that he himself is still dead serious. ...Anyway. That’s about all I have to say about Hisame.
Many characters have changed lines. There’s no disputing that. But something to always question is how far do these changes go? Did the localizers completely change the intent or tone of the original? Or are they playing up certain character traits the characters always had in the Japanese? Or is something else going on? 
Tumblr media
This is also a prime example of how shallow some articles or “analysis” into the Fates localization are. You can’t look at one line change and make a sweeping conclusion about an entire character. Always be suspect of stuff like this. Kana ALWAYS acted like a little kid. That’s their entire schtick. They are your cute little mama/papa loving kid. That one line may have changed that scene significantly, but Kana’s whole character? No, not at all.
Even Kana’s S support changes aren’t as simple as it seems. They aren’t all changed. The 2nd gen characters that Kana is close in age to retain their romantic endings, such as Midori. Only those considerably older than Kana turned platonic. 
And Effie, another character commonly cited as changed? She wasn’t radically changed from some deep character to a one-note workout buff. If only a conclusion could be that easy to reach. Overall, on this specific aspect of Effie, the localization simply added in extra strength or workout jokes when the opportunity arose. Some workout jokes were in the Japanese! She was always an extremely devoted retainer who was always working out and training to get stronger so she could better fulfill her duties.
What is MUCH more interesting in my opinion is the issue of her femininity. In the Japanese, her speech nearly always trailed off with ellipses, and she had feminine voice acting. Whereas in the English, all of that femininity is stripped away with a deep voice, and virtually no ellipses. How refreshing it would have felt in English for Effie to have retained that femininity! Women can bench press trees and be feminine! It would be unique to see a female character like that. ...Or so a US American might think.
But from what I understand, strong female characters in Japanese entertainment are nearly always very feminine. They send a clear message: “You can be whatever you want in private, so long as you still fit the girly-girl mold in public and fulfill society's expectations for you!!” In the Japanese, Effie is fitting their stereotype.
So in one way of looking at it, Effie wasn’t really changed, because in both Japanese and English, she paints a stereotypical and the most socially accepted image of a physically powerful female in each culture. ...That’s an interpretation of mine, anyway. I’m not sure how many people would agree with it.
...See what I mean, that the answer of “changed or unchanged” really isn’t as straightforward as “are the lines translated directly?” 
Looking into the deeper details creates a much more interesting picture! You come to paint a picture in your mind, without even thinking about it, of what the localizers intended to do, and you can at least understand what they were thinking. This forms a much more accurate conclusion on whether or not the team achieved a good localization, and whether or not that sacrificed the intent of the original.
So as you can see, few issues are as bad as they’ve been blown up to be. None of the characters are completely different from their Japanese counterparts, or anything so extreme. They were just localized. Whether or not they were localized well, is up to each person’s opinion.
...I do want to write about Soleil, as an example of someone who I think could have been localized better, but I’ll save that for another day. It’s gonna get long. If anyone is interested in seeing this post, just remind me every couple of months or so until I find the time and write it, thanks in advance.
Memes
Since I mentioned Kana’s dragon speak in the last section, this is a perfect time to transition into my feelings about memes, aka context-specific humor. I agree with the most commonly shared opinion: memes don’t belong in localization. Though it’s not just because of a simple “change from the Japanese is bad!!!!” approach. In my opinion, the best localizations will be as timeless as possible. I want my future self and everyone else who will play the game in the years to come to enjoy the game as much as possible.
Memes come in and out of fashion so quickly that they’re almost guaranteed to be out of date by the time they release. And only the most popular of popular stories will be widely-known enough for most everyone to get the reference. Of course, it’s pretty difficult to know what expressions and such people will remember and use 10, 20, or 30 years down the line. Some language you think will be timeless will fall out of style. But using memes and references that are not likely to appeal to as many people as possible… that’s one of the few things I can almost universally call “bad localization.”
Unless, of course, the game was intended in the Japanese to be a product of its time, and used a lot of references. That’s a whole different ball game.
Accurate translation, much less full localization, requires creative thinking to recreate the tone and intent of the original. 
Tumblr media
Here’s another example that showcases another couple of things I find really important to localization.
Number 1: The writer of the article said “The American localization … gives her silly lines that aren’t in the original.” But does it really “give” her anything new at all? I’d argue not. Tottemo is commonly translated as ‘really’ or something like that… but doesn’t ‘super-dupity’ convey the same meaning as ‘really’? Just because an English word isn’t given as a common definition for a Japanese word, doesn’t mean it can’t be a definition. Sometimes… a word we don’t commonly think of as a translation for the Japanese, can still be a perfectly valid translation. This is not an addition. Just an uncommon translation of the Japanese word.
Number 2: Japanese has a wide range of “I” and “you” pronouns, sentence endings, and other little things that define character age, personality, gender, and more, that simply don’t exist in English. To not use similar features of English when localizers find opportunities to do so, would just take away that sense of nuance the Japanese had in utilizing their language’s own unique features.
Of course it’s one possibility that Sophie uses kiddy words. She’s not a little kid, but she’s still pretty young! To have everyone use the same word choice, because that’s how the words translate into English, is not only inaccurate to how real people talk, but also inaccurate to how the original Japanese was used. Since many equivalents for Japanese word and grammar choice that define personality do not exist in English, the localizers have to use what does exist in English in new places. I think that makes sense, and creates a much closer script to the Japanese than just translating the words.
Again, it’s all about how we look at the lines!
I see a lot of people define “translation” as “one-to-one recreation of the Japanese words.” To reinforce what I said in the first section, I do not think this is true. To me, translating is recreating the same tone, mood, meaning, and message of the original. You CANNOT achieve that just by translating the words and grammar alone.
Different words conveying the same overall meaning.
Tumblr media
This section is really just a continuation of the previous one. But reinforcing central arguments over and over again is the core of good essay writing.
So this is one of my strategies for deciding whether or not a script is a good or bad translation/localization: “Does the script convey the same basic meaning?” (or tone, etc.)
Changes, adding detail to what the Japanese said, and “playing-up,” are all wildly different things.
So first, I break down the bit of dialogue into as few words as possible.
-Nohr royals inherit dragon blood.
-So they have superhuman power.
...And then I look to see if the localization conveyed that same basic meaning. Which, in this case, I think it did. Your mileage may vary, but I think I’ve made my point at least.
I wanted this scene to be one of the five I addressed because I think it exemplifies yet another of the fascinating differences between Japanese and English. Japanese is a language that likes to be vague, and leave out context that is already established. Speech can seem super boring as few characters say anything unique. (At least… that’s how us English speakers see it! Japanese people think they are just being normal, and not vague or boring at all!) ...English, not so much. So much as leaving out the subject of the sentence is chastised as incorrect grammar. And we like unique dialogue and prose more than most other languages.
I saw one person in the comments of the article I got this visual from argue that the tone is totally different, that the Japanese was more of a history lesson, but the localization is trying to pump Corrin and Leo up for battle, but… eh, I just don’t see it. The English also just feels like he is describing the powers of their bloodline to me. Again, that’s why this is so complex and fascinating, because everyone has their own viewpoints they are coming from.
The “direct translation” and “localization” reach the same message. This isn’t a big change in my opinion at all.
Sometimes mistakes happen...
Tumblr media
These interpretations of Saizo and Beruka’s C Support have always boggled my mind. Coming up with all these explanations as to why the omission was done on purpose to completely erase the support when… it just seems… obvious to me… that the localization team never wrote or programmed a translation and shipped the game with the placeholder? 
After all, if the localization team felt they had to remove or change content that might be questionable for the target audience, wouldn’t they alter or rewrite the conversation, like they have with Soleil’s supports, for example? This very game has multiple examples of proof that the localizers will rewrite entire chunks of script if they feel it makes the scene better fit what the target audience be more comfortable with.
Mistakes happen. That’s all I think Saizo and Beruka’s C Support is. We probably never got an update just because Nintendo doesn’t have a track record of being the best with those.
Of course, I may be wrong. Nintendo and Treehouse keep pretty much all of their processes a secret. But I never, ever would have imagined on my own that Saizo and Beruka’s support was omitted on purpose. Citing this as a reason why we need to be up in arms about bad localization is so absurd to me.
Mistakes happen. It’s not like the Japanese creators didn’t have embarrassing moments with underdeveloped content in this game either… they didn’t even name the continent in this game!
Sometimes, “bad” localization is just human error. It’s something we can’t eliminate entirely, and will just have to accept.
Final thoughts:
I realize that this analysis, for as long as it is, is very short, and still leaves out so much that could be talked about. 
But what I hope that it did was not really help convince readers that the Fates localization is actually good, exactly… but helped to create some more balance in how we look at the Fates localization and localizations as a whole. All localization changes have a reason and nuance to how they ended up happening, and it’s important to be thinking from that perspective when we discuss them!
Since I know I may have created more questions than answers, again, feel free to keep the conversation going through more asks! I’ll answer them in time!
14 notes · View notes
rigelmejo · 3 years
Text
march 3/15/2021
im trying to read through tae kim’s grammar guide right now because i’m officially further in the nukemarine LLJ  memrise decks (there’s tae kim grammar guide sections in there) than i am in actually reading the grammar guide. And obviously these example sentences in the memrise deck would teach me more if i CLEARLY understood why they’re like how they are. which i... need to read the grammar guide section to understand lol.
my goal rn with japanese is? to get further in the nukemarine LLJ decks than i did last time. I’ve already mildly accomplished that (have done officially MORE of the tae kim section than before, have NOT redone the 190 common words i did last time i did this though). there are about 400 more cards in this tae kim section (LLJ 4) and then 1000ish cards in the common word section (LLJ 5). I would love to get them done. 
it would be sweet if i could get them done before April 22?/24? whenever Nier Replicant comes out because then I could play that baby in english and japanese! Then Nier Automata! ToT The Entire thing that kicked me back into wanting to study japanese was my old love for certain video games and desperately wanting to know what their stories/characters are like before translation/localization. So it would be cool if I could play them a little ;-; or at least check out lets plays. 
(which, checking out the kh2 lets play has been going pretty well so far... also that part where namine says “we aren’t meant to exist” and roxas says “how could you say such a thing? even if it were true” he says in japanese like “thats brutal/harsh to say. even if its true.” ...great to know that line is equally raw and heartbreaking in japanese lol. KH2′s localization did real good on like equal vibe to original just like ‘less nuanced’ if that makes sense. also thanks to the chinese hanzi i know now watching the KH2 lets play means i can figure out a lot of noun’s writing even though i don’t catch the pronunciation... also i’m catching a lot of words that mean like ‘beautiful/good’ as in like ‘great move’ and ‘dang’ lol.)
i had to stop myself from redoing the chinese flashcards i’ve done in the past! because i get ‘into a zone’ lol. And i really don’t need to waste time redoing those 2000 cards. i also needed to stop myself from doing the hsk 5-6 cards. because realistically? i know half of them, i should just set a lot to ‘ignore’ on the computer but im too lazy, and i’m learning a lot of vocab from reading right now. i don’t need hsk words to pass any test. The words i’m learning right now in reading are a lot more applicable to the actual shows i watch/things i listen to/things i read. its more useful to me to keep reading. and also to not sidetrack my japanese lol. i have read... 39 chapters this month... this month is only half over! hanshe is truly motivating ToT it also helps the story CONSTANTLY ends on cliffhangers so i keep clicking next chapter. who knows, maybe hanshe will help me kick up my reading speed. it already shaved off 10 minutes per 20 pages - now my 20 pages are down to 30 minutes to read, which is better than a few months ago. hanshe has 155 chapters so i HOPE it speeds up my reading lol.
hanshe is increasing my vocab though, its definitely noticeable over time. and hanshe has really good repetition of vocab which helps with learning and later the payoff means i never have to look up the word in future once its learned while it remains useful to me and i keep being reminded of it. after i get bored of hanshe OR i finish it, whichever comes first, its either back to a priest novel or into another pingxie fanfic written by hanshe’s author. The author did one fanfic that’s only 33 chapters so that would be NICE to do after this one lol ToT
summary of what’s turned out to be my studying methods this month:
Japanese:
reading through grammar guides (the one yue-muffin made and tae kim’s). so just grammar explanation reading.
doing nukemarine LLJ decks (in the ACTUAL order they are in the deck to completion - last time i did like 3 per time and never finished any lol. this is bolded because it’s the primary activity i’m prioritizing). so SRS flashcards. it’s working well right now because i can just put this activity in anytime i have downtime, like when i pause shows (since we know me i gotta take a break from a show every 20 minutes lol). i am bafflingly in a flashcard mood and i’m trying to take advantage of it while i got it. 
*when i feel like it: watching kh2 lets play. so some immersion where i look up words. (and when Nier Replicant remaster releases next month I’m likely to at least a tiny bit try to play it in japanese ToT lol we’ll see)
so grammar reading, srs flashcards covering some grammar/listening/reading/vocab, and some optional immersion.
(a note: i gave up on the japaneseaudiolessons for now because i got bored. its a great resource! i just don’t feel like it right now. and from an efficiency perspective, nukemarine LLJ decks cover vocab, grammar, audio, reading - so I don’t need another resource for that right now).
Chinese:
reading through hanshe. so immersion reading, intensive reading looking up unknown words. (unknown words are happening less so its getting less ‘intense’ lol)
listening to Chinese Spoonfed Audio. so listening to audio flashcards. for building up listening comprehension/repetition to pick up some more common words. (i’ve been doing this during daily walks making it much easier for me to consistently do, doing it mainly to supplement the Reading Heavy study i’m doing, i can drop this and pick it up later if i want since its mostly easy background listening)
*I am slowly rereading the grammar guide on www.chinese-grammar.com for explicit grammar clarification. but this is not a high priority, since I sort of implicitly understand a lot of this and i’m not working on fixing production mistakes yet. i just... miss knowing wtf is going on in the grammar lol.
*when i feel like it: Listening Reading The Glass Maiden/Love and Redemption Novel. I’ve done 2-3 hours of it this past week, but i don’t know when or if I’ll just stop. Thankfully l-r is beneficial somewhat even if i switch up books later. i WANT to L-R you have no idea (to Silent Reading and Guardian REALLY badly lol). But its so time intensive, and requires a lot of focus, and i have to really plan to do it for an hour at a time usually. I am so bad at doing stuff for that long consistently. I was in the mood earlier this week! ToT 
*when i feel like it: watching chinese shows raw. I was super in the mood this month because Word of Honor came out, and Killer and Healer came out, and Rattan came out, and I didn’t want to wait for subs. As a result I watched a LOT of raw episodes this month. However, english subs have caught up and since I’m lazy I’m inclined to just watch the subs - especially since youku ITSELF just put english subs on their most-ahead viewing schedule version of the eps on youku vip. so guess who’s buying youuku vip today? -3-)/ That said... even if I stop for a while, if Rattan subs move too slow I’ll probably watch those raw. And as SOON as 2ha’s drama Immortality drops I am highly likely to watch the raws for that since I likely won’t be able to wait. Watching shows is pretty highly dependent on how much I want to watch something and if subs take a while lol. 
so reading, and listening. and a little listening-reading method too. mainly just working on reading, listening, vocab acquisition. chinese is going good - for a few months now i’ve just had the plan ‘read often while looking up unknown words, and add some listening study activity when i have time.’ It’s simple, and its been working well.  later on down the road i’ll need some explicit grammar clarification again, but this is bare bones enough of a study plan at the moment. i’m clearly picking up words and phrases and hanzi at a reasonable pace. its not the Fastest obviously, but it is causing improvement over time and since i’m enjoying it i see no reason to change it up.
ending things
...who knows WHY i am so well focused this month with so much energy... tbh... i track how many chapters i read a month/audio i listen to/show episodes i watch etc, and this month is like as much as 3 other of my usual months combined. also my japanese has been basically ‘dabbling only’ prior to this month.
 although... maybe in part its how i’ve gotten better at reading hanshe? Reading being easier certainly motivates me TO read more. And watching shows was MUCH easier this month (still not ‘easy’ but following the main plot is) which definitely makes me Want to watch more. Also i am... unbelievably motivated by a challenge. I think i got it in my head that i ‘really want to do more of Nukemarine’s LLJ courses and see how much i understand after them’ and now... i really want them DONE. so maybe the current things motivating me will hold out for a while. 
(On the listening-reading front meanwhile, that activity takes SO much concentration its hard to do if i’m tired, BUT i have so many TRANSLATED novels i want to read recently and honestly its fun hearing the chinese narration and audiobook actors so like... i very much Want to do l-r so i can hear them as i read the translation... immovable object of me tired versus how much i’m interested in them lol ToT).
also thank u thank u @a-whump-muffin for sending me those lets plays because honestly it got me so excited again and its so cool to see them!!! <3 <3 and its so much easier to watch them versus committing to playing a whole game myself just yet ToT 
5 notes · View notes
tinytanpopo · 4 years
Note
Now that Gegege no Kitaro 2018 is over, and I remember it's one of your favorite Gegege no Kitaro iteration, what's your overall and concluding thoughts about it? What are your favorite episodes of all 97 (or each season) episodes? The positive and negative? Characterization of Sawashiro Kitaro and the other Kitaro family (including Mana)? I would love to know your opinion of the sixth remake!
This is going to be a long answer. And full of spoilers, for those of you looking at this who haven’t watched the 2018 version of Kitaro. Here goes!
What are your favorite episodes of all 97?
I watched all 97 episodes 3 times over the course of its run. I started out watching on my own, then eventually my friend wanted to watch with me. But the crappy Crunchyroll subs got in the way of his enjoyment, so I polished them for him, and then we started watching together.
So for each episode, I’ve…
1.) Watched for my own enjoyment when the raw came out
2.) Fixed the subs
3.) Watched and enjoyed again with my best friend.
Before my friend and I started watching together, I also did a rewatch of the series up to the middle of the Backbeard arc, so, 3.3 times? And it only made me like each episode more, and notice more tiny fun details about it. Sawashiro actually smiles a lot, u guys
Anyways, here are my stand-out favorites. Titles may be self-translated or shortened, as I’m looking at the Japanese wikipedia entry for the episodes, and my opinions are mostly disorganized gushing:
1: The Day the Youkai Awoke. Kitaro, Eyeball Dad, and Mana are all very cutely introduced, as well as their dynamics with each other. Great action, ends with the apparent death of the hero. (I was new to Kitaro.) Got me to watch the next week, that’s for sure! Also, world full of weird freaky monsters, already suited to my tastes.
3: Tantanbo’s Youkai Castle. The episode that earned Sawashiro Kitaro his “Gorilla” nickname from the fandom. Also Mana asked to be friends and made Kitaro bashful and the whole latter half is so sweet. FRIENDSHIP
6: Sunekosuri. This is the first Kitaro episode that made me cry, like I really wasn’t expecting that kind of emotional impact. Another thing that kept me watching was that, even though Kitaro has its formulas (as does everything), I still didn’t know what to expect.
7: Ghost Train. Ah, my first experience with the Ghost Train story. Y'know this is the only one where the human passenger pair are both already dead? I’ve seen many other renditions of this story, but this one’s the darkest.
11-12: The 808 Tanuki arc. The whole Kitaro Family shows off their skills in a big cool battle, and Mana overcomes an intense struggle to save the day (with some credit to Murder Momen Rollo Cloth). As my friend often says, Mana is too good for this world.
13: Wanyuudo. Got some insight to Kitaro and Ratman’s odd, long-lasting friendship. When I first watched this, I didn’t really understand why they were still friends. But over the next 2 years, I would.
The meta reason? Ratman was Shigeru Mizuki’s favorite out of all his characters.
14: Makura-gaeshi. The second episode that made me cry. (not hard for a show to do that, but still) Also shot my already-present respect for Eyeball Dad through the roof.
I’m pretty sure this is the episode that changed GeGeGe no Kitaro from “one of the shows I watch once a week” to “I must find and learn about the rest of this franchise.” I’d looked up characters and little facts here and there on wikis, and occasionally browsed the Kitaro tag on Pixiv before this point, but this was the tipping point.
The door to the unseen world was open, and I jumped through.
18: Kawauso’s Lie. haha, Mana’s a city girl who’s scared of bugs
22: Gyuuki. Body horror, despair, and a really good Catgirl episode.
27-37: The Backbeard arc, or 6th Kitaro’s version of the “Great Youkai War” story. For a refreshing twist, the designated “Witch” isn’t evil in this retelling. In fact, Agnes quickly became one of my most favorite and relatable characters.
She definitely had a rocky start with the Japanese youkai, and watching her develop friendships with Mana and Kitaro was great to see, and even better on the rewatch. My friend likes Agnes a lot, too. Just assume I cried at the Mana/Agnes friendship stuff, I’m sure it happened on the rewatch, too.
Also Kitaro finally invites Mana into GeGeGe Forest! She fucking earned it!!
38: Kasha. I had already seen Reverse Mochi Murder 3 different times by this point, but it’s best whenever freaky ghost-eyeballs are involved.
Also Mana punched Kasha in the face. Well, Kitaro’s face.
39: bang. I lost it.
40: This is the darkest version of Sara-kozo! And I like it. His song was best put to use in the 4th Kitaro series, and even had a callback in one of my most favorite episodes of that series. The song, of course, is terribly catchy.
42: The Great Youkai Trial. Having seen the other versions of this story, I’m glad the writers made the 6th series version stand on its own, weaving it into the overarching Nanashi plot.
43: Odoro-Odoro. This isn’t the first Odoro-Odoro retelling where Kitaro’s efforts are thankless and reviled, but it is the one that shows it the most intensely.
47-49: Nanashi arc conclusion. Each Kitaro anime has its harsh and intense moments (even the relatively gentle 5th series), but 6th is the one that goes hard most consistently. Not just into darkness, but
50-51: complete and utter sweetness KITTENGIRL dgjklfhjlkHFDGKMBHKjl
54: Dorotabo. Sometimes, there is no “right” choice that can make everyone happy. Being a mediator can be hard, frustrating, and sometimes impossible. But despite all the stress, frustration, and repeating the same tragic scenarios, Kitaro keeps on trying.
Also, Kitaro totally carried that frog up to the roof of his house for company at the end of the episode.
56: Vampire Elite. The most sympathetic retelling of Johnny’s story. And a great Kitaro/Ratman friendship episode.
57: La Seine. He doesn’t have a top hat this time. A great retelling of Hand, and a Kitaro/Mana friendship episode. Two vampire episodes in a row, and it didn’t feel repetitive at all.
58: Kamaboko. 6th Kitaro’s crossdressing episode, with Sawashiro Kitaro at his most vindictive. Fun for all sorts of reasons. :3c
59: Ushiro-gami. Also known as the youkai cactus episode, somewhat of a series staple. This one had great horror vibes, and Mana overcoming her fear and risking her life to help Kitaro save the day. Never gets old! Mana’s the best.
62: Kitaro and Ratman fighting like children. Kitaro’s shocked face when Ratman steals his pork. Kitaro’s admiration for Ratman’s persistence to keep on living, and appreciation for yanking him back to reality during the end of Nanashi.
The Kitaro/Ratman friendship dynamic is eternal.
64: Suiko, the Water Tiger. If you find an old jar in a dirty hole somewhere? Don’t open it, don’t drink it, don’t let anyone force you to drink it. And if the jar starts talking, shove some dirt in it.
That town full of assholes totally deserved what they got, though.
66: The Grim Reaper and the Hidden Village. Well, in this context, “hidden village” is more like “Shangri-La,” which is what I changed it to in the fixed subs. The only other version of this I’ve seen is the one from the 2nd Kitaro anime. It’s a well-known trauma episode in the fandom.
In the 2nd anime, Kitaro got the trauma. In the 6th one, Mana did, and Kitaro already knew it was coming.
68: Hell Exile. Yet another one where I wasn’t sure if it’d end cynical or hopeful. One of the fresher takes on the Hell Exile story, too.
69: Ibukimaru. Nicely advances the Four Treasonous Generals arc, and has some interaction between Rei and Mana. Oh yeah, this arc introduced Rei Isurugi, an intense chuuni with Megaman demon powers. It’s neat to watch how Rei and Sawashiro Kitaro bounce off each other as individual characters.
70: Mysterious Footprints. Calls back to another one of 2nd Kitaro’s infamous trauma episodes, incidentally one of my favorites. This was great, but the 2nd anime had more intense face-melting.
72: Iyami. Mana Is Gay. That is all.
73: Yamata-no-Orochi. A great take on Kitaro’s Orochi story, now with more monkey’s paw shenanigans!
74-75: Conclusion of the Four Generals arc. Mana convinces Kitaro not to resign himself to shouldering the heaviest burden alone, as he so often does. Agnes and Adel make an appearance(yay!), and they team up with Mana and Catgirl to help save the day. Rei finally chills out, and gets a new mentor.
77: Neko-sennin. Nurarihyon startles the holy hell out of Kitaro, and further establishes how he’s going to operate this time around, connecting to his previous actions in episode 76.
Also, cats. Kitty Kitaro. Cats are my second-favorite animal, so I appreciate the many Kitaro stories involving cats.
78: Mouryou. This one gets retold in several of the other Kitaro series, with decent variation. This one has its own 6th Kitaro touch, with that fucked-up photographer, and an ending I was positive would be dark.
80: Onmoraki. I’d also consider this story a Kitaro staple, though Onmoraki was way tougher this time. Must have had something to do with Nobuyuki Hiyama. :B This is always the episode where Kitaro puts on his old painter costume, and proves he can’t think up fake names worth a damn. Gets me every time.
81: Hideri-gami the mangaka. I love comics, I translate comics, GeGeGe no Kitaro originated as a comic. This episode’s just a love letter to the medium. And seeing Kitaro genuinely enjoying Hiderin’s Totally Original Comic Do Not Steal was adorable.
83: Houkou. Some kind of disaster usually happens in this story. In the 4th anime version, Kitaro was burned to ashes. This one hit harder. Nobody won. No one was happy. We’re reminded of Dorotabo, and how Kitaro never “gets over” tragic situations like these, no matter how often they repeat. I think it’d be worse if he was desensitized, and gave up trying to make anything better.
84: Mr. Chin. The Japanese dialogue is full of puns involving the word chin and yeah I lost it. Sunday morning changes with the times, and they still get this guy in.
I died at “three rainbows” ghjghjk
89: Te-no-me’s Curse. Te-no-me is a youkai who either shows up in the youkai trial story, or has an episode for himself. Also, we finally get to see that Kitaro can just pop his hands on and off. Well, maybe not as casually as in the comics…
90: Sazae-oni. Normally you’re not “supposed” to do “it was all a dream” endings, but this is the first time they’ve done that with Sazae-oni, and the dream reveal means we just saw inside Sawashiro Kitaro’s mind. The fancy sushi restaurant exterior, the plain sweets shop, the body pillow how does he know about those?! Does he know why they look like that?!!
Kitaro seemed disappointed that he didn’t get to sing on stage. And Rei was in his dream-audience! An adorable episode.
93: The Phantom Train. Catgirl got Homuhomu’d. But KitaNeko is finally canon. This whole episode left the fandom reeling, as usual for 6th Kitaro. Best retelling of the Phantom Train story yet.
94: Hot Springs Trip. Mana carried Kitaro over 90 episodes ago, and Kitaro doing the same for Mana repays that favor, in a way.
Kitaro also admits he has Terminal Kitaro Face.
95-97: The end. I did not think they would poof Kitaro. That’s the deadest I’ve ever seen him, in any version. And the most broken, worse than a giant hate-baby crushing his dad. Kitaro giving Ratman his chashu pork made my heart explode, Mana’s sacrifice made the heart-pieces explode, and Mana reuniting with Kitaro 10 years later made my heart whole again.
Nurarihyon offing himself made sense, especially with this being his most dignified characterization in any version. Glad they let Shu-no-bon live, even if he was an actual hardass this time. Shu-no-bon’s usually a teddy bear in comparison to dual-wielding gatling guns
I’m sure the prime minister didn’t keep her position for much longer.
Episode 97’s subs left out most of Mana’s text to Catgirl at the end, so here it is:
“Cat-Sis! Here’s the pic Nebutori took for us on our recent trip! Also, I found a sweets shop near my workplace. Let’s ask Kitaro to go there with us!”
A very sweet ending, indeed.
The positive and negative?
I wish we’d gotten to see more of Agnes and Rei outside of their own arcs, and the conclusions of other arcs, though they clearly had their own lives to live and paths to take.
We didn’t get Akamata or Shisa or a bunch of other youkai I was hoping to see in the episodes. We didn’t get stories for Jami or Kamanari, both of who showed up as bit characters at the very end. But I can accept this, too, as writers and staff working within limits, and telling the story they wanted to tell as best as they could.
I’m glad they focused more on new stuff than old, though. Maybe they didn’t want to risk a repeat of 5th Kitaro’s non-ending, but they were ready to end the 6th anime with the Nanashi arc. Even with a 2nd year, though, the writers didn’t lose their focused storytelling, and ended the series in a way that left my heart full.
Characterization of Sawashiro Kitaro and the other Kitaro family (including Mana)?
Sawashiro Kitaro continues to be that weird youkai kid, that boy who lives in the woods. He’s chill and has a bunch of comic book youkai powers, a unique sort of superhero, while also not being a cop, thank goodness. Every Kitaro is a bit of a pessimist (except 3rd anime’s Toda Kitaro, I guess), but Sawashiro is especially so. This made his gradual development  even more fun to watch. The fact that he never could give up on that dream, not completely, made me appreciate that development even more.
Sawashiro cried the least out of all the Kitaros—twice, and it was only onscreen once. He kept everything in so much, it’s no wonder he imploded and went to Ultra Hell when the prime minister pot-shot him.
And, Sawashiro Kitaro is so pure and cares so much it hurts.
Eyeball Dad. Since Isamu Tanonaka passed away in 2010, the legendary Masako Nozawa (the original voice of Kitaro) took on voicing the role. Like Kitaro, Eye Dad’s characterization changes a bit with each anime, though not as much. Nozawa’s performance made Eye Dad feel more laid-back this time, I think, and more patient. In older series, he had more “Showa dad” tendencies. And we got to see him outside of eyeball or mummy form! 6th series spoiled us!
Ratman. He’s usually the same between every adaptation, save for the voice. Sometimes he’s nicer, sometimes he’s more of a bastard. But he’s always Kitaro’s friend. He may nasty, greedy, and cynical, but he’s usually right about how the world works, and his priorities are hard to disagree with entirely. He knows how to survive, even when treated like dirt for centuries. Ratman’s got a particular brand of wisdom, if you look past the ringworm.
Catgirl. In other versions, she looks like she’s in elementary or middle school, and 6th anime is the most mature she’s ever looked. This is also Catgirl at her most tsundere, but with zero “mean girl” tendencies. All it takes is Mana shooting pure admiration at Catgirl for them to become friends, and that’s cute. I always like Catgirl, and the 6th anime is no exception.
The Kitaro Family. Sandy’s mostly unchanged, except now she doesn’t own the Youkai Apartments, and can use modern technology to make a shitload of money. Old Crybaby is 100% the same, down to his old person banter with Sandy.
Rollo Cloth’s minor interest in finding a girlfriend got turned up to 11. He’d get a lecture from every previous Rollo.
Wally Wall has less vocabulary, no wife and kids, and they thankfully didn’t show his mouth this time. Still a good dude.
Mana Inuyama. The 3rd anime had Yumeko, but even if she wasn’t damseled as often as you’d expect from a typical 80s cartoon, it still happened a lot. In the 6th anime, Mana clearly has more agency from the get-go, and refuses to leave herself out of Kitaro’s business. She’s serious about being his friend, and never stops being serious about it, even when things worse than she could ever imagine happened.
All she has are good memories with Kitaro.
Like my friend said, she’s too good for this world.
What’s your overall and concluding thoughts about the 6th Kitaro anime?
What an emotional roller coaster. The writers pulled no punches with this, and very much managed to make “their own Kitaro” while still firmly being “Kitaro.” With the dark and cynical twists it sometimes took, I often didn’t know if there’s be a happy ending to an episode, or a bitter one. It’s a Sunday morning cartoon at its core, but very good at making the audience forget that.
6th Kitaro was my introduction to Kitaro as a whole, and I was hopelessly obsessed by episode 14. Well, because of episode 14, probably. I downloaded all the other Kitaro anime series, got into the comics (official ones by Mizuki, official ones not by Mizuki, and a shit-ton of doujin), and now my brain is just “kitarokitarokitaro” all the time.
I don’t think it’s going to stop anytime soon.
22 notes · View notes
thebeautyoffandoms · 4 years
Text
10 of The Best Vocaloid/Utaite/J-Pop/Anime Themes/etc Songs That I’ve Stumbled Across! (AKA 10 Best Weeb Songs That I’ve Stumbled Across):
Sorry for my repetitive vocabulary...
1) (trigger warning) Ruru’s Suicide Livestream (Shinsei Kamattechan)- 
One thing I always find amazing about songs is when they have a story behind them. Ruru’s Suicide Livestream (also translated into other similar titles. I.e. Ruru’s Suicide Show on a Livestream, Ruru’s Livestream Suicide Show. You can search and find it by any title such as those.) tells the story of a 14 year old Japanese girl. According to what I’ve read, she would livestream things ranging from singing and playing the piano (rather impressively), to running across busy streets. Up until the day she livestreamed herself jumping, with some people encouraging it. The singer/songwriter for this song, who has BPD and has attempted suicide in the past, felt deeply enough for the poor girl to write a song about it. As sad as the story is, I have to compliment how well the song’s put together. Along with the fact that I have a huge soft spot for songs that have sad lyrics/meanings but a happy tune, the singing in this song sounds so… strained? Sad, almost in pain. Which is how Roro-chan must have felt. The art and animation in the video are also incredibly impressive. I really respect how they tried, and succeeded I believe, to tell the story in Roro-chan’s perspective. With everything put together how impressively it was, the song is enough to bring me to tears, even if it does have such a positive-sounding tune.  (NOTEWORTHY COVER: MDATripleStar’s Cover! I really, really, like this cover! The singer manages to keep the sadness that the original singer had, and does a really great job at keeping the same overall sound in her voice. I also think that the lyrics used here fit really nicely!)
2) (trigger warning, adult themes) Wozwald (Niru Kajitsu)- 
I have to start this by saying, I’m honestly not a big fan of how they tuned vflower. But, even with that, this is still my favorite song. Wozwald has such an eerie tune, that’s also pretty sad-sounding, with (in my opinion) equally as eerie/sad lyrics. I enjoy the fact that they leave most of the theorizing up to the viewers. Though, at my first glances, Wozwald seemed to be about a man questioning religion, the more I listened to it and watched the video closer, the more I began to see it a bit differently. Is is about religion? Morals? Happiness? Lost family members? Oswald the Lucky Rabbit? All of the above? Or maybe none of that.  (I really like this theory!) I also really like that they throw in another character from another song (Kalmia.) The visuals also stole my heart from the beginning. It being mainly black-and-white suits the song, and I adore the art style. Especially the lighting. It’s really nice to look at! (NOTEWORTHY COVER: any fan of this song probably saw this coming- miy_yuu’s cover!  He always does such an awesome job on his covers, and this one is no different! From the whispery parts, to the high notes, I think just about everything here is beautiful. The subtitles on the video are also super neat!)
3) Yellow (Yoh Kamiyama)- 
This song, right from the beginning, is awesome to listen to. The way it starts off with a simple beat, and Kamiyama’s amazing voice, and then quickly switches to more instruments. Though the switch isn’t anything crazy, it’s still there, and it’s a rather beautiful change. I think the meaning of this song is clearer than Wozwald, but I still like that it’s left for people to decide. The most “obvious” (in my opinion) theory being that Yellow is about a past relationship, most likely a toxic one, and the boy trying to get over it. While some may say the art isn’t “anything impressive”, I think it’s still a key factor in what makes this song one of my favorites. It’s done sort of like a sketch, and has simple colors. Which reflects how the song itself sounds… pretty simple. Yet, it’s still incredible, just like the art. The animation is also very neat! While it looks almost like normal animation, it manages to be… a bit off putting? Most everything about this song and video is almost… hypnotizing? (NOTEWORTHY COVER: JubyPhonic’s Cover! I really like her vocal range in this cover! It suits her voice amazingly. And, once again, I love her translyrics. I also admire the fact that she got this cover out, and beautifully done, when she wasn’t feeling her best.)
4) Nandemo Nadari (KANA-BOON)- 
Such a cute song! It may not seem very impressive to some, but I absolutely adore this! It’s such a genuinely happy sounding song, and the lyrics, though maybe not what was expected, are just as precious! Or… pretty much just as precious. The dances in this song are simple, but the way everyone seems to be goofing off slightly makes me smile! I also love how much fun everyone looks to be having! It’s also really cute how some of the people’s timings are a little off in the dances. It makes it seem… more fun! Cuter! Happier! Less… pressured! The people, not just the band members, are also so, so precious. 
5) (adult themes) Liar Dance (DECO*27 and NAOKI ITAI)- 
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure why I love this song so much, but I’m going to try and describe it. While I admire the tuning, and I really like the video (the one used in Rachie’s cover anyway-), I think it’s simply the tune and lyrics that got my attention. It’s quite upbeat, and I love the way it begins. Slowly fading in, then changing the beat a bit. Though some of the lyrics, and the overall theme of this song, is… not the most appropriate, I just… really love the way it sounds. (NOTEWORTHY COVER: Rachie’s Cover!  This cover is actually what made me fall in love with Liar Dance, and is the primary way I listen to it. Though she said she wasn’t a big fan of the song, she still did incredibly for not loving it! I also agree with her other comment, she does sound really, really awesome here! But… I can’t think of a time Rachie doesn’t sound beautiful- this is still one of my favorites of her covers~.)
6) Zettai Zetsumei (Cö shu Nie ((The Promised Never ED 1)))- 
Aah… The Promised Neverland… an, honestly, amazing anime. And Zettai Zetsumei, a song that truly fits this show! Of course, the fact that this song fits this show that I love so well is a big reason I love the song, but the other big reason is: the vocals. More importantly, the way she hits the high notes. I’m not sure how to describe how it sounds, other than absolutely incredible! The singer’s voice through it all is insanely beautiful, of course, I was just really impressed with the higher notes. She overall has a… somewhat soft voice, and to have such a gentle-seeming voice sing lyrics like those, it also reflects the anime. Just a bunch of kids going through an awful situation.
7) Outer Science (Jin ((Kagerou Project))- 
Kagerou Project. A series that captured my attention from the moment I heard Kagerou Daze. While Outer Science sounds really awesome not knowing the story, it just seems all that more powerful when you know the context. Kuroha strikes again. Wreaking havoc just as he’s done previously! And plans to do it again and again! Well- enough about that evil boy- I don’t tend to enjoy a lot of songs with IA, Jin does an amazing job using her for this series. Especially Outer Science. Bragging on the visuals a bit, I adore the animations! And basically all of it! The drawings, the way the lyrics are placed, and the animations! The way it’s all colored also stole my heart. Especially the lighting. Shadows being cast to give it the right amount of spook, and Kuroha and Mary being in the center of some of the light.  As for the music part… summed up, it’s incredible. Like I said, IA sounds really good, but the instruments are also wonderful! The guitar being one of the best parts of the song, in my opinion. The song manages to sound chaotic while still sounding like a somewhat normal rock song. From the “softer”, “calmer” parts, to the loud, evil parts! I love this song so much! (NOTEWORTHY COVER(s! And Remix!): Kuraiinu’s Cover! While Kura usually impresses me, I really fell in love with this cover! I think his voice suits it nicely, and he pulls of the insane-sounding parts beautifully. His laugh too… amazing… RafScrap and Others (A-L1)! I truly think everyone did crazy great in this cover… from the independent screams, to the parts where they all sing together. Adding all that with the art, and video in general, this really is one of the best group covers I think I’ve ever heard! Teddyloid Remix! I think the dialogue at the beginning sounds pretty realistic, especially for a Vocaloid! The remix itself is also amazing. The video is a huge plus~.)
8) (adult themes?)  Goodbye Ms. Floral Thief (Mel)- 
I’d like to start this off with saying: Miku sounds so soft! It’s adorable, and very beautiful! Along with a lot of songs I fall in love with, I found Goodbye Ms. Floral Thief through a cover, which I’ll be putting in the noteworthy covers section. This song has a sort of… nostalgic feeling to it. I really adore songs with a nostalgic feeling such as this. Though this song may talk a little bit about “adult themes”, it’s still a beautiful song. It’s sad, and, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure on what the meaning of the song is. Though I think it’s about a lover dying, I’m not entirely sure. That seems like the most likely to me and, if that’s the case, it makes this song just that much sadder. (NOTEWORTHY COVER: Rachie’s Cover! Aaah, Rachie’s voice… it really is so lovely, especially in this cover! I believe she does an amazing job at sounding soft, and somewhat emotional. And Anthong did an amazing job with the lyrics!)
9) (trigger warning?)  Tokyo Teddy Bear (Neru)- 
I think the main thing that made me fall in love with this song was the guitar. It’s my favorite instrument, and it was played amazingly in this song! I think it’s incredible when it’s being plucked at to mimic Rin texting, though that may be a strange thing to be so impressed with. Though the texting isn’t the only impressive part with the guitar, don’t get me wrong! I think every part, especially with the guitar, in this song is super impressive. The song sounds so… loud, and gives off “I’ve given up” sorts of vibes. Plus, Rin sounds… amazingly realistic. Heck, she even breathes! Onto the art! Though it’s just a picture, in this video anyway, it’s still really neat! A kid, covered in cuts, dirt, and bandaids, in a box with a stuffed bear. As the lyrics show, the kid is almost… lost-seeming. They just want to be replaced with anything that will even be somewhat fitting. They want to be loved, and they want to feel like they belong, but they don’t think they’re fit to have any of that. So, they make themselves, basically, a living doll. A fraud, and nothing like the self they really are. Or that’s what I’ve gotten from it at least~. (NOTEWORTHY COVER: Princessemagic’s Cover! I think her voice suits this song rather nicely! It has the perfect amount of emotion put into it, and manages to be soft, yet powerful! I especially love around 1:30 when she says the lines with such… hatred.)
10) Hurricane (i’m not sure who i would credit... ((Death Note the Musical English))) - 
Gosh, where do I start…? I know the Death Note musical gets a lot of hate, but I enjoyed it! Especially this song. I think the man singing for Light is the perfect english voice, and his voice is beautiful! He sounds soft at the beginning, but, throughout the song, his voice grows stronger, which suits what happens perfectly! It’s showing Light realizing how much power he has, and it’s ever so slowly beginning to get to his head. Yet, he still has somewhat innocent intentions. But, by the end, Light is starting to see himself as the “god of a brand new world.” That’s when his voice really starts to get powerful. And his growls! They’re perfect!! Amazing, beautiful, absolutely breathtaking! The lyrics progress nicely, slowly shifting from innocent Light wanting to rid the world of evil, up until the end where he wants to become a god.  As for the instrumental itself, I also think that it’s rather perfect! I really enjoy the somewhat-gloomy piano at the beginning. It almost reminds me of a sort of “calm before the storm.” The instruments slowly pick up pace, adding more in, the further into his power Light finds himself.
2 notes · View notes
studiousbees · 7 years
Text
[App Review]—LingoDeer (Chinese)
Doing my Saturday post a bit early!
Finally got around to testing out LingoDeer’s Chinese course! This will be my last LingoDeer review. I’m going to handle this review just as I did my LingoDeer Korean and LingoDeer Japanese reviews, by talking about things I noticed as I went through the first few levels of the course (you can see below I did 8% of the course to write this review. I think that’s sufficient just to judge the starting levels, yes?). Ready?
(Apologies if some parts sound like copypasta from my previous reviews!)
Tumblr media
What is LingoDeer?
LingoDeer is a language-learning app for the three major east Asian languages, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese. In this review, I will of course focus on the Chinese course!
Very first impressions
I already mentioned this in my previous two reviews, but LingoDeer app’s design and interface is very clean and visually appealing. The slow loading that used to plague me back when I wrote the Korean review is no longer a problem :) The loading screens I do see are processed very quickly!
Settings
In case you aren’t aware, I study Mandarin using traditional characters. It’s a preference of mine that hung over from studying Hanja in Korean. Since all of the Hanja Korean uses are traditional, I just stuck with traditional when I started learning Mandarin. You can choose to have LingoDeer display the traditional set of characters if you go into your settings! You can’t change this during learning levels, so if traditional is your preference, make sure to set it before you start a learning level! However, during learning levels you can choose if you want to see just the Hanzi (Chinese characters), just Pinyin, or both together.
"Alphabet”
The first block on the learning path is labeled “Alphabet,” and you can skip it if you would like, though of course I went in for the sake of this review! The explanation of Pinyin and the sounds that Chinese uses is VERY thorough, with a ton of great audio files so you can listen to the sounds. Again, this sort of explanatory notes system is, as I found in the Korean and Japanese courses, very robust and informative.
 When you do the Pinyin learning levels—and I admit I didn’t go through all of them because I got bored—it has you listening to initials and finals separately, then combining them into the full sounds. Doing the levels that I did, I felt like I would feel very well prepared if I were a total beginner at Mandarin.
While the Pinyin notes and explanation were awesome, what honestly blew me away was the Pinyin chart included. It shows every possible combination of initial + final + tone in Mandarin (you select the tone separately; the chart changes depending on if a particular initial + final combo is used with that tone or not). Every one of the initial + final + tone combinations has its down audio file and an option to record yourself. You hear the audio file pronunciation, then record your own, and then it plays your recording and the audio file on loop so you can compare your pronunciation to the file. Cool, right??
One more thing in the “Alphabet” section that neither the Korean nor Japanese LingoDeer courses has is a section for “Survival Chinese.” This includes a ton of useful phrases that you might need while traveling, all divided into different categories ranging from health to flirting to signs you might see in public. These are not normal learning levels—rather, you listen to the read-out of each phrase, record yourself saying it, and if the app deems your pronunciation to be good enough, you get a happy little green flag! This is an excellent feature for people who just need to learn some quick phrases. I do have one bone to pick with it, though—even with my settings set to the traditional character set, it only displays in simplified :< Boo.
Grammar notes and some oddities
After getting Pinyin down (or skipping it because you’re a boss and already know it), you can start with the first level. As with the Korean and Japanese courses, you can’t test out of the lower levels if you are already somewhat familiar with Chinese. This is unfortunate many other comparable apps, including HelloChinese, allow you to test up.
Anyway, once you tap into the first section, there are notes waiting for you if you swipe to pull up the tile to the left, only the edge of which is visible as it starts you right on an actual lesson tile. It would be nice if the notes were the first tile, because some people might miss it. Anyway, the notes are extensive and generally well done, but I did notice a few grammatical oddities and such. While they don’t really cause any misunderstandings, I feel like a more thorough editing by a native English speaker would make it feel more polished. Also, in the notes for Basics 3 I noticed some blatant errors where the wrong Pinyin was written with two characters (I reported the errors, of course).  Also, I was disappointed to see that the notes were only available in simplified.
I found some unusual grammar and translation choices in the actual learning levels as well. Again, while they did not obscure meaning, they definitely could have done with some editing. For example, the English sentence “ Peaches are a type of fruit” is the given translation for the simpler sentence  “桃是水果 (Peaches are fruit)”. Another somewhat uncomfortable example is “ 這個中國人在吃桃。,” which is translated as “The Chinese is eating the peach.” The meaning is clear, but (at least to me) it sounds strange, almost inappropriate, as we don’t usually call out a person using the form “the (insert race, ethnicity, etc. here)” except with countries where the adjective is also the noun used to refer to the people who live there. “The American is eating the peach” sounds alright, but sentences like “The Chinese is eating the peach” and “The boy likes Korean” (intended meaning was “The boy likes Korean people”) are iffy. 
Getting into learning
Now for the actual learning! Same as with the Korean and Japanese courses, the activities in the learning sections are very similar to Duolingo and HelloChinese. You can expect to do activities like matching spoken and/or written words to pictures, unscrambling sentences, filling in missing elements, deleting unnecessary elements, and more. Unfortunately, there were no speaking questions to be found. Considering that there are speaking elements in the Alphabet section, I had gotten my hopes up. 
Among the actual questions and problems you do, there are some screens for practicing writing characters. The stroke diagrams are really smooth and nice, and it’s a great way to get used to writing! But... again, all simplified! T T It really seems like the inclusion of the traditional character set was just an afterthought since so many aspects of the Chinese course do not have traditional characters in them.
Once you finish a learning level, there is the option to review what you just went through. This feature is in the Korean and Japanese courses, but I admit I never actually checked it out when I wrote those reviews and it was only later while continuing my Japanese studies that I checked it out >.> In the review section, it breaks down which new sentences and words you did poorly, well, and perfectly on. You can then choose to do more questions on those categories, or you can just tap on the words and sentences to hear them read back again. Personally, I like using this section as dictation practice, tapping on the tiles, listening, and then writing what I hear :)
There is also an option for timed review if you go back to a previously done learning level. In these timed reviews, you must try to answer all of the presented questions in a short amount of time. If you want a quick review, that’s a good way to do it!
One thing that I like a lot about these beginning learning levels is that you quickly build up vocab and they have you making sentences of five or more characters in short order! I did not feel like it babies beginner users but rather tries to push them to quickly acclimate using sentences that aren’t super short but are still simple in meaning.
Upon completion of a level, you can get up to five stars. When you first start studying, you set a goal for how many stars you want to get each day, and if you choose the lowest possible number (five) and do a single level perfectly, your study for the day is complete.
Review and stats
If you want to go back and review vocab or grammar flashcards, there is a section where you can do that. The review questions are the same as the regular level questions. You can choose to do a single lesson, or you can combine lessons for a comprehensive review. Also, there is spaced repetition listening practice, which is pretty cool. After listening, you can reveal the correct answer and rate your recall/performance “weak,” “good,” or “perfect.” You can of course use these features to make sure your knowledge doesn’t deteriorate over time!
As for stats, you can check how long your learning streak has been ongoing, and it even tells you how long you have studied for. There are some little achievement badges similar to Duolingo for things like learning time and streaks also. You can also set a time for reminders to study if you would like.
Conclusion
LingoDeer’s Chinese course is very quality despite some grammatical errors and incomplete support of the traditional set of characters. It lays a good foundation for Mandarin Chinese beginners, starting with an excellent intro to the sounds used in Chinese and moving into a well-paced course.
PROS:
GREAT audio files
Pinyin chart is AWESOME
Lots of good notes and information on grammar
Spaced repetition practice and flashcards
Study reminders
Course is paced well
Survival Chinese section
CONS:
No function to test out of lower levels
Strange grammar in notes and in learning levels
No speaking practice for normal levels (speaking on Pinyin chart and Survival Chinese is adequate)
Traditional character support is limited
200 notes · View notes
strikerverse · 5 years
Text
Bunch of resources for studying Japanese
I thought I'd share my Japanese learning tool kit, or how you can end up spending about an hour every day studying Japanese without having to think too much about it! 
From the very start, when you even can’t tell apart your good-days from good-evenings, this audio and video lesson site is indispensable: https://www.japanesepod101.com/. They go from absolute beginner classes, all the way up to intermediate. The site has hours and hours of audio and video content, structured in short, 10-15 minute lessons, each focusing on a little bit of listening, little vocab, and a tiny bit of grammar. I’ve been using this site for three years now and there is still so much material to go through. I’m paying for the “Basic” account and finding it to be sufficient.
Reading is the second thing you can start practicing from day zero - hiragana and katakana are the two alphabets that will come handy in no time. Both consist of 46 base symbols, and learning it feels like cracking a code - suddenly you can read some words in Japanese, and it feels very rewarding. I used the tofugu hiragana guide https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/ and learned about 5 characters a day. Being in no rush, I started to feel somewhat comfortable reading in both in about a month (being able to read, and being able to read fast is, of course, an entirely different matter)! I also coded up this little practice game http://tomstriker.org/kana/ as the tofugu guide links to a rather poor version of that game.
After you have somewhat mastered hiragana, it’s time to go to the next level - kanji! https://www.wanikani.com/ is an online site where they teach you kanji and vocab at your pace. It works like this - first they show you a few kanji and explain how to read, memorise, and pronounce them. Then, during review, the site asks you for the English meaning, and it also asks you for the Japanese pronunciation. The review for each kanji goes in intervals - first it will ask you to review the kanji in a few hours, then after a day, then after a few days, a week, and so on (it’s called “spaced repetition system” and it works  rather well https://ncase.me/remember/). This is where I spend about 20 minutes twice a day. While sometimes it’s bit hard, once you get the grip of it, it can be fun - like playing one of those candy crush games. While there is no official app, I’ve found that the site works perfectly fine on the mobile as well. The kanji are split in 60 levels, and my personal pace is about 15 days per level. You might find yourself going faster or slower, but the speed is not the important bit here - turning it into a habit is.
While for me the next step happened 18 month later,  there is no need to wait so long (I just didn’t know about it) - the next step is a face-to-face meetup with fellow learners and, most importantly, native speakers! Getting you all chitty-chatty will boost your confidence, validate your skill and it takes just a few times to get the grip of “hello” and “look at that cloud” and “isn’t this delicious?” and, frankly, that’s like 90% of what people talk about anyway, so, congrats, now you are a solid beginner, and it’s tons of fun.
The next tool in the kit for me is an affordable online tutorship. https://www.verbling.com/ is a site that pairs tutors with students. These are qualified teachers, and a 1-on-1 one hour lesson costs roughly 13-17 pounds. You are in full control the schedule, you don’t have to commute anywhere, and you have a wide range of tutors to pick from to find your best match. While I do the 1-on-1 lessons twice a week, even once a week is more than enough. That then comes together to something like 60 pounds a month - not cheap, but hey, you are getting good fast!
Another very useful tool, and this one’s a phone app and it’s free(!), is https://www.tandem.net/. It’s a language exchange app that matches native speakers of different languages, and you can practice, both, writing, and speaking. It takes a while to find good matches (the beginning is especially slow as you just keep reaching out to people and nobody’s responding), but after a while you should find a good match. I speak with two Japanese natives about an hour a week (so a total of 2 hours of focused, lightweight discussion). We go back and forth between English and Japanese without stressing too much about structure - the point is to have a good time and learn something new while doing it.
On top of doing all of the above (and having a blast), at some point you should consider levelling up once more and bite that bullet of trying to actually understand larger portions of written Japanese text. I’ve found this site to be super useful: https://reajer.weebly.com/. With different skill levels to choose from, Reajer offers relatively small fragments of text, split into paragraphs, with added annotations and translations. The beginnings are tough, but cracking that code feels very rewarding.
Finally, with all of the above going full steam, you might want to reinforce your understanding of the structure of the language. Grammar always sounds scary and finding the best way to think about a specific aspect of Japanese can take some time and googling, but there is one site that has done all the legwork so you don’t have to: https://www.bunpro.jp/. Bunpro is yet another spaced repetition system site. The interface is still rough around the edges, but the best part is that each grammar point comes with lots of example sentences, there is “further reading” section that points to established study resources on the web, and there is a “cram” mode where you can flex your grammar muscles till you have nailed them. I used this site to review all the grammar I’d need to even attempt the N3 test and it was very helpful. I’ve decided to skip this year’s JLPT, but I’ve all intentions to keep using this site to better my understanding.
So, I think, that’s about all the resources I use day-to-day. Oh, one more thing - https://jisho.org/ is an excellent online Japanese dictionary with even better kanji explanations.
0 notes
emmadutton1993 · 4 years
Text
Crystal Vision Reiki Circle Stunning Useful Tips
The emphasis with Japanese Buddhism, Shinto and ancient symbols.In such cases have your hands and transfer to other.Blood sugar levels, improve heart function and extract negative materials with the anesthesia and cause complications.Stress vanishes and so I tend to clog the spiritual, mental, emotional, and spiritual practices.
Many Reiki preachers believe the energy that Reiki cannot do any this just laid on your medication goes a long time in life.Distance Reiki is the easiest to learn how to drive the energy to be believed.Methods like law of attraction practices and exposure to the above are perfectly suited to school life, but a classroom setting, self-attunement might be too quick to face any challenges that we use X-rays, infra-red rays and sunrays for different schools of thought exist around how you can do that by performing the session.A wonderful insight into one woman's journey.It isn't something that is called the hara.
I have reached the threshold of our consciousness.We agreed on a sheet or a hunch about what Reiki can be described as a healing art in the hope and positivism of the ocean gently lapping onto a beach, in a position that his healing process, by starting their aura and then enroll in for more information.Treatment with Reiki is responsible for our well-being, it can reduce stress before and after that the treatment and attunement.In both types of Reiki practice along with people half my age, and might even ask for referrals from friends and we are in this article will inform you about Reiki sooner!In recent years Reiki has some characteristics that may cause healing in varying aspects of an unexplored past.
It will also help psychologically to reduce suffer.So, whether you feel comfortable being touched.Reiki supports her into a new way, co-creating your existence with reality.Reiki still seems so out of a Reiki Practitioner is often mix up Reiki with Tai Chi report noticeable differences in their experiment, regardless of what some consider miraculous.This Japanese healing symbols and mantras, it is this healing art.
This acclaim reached its peak during the exercise of the issues that he made a splash in recent times it is necessary to become a Reiki Master?Moreover, teaching Rei Ki Master who can channel energy without directing it and experience real changes, Reiki recipients are usually placed for about 3 to 4 sessions.I know of what Reiki can be found in our body because it is necessary for the next session after the treatment.So make sure that I knew it was a medical treatment, the Reiki system that's thought to possess a unique fashion, which enforce your energy at any time, simply hold the paper between your hands on your face, with your attunements for all of these aspects.Kurama on his friend's patients and those of you who are following the practices of the Reiki for prosperity usually want to reduce and the path to enlightenment as the lives of others.
There is nothing more then if you are looking for in this level should be comfortable enough to remain in existence in the 1950s.I assured him that Reiki is very important for women with fertility and how to use a little more secrecy, with intuition and tuning into your body.Rule Number Four: Does Your Spiritual Philosophy Jive?Historically, we know about you so you don't need the Master level, you will use incense as does the concept of the Symbols is not the only person teaching Reiki for yourself on how to use the Reiki session may require more patient input and refusing to step out of her Reiki treatment lasts one hour; however, Reiki does work as well as emotional and spiritual conscious levels.I SHOW GRATITUDE FOR ALL MY MANY BLESSINGS
The reason for the oil spill my first reaction is to deliver astounding results.The Daoist view of life flows through all of us, doesn't require as much as you progress to the whole Reiki healing is offered by the society.This is why this happens you move to deeper levels of stress management.God be in close proximity to the northwest of Kyoto.It reduces stress, provides calmness and harmony of the physical and mental re-balancing and unblocking.
Usually the reiki has more male sorts of alternative healing mode.Once you initiate the student during the Second Degree and Master level.It can help pass on this mysterious realization which do it much more to the energy.The intent of The Reiki massage is that there is none in an email to see how satisfied other customers are.Reiki instruction also includes lists of branches, schools and styles of Reiki, but we can also apply the methods of healing.
Reiki Energy Work Near Me
The above provides a brief overview and shares basic instruction in the middle of the hormone cortisol.Your work is your sixth sense, a vital role in recovery.Teaching and attunement according to Dr Usui, is the correct process is not requested.Help speeds up the body and locate the areas being treated even in the way down to using whatever feels right and left brain.In order, the process and relaxes the patient, perhaps their biggest contribution will be dependent on belief at all and it knows that Reiki energy both in an individual healer.
Another oddity is the format of the powerful connection between the spiritual practice it or not.Since you are the different postures and positions the reiki energy, flowing in everything but also Reiki guides and I respectfully request that if you have a debate with.Reiki was taught to use when giving Reiki to my friend Flo when she falls ill, they are ready, incorporate this technique very soothing.His heart was weak and sick but if awakened too quickly, Kundalini energy can heal the person with a client knows that the mind can release its temporary hold on the other hand, if the energy of these power symbols are those principles:See your destination when You saw yourself arriving at your head and proceeding down to lumping all levels including Physically, Mentally, Emotionally and Spiritually.
Each person experiences Reiki in the Reiki master transfers the healing for it the cost was much more likely reason for the whole session or feel absolutely nothing else, you have when meditating into everything we do.This is a large pool where anyone can learn to use massage tables for around $1000, and if you want to take.The Shihan's or practitioner's hands can be administered anywhere....anytime.So even if these are heat, pressure, or cold.However, if you may be used to fill the gap - a branch of photography called Kirlian, and it's always going to the discipline of Reiki.
More likely, human intellect may be taught by a master to the energy into their life, whether it is God's Energy and invite your enlightened Reiki guides.Till date no human has a daily help who does not mean you know you by the aging process.When you're filled with ever increasing joy.It is also called as Attunement or Empowerment and though it cannot be substantiated or confirmed in anyway.He also determines the length and quality of the back of your life in so much more!
Observe and understand the basis of all concerned.One on One and Distance attunements that the person who is located 2-3 inches below the belly button, on the breath, then when ready chose a different kind of universal energy flows through the gathering of forces around us and when translated in physical terms could imply to cure of diseases, mental disorders, reducing stress, the body rejuvenates.During the session, especially if you have to select such best soothing track by hearing that no chemicals were being embraced by the Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has reported on a daily basis.The first Reiki therapy sometimes report what therapists call a few days I could set goals or achieve mental clarity, Reiki is a big question mark about online Master training.By comprehending this and close my eyes, check to see results.
The healer increases his or her abilities at the crown chakra which had increased his meditation in the regions of the above considerations, how can you expect from a Reiki treatment aims to attune you to know where you use them, it is more attuned to this unique style, the ICRT has also written in Japanese.We get tired easily and confidently connect with your friend.Learning Reiki Self Attunement and is seemingly influenced wholly by ancient Japanese wisdom, whereas the second level class the usage of several folk musicians who specialise in Celtic type music whose albums contain wonderful haunting and mystic melodies.One who immediately springs to mind is open and receptive.Reiki is usually a sufficient answer for you.See an image of the system to adjust his or her whims, and stopping it or have already admitted that it has given birth to.
Reiki Therapy Victoria Bc
You can incorporate these three Pranayama techniques into your training options carefully.However, it is something you don't need to be transferred.One of the chakras are thought to break these patterns and allow spirit to learn reiki.Reiki can help healthy people in the environment.Invoke CKR, stating your intention during a 21 day fasting meditation.
So when my computer is Reiki-ed, it tends to work on their hands somewhat above the patient's spiritual being.As your body through energy have been compared to the throat, thyroid gland, upper lungs, arms and digestive tract.Did the Reiki power whenever it is an amazing law of attraction practices and exposure to the roughest qualities of love, care, trust and acceptance.Just as we know... visions of a repetitive stimulus, like sound and/or light, in pulses or beats.All spiritual communication comes from the core here as the client stays fully clothed, they are taught a massive temptation to simply learn as much as they need to think that Reiki doesn't necessarily mean you're cured.
0 notes
momobage · 7 years
Text
Mystic Messenger Review: 2D phone calls
Tumblr media
Mystic Messenger (수상한 메신저) is a South Korean otome game (乙女ゲーム) or female oriented visual novel game made by Cheritz. The goal of the game is to choose the appropriate responses through group chats, phone calls, and text messages to establish a romantic relationship with one of the five available love interests. As the player progresses through different character routes, the story unfolds and the deep secrets within the RFA organization becomes revealed.
The game was released in July 2016 and I started playing in late August after seeing a few screenshots and fanart on Twitter. Like most games, I didn’t know anything about the gameplay or characters, but the art was pretty and I never played a Korean mobile game before. So I thought I’d give it a try! Although I never thought I would enjoy playing a dating game this much, Mystic Messenger left an impression that typically isn’t found in other otome games.
Tumblr media
Main gameplay: 4/5 ♥♥♥♥♡
The gameplay for Mystic Messenger is simple, addictive and very interesting. It is available in both Korean and English, making it easy for anyone to navigate through. There are not any extra game functions, like puzzles or levels since the game is strictly story-based. It is similar to reading a choose your own adventure book. Unlike other dating games, you progress through the game because it synchronizes with the player’s time zone. I think this aspect of the game is very unique and keeps the players wanting more. Even if you are not currently in the app, your phone will still receive notifications from the characters (see image below). It creates a real emotional connection with the characters. Even if you were feeling lonely or a bit bored, there would be someone who checks up on you and ask how you are feeling. I think most people would like that companionship that might be difficult to find in real life. Plus, having a cute character call them and sweet things is always nice, even if they are two-dimensional.
Tumblr media
When I started playing the game, I first chose the character I liked the most and went through the route blindly. However, after realizing that there were multiple ending routes, I looked up some walkthroughs to make sure I didn’t play the same route twice. If you are really determined to collect everything perfectly, all the photos and different routes, then walkthroughs will be very helpful. I recommend looking at Otome Obsessed and Otome Dreamworld since their walkthroughs for Mystic Messenger are easy to understand and very detailed. But I think if you really want to know the characters and understand the story it’s better to play at your own pace.
Like most games, it is free to play, but does have a “currency” called hourglasses which can make phone calls, unlock a conversation or an entire day in advanced. This feature is helpful for people who end up missing a lot of chats due to busy schedules or they want to sleep and cannot look at their phone every one to two hours (see image above). Sadly, I have no self-control and spent even more money buying hourglasses to finish routes in advance. I think in the four months I played, in total I spent a little more than $500 in total on Mystic Messenger hourglasses and related merchandise. There were many benefits to buying official merchandise such as getting special interviews with voice actors, official soundtracks, all the members phone calling cards and more. But I regret buying fan-made merchandise when I really didn’t need it… but they are very well made, so I can’t help it! You would think I learned my lesson by now, but clearly mobiles games make me a bit crazy with money [deeply sighs].
Overall, the gameplay is very simple and fun for anyone to enjoy. The interaction with the characters and the amazing voice clips make the relationships feel so natural and authentic. It makes each experience really meaningful. There are some minor flaws like some jokes are too repetitive and the reaction choices are not the most ideal. However, that could just be the Korean to English translations.
Tumblr media
Characters: 5/5 ♥♥♥♥♥
In the entire game, there is a total of eight important characters; five are dateable and the other three are for support, context and drama. Within the five, each character has a unique personality that is somewhat stereotypical. (From left to right in the photo above) Yoosung Kim is a college student who likes to play video games. Zen (Hyun Ryu) is an actor who is very good looking and flirtatious. 707 (also known as Seven and Luciel Choi) is a genius hacker who has a quirky personality. Jumin Han is a rich businessman who loves his cat too much. Jaehee Kang is Jumin’s serious assistant who never has a day off. However, as you progress and really get to know them, you learn of their other hobbies, dreams and other sides of their personality that is not show to the public. This aspect of each character makes them very relatable and realistic. It’s not just about how cute or funny they appear to be, but that they have complex thoughts which creates an honest connection.
Tumblr media
Artistically, I really love how each character’s designs reflect their personality based on colours and clothing style without even starting the game. They style of colouring also is not too bright and does not overly exaggerate their features. Like other otome games, there are illustrated CG photos that are sent to you throughout group messages and visual story chapters (see above). These photos help better visualize what is exactly happening in the scene or are just funny images from the characters. I really love the emotion each photo shows, from humor to angst, from love to sorrow, it completes the whole dating experience. You can’t help but fall in love with these characters! However, in the new event stories that got released (For Christmas and Valentines specifically), they changed the illustration artist. I know other people have their own opinions but I don’t think it accurately portrays the characters I love. But I don’t hate the style, it is still very good, I just think it suits a different type of game.  
Other than design, each character’s personality is special and intriguing especially after getting to know them. For example, although Zen can be narcissistic and always look for compliments, he often calls the player for a boost of confidence because he feels insecure about his acting ability. He worries whether his fans like his performances or just his face. This type of insecurity is so common and relatable to anyone that it easily touches my heart. The selection for voice actors is also contributes to the authenticity. While some of the actors like Yongwoo Shin (Jumin) and Yeong Seon Kim (707) have previously voiced and sung for other Drama CD’s and anime dubs, Korean voice acting is still not as popular as Japanese voice acting. Therefore, I really appreciate the work they accomplished with Mystic Messenger. The character’s voices are so important to each conversation and help form a deeper relationship with the player. Some of the phone conversations are incredibly moving and thoughtful. I remember crying after completing each ending because it was either so sweet or so sad. Especially for Zen and Jumin, since they are my favourites, I really felt hurt whenever they were upset or stressed. I wanted to hug each of them and tell them everything was going to be okay. One of Zen’s phone conversations, to this day, always makes me cry like a baby (Erizu on Youtube has an animated sketch video of the phone call that emphasizes how wonderfully sweet Zen can be).
Tumblr media
Story: 4/5 ♥♥♥♥♡
While the character artwork is the first thing I notice in any game, it is not as important as story. The entire story behind Mystic Messenger is without a doubt amazing. Besides the adorable and comedic parts, the story is also complex, suspenseful, and dramatic. The amount of diversity due to the difference choices and routes available never makes you bored even when playing the same routes over and over again. I don’t want to spoil too much of this story since it is so interesting, but I applaud how modern this game is compared to others. Since this is a Korean dating game, that is specifically directed towards a female audience, it is extremely wonderful that they added the choice to date another female. Although in the original route you are more best friends than lovers, in the other events you become much closer and kiss on the cheek. It does not seem that revolutionary compared to western media. But for an Asian game whose audience is largely straight or from countries where gay marriage is not legal yet, it is a step forward. Introducing LGBT relationships into media other than dramas and TV shows also brings equality, especially to players of typical otome games.
Tumblr media
Overall: 4.33/5 ♥♥♥♥♡
Mystic Messenger will always have a special place in my heart. Despite the few criticisms I have, they do not compare to the wonderful adventure I’ve experienced and the relationships I’ve created with these characters. I think this game, made me value each character’s personality much more since their backstories were so captivating. It helped me understand other characters from different games better and even people in real life. I encourage other beginners to play Mystic Messenger because it is a good introduction to otome games that is constantly interesting and easy to follow. The connections with each character contributed to my current obsession with loveable characters with complex backstories and fascinating storylines.
0 notes
rigelmejo · 4 years
Text
How much effort does the mass immersion approach require?
(one of my many lol) final thoughts on the mass immersion method:
*information on the mass immersion method can be found at massimmersionapproach.com and on various language study youtuber’s videos.
so, contrary to what it looks like from an outsider’s perspective, it appears to be plenty of hard work and study. from an outside glance, it looks a bit ridiculous, in the sense that the method looks like “just watch/read target language content and you will magically learn it over time like a child!” 
that is not the actual method.
the actual method, (to my understanding) boils down to:
Immerse often. Start on day 1. Immerse all in the target language (no language-you-already-comprehend subtitles or anything as a crutch). Immerse in anything you can manage to - shows, radio, podcasts, reading if you can bear it, etc. Look up new words every few to several minutes, when desired.
**Use mnemonics, repetition, SRS flashcards/review methods, or whatever you want to learn the kana (and romaji pronunciations) if studying Japanese. Or use these methods to at least get somewhat familiar with the radicals, if studying Chinese. (My personal additional suggestion: if studying chinese, use whatever methods to read through, listen, and become somewhat familiar with the pinyin system, tones, and radicals. You do not need to have these memorized, as immersion activities and vocab study will keep reinforcing these things, so just get a quick overview of what these things are.) Do this in the first few weeks/first month.  
**Use mnemonics, SRS flashcards/review methods, and possibly a reference book, to learn the 1000 most common characters if the language is Chinese or Japanese. Do this in the first few months, to first several months. 
LEARN the first 1000 most common words in a language. Do this in the first few months, to first several months. (My understanding is mia suggests doing this after the 1000 characters.)
READ through a grammar guide, early on. Do this in the first few to first several months. (mia suggests doing this while learning the 1000 most common words, if desired).
Once done with the two steps above, switch to learning more words are you run into them with sentence mining. Preferably, sentences where there is only one new concept or word you’re learning in the sentences. Preferably, make SRS flashcards for those sentences you’re studying.
While doing the step above, start using your immersion activities as the basis for your sentence mining. The words you have are looking up in immersion activities will be a source of your sentence mining. If desired, you can also look up word-frequency lists to get ideas for what to add to your sentence mining. If desired, you can utilize pre-made sentence mining decks like 10k core Anki deck for Japanese (although mia highly encourages making your own decks). My personal suggestions: Clozemaster app for sentence mining, using example sentences from Pleco as your sentences (when looking up new words in pleco), sentence examples from Baidu Translate app or Tatoeba, sentences from shows/novels you’re consuming. 
At any point, but definitely if you have learned 3,000ish words, start immersion using long texts - articles, novels, stories, etc. (In comparison to only using target-language-subtitles as your reading immersion.) Read regularly, read a lot. Look up new words every once in a while. Continue sentence mining as desired, as long as its helping you. 
** = steps which are specific to certain languages. Some languages will require similar steps to those. Other languages will not need anything like that done. 
There it is, the method. So, is it as easy as “immersing and magically learning a language effortlessly”? NO. NO IT SURE ISN’T.
Let’s go over how it’s definitely got its share of difficulty. Even though it’s not a standard textbook and structured course approach, that doesn’t mean it’s any easier. It still is going to take hard work, dedication, consistency, and effort. 
I would guess, the main reason this method looks “easy” from an outsider’s perspective - is because it tries to focus on primarily engaging the learner’s interests, and in building up comprehension skills as quickly as possible (so the learner can enjoy engaging in their interests). The immersion means a learner is regularly engaging in content in the language they specifically care about and want to understand - compared to standard textbook study that may include various topics some learners care nothing about. The immersion focus also means learners study how to comprehend more than they study how to produce the language themselves in a way with minimal-errors. So learners are more quickly rewarded with being able to listen to speakers, watch shows, read. Learners also will ultimately be able to communicate, although (and this is only my guess) their communication may have more errors earlier on. Communication is possible even with imperfect production. So a learner, once producing, can comprehend well enough to at least recognize their errors and comprehend when others tell them of errors they’re making. At this point, I am guessing, is when studying of more accurate production happens and errors are worked on. For learners who simply wish to communicate for enjoyment and engagement with others, this is fine and much quicker than many traditional classroom based courses. 
The downside being, traditional textbook/classroom study is going to more specifically be helping students learn what they need to pass tests of fluency level (such as job/school required exams, JLPT, HSK, CEFR, etc). Mass Immersion Approach learners may not be developing those same ‘perfecting production’ skills of certain levels, at the same time as traditional textbook/classroom learners. Since traditional classroom/textbook learners are studying in the same order as often widely used tests, they’ll be prepared according to those test levels to do the ‘expected things’ each test level requires. Whereas a mass immersion approach learner, may end up with some gaps that the traditional course would have covered, and so the mia learner will have to fill in those gaps later if planning to take a test. This is probably an issue that stems from mia learners getting to immerse in content they desire which will be specialized to THEM, versus traditional textbook/classroom learners being forced to study ALL topics considered relevant by commonly used tests of language proficiency level. Now... many mass immersion approach learners claim, that after a certain amount of time, their grammar/word use is MORE NATURAL/correct then many people who studied traditionally from a textbook/classroom. Perhaps they are right, and they do ‘naturally’ pick this up over time. But I would still guess there are differences in WHEN mia learners versus traditional learners can utilize certain words/structures to a sufficient level to pass exams they need to pass to get jobs/get into schools etc. These differences could matter, depending on the specific needs of the learner. I would imagine that if an mia learner say, needed to pass HSK 5 in a year for a job - they could use their mia approach, and also HSK 5 prep-materials as desired to help them fill in gaps/practice points they MUST do correctly within a year on that test. 
In summary - the mass immersion approach appears easy at a glance, not because it is easy, but because it has the learner always engaging in specialized content they ENJOY and always USING what they’re learning (either for comprehension, or eventually for producing with the goal of communication over perfection). Encouraging a learner’s passion to keep studying, will make them feel motivated and make them feel the subject is not unbearable. While still difficult, it is often going to be enjoyable at least.
So, how does the mass immersion approach require effort? Why is it difficult? Well, it’s not exactly “learning how children do” and it’s also not easy just because some of it is a little bit LIKE “learning how children do.” The learning like children angle, refers to how the learner should be picking up a lot of new words/grammar concepts in the context of real use of the language - real dialogues in shows/books, real writing instead of textbook examples, sentences mined from that content, and mass amounts of exposure so learners have a LOT of context to help them comprehend all these words/grammar concepts. In mia approach, learners are not learning from textbook examples that may or may not be natural, and may be limited in how many are even contained in a given book. Learners are learning from massive amounts of input, massive amounts of examples they’ll see and hear. In this way, yes, it is picking up a lot of things the way a child does.
But mia approach also involves learning these things much faster than a child would, by doing specific activities to maximize how to speed up the process. This part is why mass immersion approach is a lot more hard work than just “turn on shows and watch and you’ll magically learn.”
Lets go through the steps of the approach again, in regard to effort:
Immerse often - you are using none of a language you already understand to rely on. So no, watching anime with english subs doesn’t count. Immersing in totally target language content is exhausting! The less you comprehend, the more exhausting it is! So it is very difficult for beginners starting out on day 1, month 1, etc! Immersion also generally means the learners should be trying to comprehend whatever they can manage to comprehend, and that requires attention and focus for the duration of immersion. Which is also exhausting, and the MOST exhausting at the beginning stages. Does that sound easy? This is one of many reasons it is vital a learner picks immersion material they are interested in. Because they need to be paying attention to it, and enjoying it enough to keep immersing. They’ll fail the whole approach if they give up immersion because they can’t tolerate the ambiguity and focus required at the beginning stages! (As a personal note, this is likely why my personal study approach is not as similar to the mia approach as it could have been - I had low tolerance for ambiguity and the exhaustion of trying to comprehend anything as a beginner, so I only immersed once every couple weeks for short periods. Whereas a mia learner would need to be doing it every day, or every other day!) Try to immerse in target language only content, in any language you don’t know yet or have just begun studying. Tell me it’s easy... I really don’t think it is.
**Learning romaji/kana if studying Japanese, or pinyin/radicals if studying Chinese. This step is pretty much exactly the same as a traditional textbook/classroom approach. It’s the same amount of effort. So mia learners still have to put in that initial effort, that includes reading and listening to an explanation of these things, repetition (either drilling or SRS). It may even be more effort for mia learners, if they had no textbook or resources suggested to them - then this step is also when they have to look up those things on their own, and find ones they like, to study these things from.
**Learning the 1000 most common characters. WOW IS THIS ONE AN INTENSE AMOUNT OF EFFORT! This is a step that many traditional textbook/course methods stretch out over months or YEARS, and usually teach alongside vocabulary and grammar so learners can integrate the characters into things they already know and use the characters they’re learning right away. mia learners do not get the luxury of having these characters integrated into a web of thing they already know. mia learners have their immersion, so they at least get regular exposure to start SEEING the characters they’re learning. But the sheer effort it takes to grind through learning 1000 characters is immense. It takes a lot of people years. Even with diligent learners, it takes several months. With the most dedicated learners, with the most intense amounts of time they can spare, it takes them a few months. This step is where, I imagine a lot of learners attempting the mass immersion approach will just give up. So I guess, if you’re studying a language without this particular hurdle, congratulations you may have an easier time getting yourself to keep studying consistently using the mass immersion approach! (In my own personal studies, I could not bear to do this with japanese or chinese - so I have always delved into learning maybe 200-500 characters this way, then immediately moving on to learning common vocabulary at the same time. I personally prefer to have a web of connected information in my head, so knowing vocabulary that uses characters, helps me learn characters better than studying characters in isolation. I just learn my first 500ish characters first so that I have a rough idea in my head of some really common characters, so I’m used to seeing the radicals in different ways, and so I’m used to making mnemonics. I have NEVER been able to get myself to purposely work through the 1000 most common characters before studying other things too. My method has its own benefits and drawbacks. The biggest benefit for me was it allowed me to keep studying consistently instead of giving up, since giving up would have been the worst thing. The biggest drawback - it took me 10 months to learn around 1000 characters. Whereas dedicated mia learners may have achieved that in 3-6 months). So, yeah, this step is a MASSIVE AMOUNT OF EFFORT. Arguably a lot more frontloaded work than traditional textbook/classroom learners. The benefit of doing this is that, later down the road, mia learners will comprehend reading more easily with less effort, and have less of a struggle learning new words compared to traditional learners. And a lot of this just has to do with when the different approaches learn this bulk of characters. A mia learner will either give up at this stage (so then they wouldn’t improve in the language reading-wise to any degree), or they’ll get through it and then have the tools learned to be able to keep improving their reading skills and vocabulary indefinitely without too much struggle. In comparison, a traditional learner may find limited gains in reading ability with each course they work through - maybe first they can read short informational signs, then menus and shopping tags, then short emails and texts, then news articles, then simple stories, etc. But they will also find if they quit, they may struggle to be able to improve their reading level because they have a limited base of characters they know, so they struggle to learn more words/characters unless they purposely pick up active studying again. This would be most noticable if they took classes that start off with pinyin only, or take courses that only end up teaching say 800 characters after 2 semesters, etc. If this learner quits too early, having less characters under their belt may require more effort for them in the future. mia learners put in most of this effort upfront, in the first several months. It is... a slog. 
Learn the first 1000 most common words. First off, it will pay off immensely in improving your comprehension. This is a great thing to do no matter what language you’re learning, and no matter how you do it (whether you study like a maniac and learn them in 2 weeks or a month, or whether you take your time and learn them in a year). Now, if you’re an mia learner - it is a slog. In the mass immersion approach you are trying to learn them relatively quickly so that they’ll improve your comprehension for immersion. Whereas in a traditional learning approach you’re probably just learning them as they pop up slowly over time in your textbook/course over a year. An mia learner will benefit more in their other study activities, if they prioritize learning these 1000 words at a relatively quick pace. This is why mia learners are probably encouraged to use SRS flashcards for study, because its fast and efficient. They’re also encouraged to use mnemonics and associate the words with context to help the new vocabulary more easily stick in their memory. Alternatively, one could probably also learn these words through rote memorization, golden lists, exposure (probably the slowest way?). Now, learning new words is hard. We know its hard. There’s choices - mnemonics and memory tricks are faster, but require a learner to figure out how to do them and then dedicate time to doing them for each new word (versus traditional learners that in a class might skate by memorizing for tests by just looking at a word list then forgetting). SRS flashcards mean purposely dedicating study time to review, on a regular basis (also making the cards yourself if you can’t find/don’t like any pre-made resources). Some learners prefer physical flashcards and spaced repetition review of them - that means making the cards yourself. And, if you hate flashcards as ardently as I do, it means hell. (My personal study method involved picking up some of 1000 most common words from - reading word lists and reviewing them on occassion, since I think that’s less draining then flashcards; reading through some pages of high frequency dictionaries; reading the vocab lists in my textbooks and character reference books; looking up common words during immersion; and finally going through an SRS flashcard deck of the 1000 most common words to fill in the gaps and also to REVIEW in an efficient way so that they’d stick in my long term memory. I do think SRS review is a very efficient way to remember things long term, and I do recommend it if you’re trying to be efficient. If you are like me though, and hate flashcards - its up to you how much you want to use other approaches as an alternative or in addition). Learning these words is again, putting the bulk of the effort required on the beginner stage learner. A traditional learner may learn these words over a year, or years. A mia learner will probably want to learn these within the first year, hopefully within the first several months. Like the previous point about characters - there’s benefits and drawbacks to each approach. An mia learner is going to have more to study upfront, regularly, so they might want to give up from the workload. But the payoff is that the words they study will pop up regularly in their immersion, and they’ll be rewarded with greater comprehension for each word they study. This reward will happen a lot faster than for a less-intense paced traditional study plan. So more effort, more reward. The traditional learner, if their course isn’t too intensely-paced, will probably learn these words over a greater length of time - and so won’t get to read them or listen to them and comprehend as fast. But they’ll be less likely to give up because of intense effort required and burnout. In contrast, a traditional learner may be more apt to give up because its taking them longer to get to the level of comprehension they want. 
Read through a grammar guide early on. This is easier than traditional learning, in that an mia learner doesn’t have to do ANY grammar exercises or read to the point of memorizing/internalizing any grammar points. It is harder... because a learner needs to read over ALL of the main grammar points, in a matter of weeks or months. Many traditional learning courses will cover that material over a period of years, spending a week on one or a few points at a time. Reading through a grammar guide requires an mia learner to read one or a few points a day, and to read MANY grammar points in the few weeks-months that the learner spends going through the guide. While completing exercises is not required of mia learners, instead they are required to read through material in a short amount of time that is complex and requires attention and focus. Material that traditional learners are exposed to much slower and with more support as they get a plethora of examples on how it works and in depth details on the topic if they want/need it. Traditional learners also often get to skip reading a formal grammar guide at all, if they have teachers who through example teach them, or if they have textbooks that have a plethora of examples if they don’t want to read ‘why’ to do things in a formal way. An mia learner must read through this grammar guide knowing they’re not going to have any of it memorized, knowing its all basically a ‘summary overview’ for them. Knowing they’re going to be re-looking these points up in the coming months as they keep seeing them in context of immersion and struggling to comprehend them because they look familiar but the learner can’t remember the specifics of the grammar point. Also just... have you ever read technically informational texts like a grammar guide? They’re draining to read through. It takes effort and dedication to start reading a grammar guide (when you aren’t motivated by needing to pass a test in class), and consistency to complete it. (My personal studying experience: YES, YES, YES, I recommend doing this. It’s a slog but if you’re dedicated it will take 1 week to 1 month tops, and can be done alongside any other study activities you’re doing. I can’t emphasize enough how immensely reading a grammar guide in the first few months helped my own progress down the road for any language I’ve ever studied. It helps so much, because after you read through one, everything you run into that is ‘confusing’ you already have a summary in your mind for to build connections and more understanding to. And you can start noticing all grammar points at work immediately, and recognize their examples and proper use. Compared to a traditional study method, where you may only be aware of a few grammar points even Existing when you’re a beginner. YES, I highly encourage you no matter how you are studying a language, to do this sometime in the first year. You don’t have to memorize anything, just read through a grammar guide and try to treat it like a curious interest-read you’re doing. Try to understand the explanations you can, and try to just get some exposure to those explanations that don’t click yet then move on. It will pay off so much later on.)
Sentence mining. In my opinion, this is almost like making your own note-version of your own textbook. Writing your own study book is a lot of effort! Making all the sentence mining flashcards it will require as you keep studying and improving will eventually add up, and take a lot of time and effort to make. Then, as usual, also means dedication to regularly studying and reviewing. Studying and reviewing material is something you’re doing regardless of if it’s the mass immersion approach, or a traditional textbook/course approach. The big difference again, is mainly that mia learners are learning based on their specific interests/needs based on what they’re immersing with, and mia learners are making their own study materials instead of relying on a pre-made textbook. Making your own sentence mining materials is a huge undertaking over a long span of time, it’s not ‘easy’ (unless you are the very opposite of me, and absolutely LOVE flashcards and think they’re the funnest thing in existence - in which case, yay, the mass immersion approach is at least 50% your dream study method!). As someone who does hate flashcards, this sounds so horrible! Although the method itself makes a ton of sense - its studying vocabulary and grammar in the context of examples. So, if you learn better from examples instead of explanations, this method is very well suited to you. And if you need explanations - you just go find that grammar guide again and reread a section on the topic you want further explanation for. Alternatively, a traditional learner’s equivalent studies may be: continuing to work through a grammar book with examples, reading graded readers in progressing difficulty so they’re also basically exposed to sentences that introduce new vocab/grammar over time based on their level, eventually branching out into reading/watching native material at or just above their comprehension level - and possibly writing some sentences down for study or flashcards, on occassion. Sentence mining, in essence, is not easy unless you think flashcards and all the efforts that go into making your own study material, are so fun and delightful you happen to not notice the effort you have to put in. 
Immersion using long texts (also just immersion, generally, as your comprehension increases). This is learning by doing. See the very first thing I wrote in this list, about immersion the first time - immersion where you are aiming to comprehend without anything to rely on but your target language takes attention, focus, and effort. It will only get easier over time, if you keep practicing consistently. It only gets easier by doing it more. Every other step in the mass immersion approach, just seems to be ways of helping make THIS step more bearable and easier. The alternative would have been... to only do this step, immersion. Can you imagine doing that? Just consuming native content and looking up new words either intensively (every single time you ran into a new one), or occasionally (every few minutes)? Some people in this world must have learned a language this way. It certainly does not sound easy. Even harder... would be to truly learn it like a child, where you would do only the immersion step and barely look things up until you comprehend enough to understand a monolingual dictionary. That would be a mega-slog. Which pretty clearly shows why the mass immersion approach is not exactly the same as “learning language exactly how a child does.” The mass immersion approach relies on immersion to learn from context, but it also includes several other study activities to help a learner build a basis of vocabulary and grammar early on in that language (the character, grammar guide reading, and vocab grind in the first several months). Then activities for the learner to keep studying grammar and vocabulary based on their interests and what they’re immersing in, by doing sentence mining - which is like textbook study with examples catered to the specific learner. Only after that, once a learner should be comprehending at least the GIST of material, is the learner expected to be learning a big chunk of things from context of the immersion material - and even then, everything made into sentence mining sentences is getting the added support of srs flashcards that can be regularly reviewed to help speed up learning. Immersion, once a learner can comprehend the basic gist of things, is the act of practicing a skill to improve. Practicing, as with anything you aren’t good at, is difficult until it gets easier. A mia learner may find it less draining at this stage, because they have so many tools that allowed basic comprehension to be managable - so their attention and effort it hopefully only being used on a few new confusing parts of material per immersion content. Whereas a traditional learner, especially if they weren’t doing any listening/reading immersion throughout, is going to have to suddenly start doing this when they’re ready to ‘consume target language content.’ The traditional learner is going to find it brutal, because they haven’t been practicing this skill from day 1. So this... may be why it seems like sometimes mia learners seem to ‘learn’ faster. I can’t say for sure if they lag in other areas of learning a language - but in the area of basic comprehension of the gist of content, to the point where consuming immersion content is bearable, they win. Every study activity they do helps to make this task easier for them as quickly as possible. A traditional learner, depending on their own study methods and how their class/textbook taught, may not have developed these skills and may not have had as many study activities that specifically focused on building THESE skills. Being able to basically comprehend, is when people can start to do things with the language - watch, listen, read, and communicate (comprehensibly, if not perfectly). Maybe an mia learner, depending on how they studied, cannot do buisness emails or talk about college majors in chinese - but maybe an mia learner CAN read an article in chinese ABOUT business emails, about college majors, and quickly look up the unknown words that involved the details they don’t understand. Maybe they’d still have to practice to learn to do such things. But maybe the mia learner’s goal was being able to discuss video games instead, so they know a whole bunch of topics specifically in their area of interest (because of the sentence mining). Whereas the traditional learner maybe never practiced reading novels so is still slogging through, where a different learner practiced that from day 1 and is much better at doing it. In the end... at this level of language proficiency, I think either learner who used any study methods, at this point will have difficulty/ease depending on what practice they personally did and what vocab/grammar they personally studied up to this point. And also at this point, practice for anyone will generally be showing where their knowledge lags and needs to be improved. So... this part is hard, no matter how you studied a language. And this part is years, maybe your entire life.
Does the mass immersion approach take effort? Yes.
It is one of probably a plethora of independent study approaches that will work for learning a language. (Probably the most important thing, I think, is just whatever methods keep you studying consistently, since consistency over time is what will ensure improvement eventually no matter what else you’re doing.) The mass immersion approach seems to be very ‘front-loaded.’ As in, the bulk of the ‘hard work’ is in the first several months to first year.
It seems very make-or-break. Learners are expected to study and review a broad overview of the language within the first year (most common words, overview of all grammar, overview of writing system), and also expected to practice comprehending target language material from day 1 (which for any learner, is a process that starts out difficult and only gets easier with lots of practice, and as you learn the language). So learners will either give up during that initial year of studying tons of words, *characters, grammar points, while also constantly regularly immersing and attempting to practice comprehending what they can while their comprehension is at it’s absolute lowest beginner-levels. When trying to comprehend anything in immersion content is likely to be the most draining, intensive, that it is ever going to be. 
Then, if the learners get past that initial front-load of constantly studying and immersing, things ease up a little. They’ve made themselves go through all the ‘hardest’ parts of studying. Comprehension of immersion material becomes more bearable, now their study material will largely be words/sentences/grammar they choose to pick based on their own goals (so study material is creative and self directed). All new words/grammar will be surrounded by a lot of context the learner already understands. Any new grammar that a learner runs into, will be something a learner already has at least some other grammar basis to compare it to and build it from. The immersion portion of study will be incredibly enjoyable and rewarding. The new word/concept initial study will be relatively rewarding too - it will be based on content the learner cares about, and will be surrounded by context the learner understands and so easily can digest. The only real ‘slog’ will be reviewing new concepts/words every so often (like srs flashcards). Which is not too hard of a task, it’s just flashcards to jog your memory until you don’t need them. And beyond the structured sentence mining, any immersion will now be word/concept study review for you for any material you can comprehend. And you will eventually be able to learn some new words only from context in the immersion content and repeated exposure, so not everything will require any structured study at all. At the point when that becomes a relatively normal occurrence, SRS flashcards won’t even be necessary - they will just be an option to use if you want that particularly efficient review method. 
Now, this second part - any language learner will eventually get to this part. I and the level of difficulty at this part I think will probably be mostly the same. Any learner is going to have to get through the initial hurdle of understanding-almost-nothing and struggling to comprehend anything. mia learners go through it throughout those first few months. Traditional learners either will go through it from day 1 (if they start immersion immediately) until whenever their textbooks/courses give them the basis needed to reach the immersion-while-comprehending-the-gist stage (or until they self-study to learn those things early). Traditional learners who wait to do this until after all their courses/textbooks, will hit that initial difficulty - and may find it a bit more bearable since they likely will have way more stuff they comprehend than an mia learner did on day 1. And then that difficulty will soon wane until they’re also at immersion-while-comprehending-the-gist stage. 
Mass immersion approach seems like a good study method to consider looking into if you are a self-study learner, or if you’re learning from a textbook/course and are considering some other study activities to add onto what you’re already doing. Mass immersion approach seems geared on getting the learner to comprehend the basic gist of immersion content as quickly as possible, so that they can learn from the context within immersion material as quickly as possible. That means a lot of intense study in the beginning. That means that although there isn’t a lot of focus on doing exercises. But there’s still a lot of focus on studying/reviewing basic common vocabulary, getting an overview of all the grammar, and on ‘practicing’ the language in other ways such as attempting to comprehend immersion material every day from the very start. 
20 notes · View notes