Tag: Japanese

Why I plan on spending $500 on Japanese novels this year

My goal of reading one book a week for a year would mean that I would need 52 books. At around $10 each that would mean that I am looking at needing over $500 to fund this goal. This is a lot of money for me! Since I plan on moving to Japan in the future, I can’t even keep these books with me long term! It would be too expensive to bring them back to Japan with me. But the more I think about this goal, the more it makes sense.

I just feel extremely passionate about this blog and my reading goals. I have no idea why, but I just feel like if I keep this up good things will happen. I just have nothing but positive feelings about reading Japanese novels right now! This is such a change from the past when I would feel overwhelmed by the idea of reading in Japanese. That feeling caused me to stop reading for pleasure in general as I felt too guilty to read books in English when I could be reading books in Japanese.

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JLPT Textbook Review: 新完全マスターN2文法

Today I will be sharing my thoughts on the infamous Shin-Kanzen Master(新完全マスター) JLPT series! I love textbooks and have borrowed and bought a few different ones for the JLPT and the Shin-Kanzen Master is by far my favorite one!

I just want to note that I am writing this review without having taken the JLPT due to the fact that it was cancelled in 2020. Next time I take the JLPT I plan on taking N1. I am writing this review while comparing it to other sources and reflecting on what type of knowledge that I have gained from it.

Like most JLPT textbooks, its not a true textbook in the sense that it doesn’t exactly teach you the content. It lists out the content with a short explanation, examples, and practice questions. If anything it is more of a drill book. 

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Japanese Novel Review: コンビニ人間 Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata(村田沙耶香)

Illustration by Paisen Japanese https://www.instagram.com/paisenjapanese/

This review is for the novel Convenience Store Woman(コンビニ人間) by Sayaka Murata(村田沙耶香). This novel has won the Akutagawa Prize, which is one of the most famous literary prizes in Japan. It was such a hit in Japan, that is was translated into English as well. This is a review for the Japanese version of the novel.

I bought this book at Kinokuniya at Chicago for 9.99. It took me a few tries before I was able to purchase this book. I had a hard time paying so much for such a short book! I was finally able to do and am glad that I did. I am happily awaiting the day I am able to move back to Japan and spend all of my time in used book stores and libraries. I hope that day is coming sooner then later! But who knows with COVID.

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In Defense of Collecting Books

Illustration by Paisen Japanese https://www.instagram.com/paisenjapanese/

I tend to lean towards a minimalist mind set. I do not own many things and it really surprises people who come into my apartment when they notice all of the empty space and distinct lack of furniture and storage. When I moved to my current apartment, my heaviest box was filled with exclusively Japanese novels. As of right now I have a collection of 35 Japanese novels.

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Japanese Novel Review: 神去なあなあ日常 Wood Job by Miura Shion(三浦しをん）

Illustration by Paisen Japanese https://www.instagram.com/paisenjapanese/

This is one of my favorite Japanese novels!

The book I will be reviewing and accessing today is 神去なあなあ日常.  In this review, I will be referring to it in English as Wood Job, which is the name of the Japanese movie created based on this novel. It was written by the fairly popular Japanese author Shion Miura(三浦しをん).  I am a huge fan of this author and love how she is able to showcase so many different worlds in her novels. Her writing style does different between novels and some are harder then others.

I bought this book at Chicago’s Kinokuniya for 10.99.

Why did I pick this book?

I decided to get this book because I loved the movie Wood Job. Back when I lived in Japan, my partner and I would often go to a DVD rental store and pick out random movies to watch. I fell in love with Wood Job right from the start.

Recently, I’ve been interested in story lines about people living in Japanese cities, and their journey moving to the country side and getting used to a new life style. This is most likely because that is what I am planning to do in the near future! I am not sure why it took me so long to decide, but hopefully by next summer that is where I will be living.

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Buying Japanese Books in America: Chicago Kinokuniya

Just wanted to share with you guys where I buy my novels and what kind of selection that I have.

I currently live in the Midwest and to be honest there are not very many choices for buying books in person. Kinokuniya in Arlington Heights, IL seems to be the only option available to me at this time. Its somewhat far away and the round trip ends up being a few hours. But I feel fairly strongly about being able to read the first few pages of a book before committing to it. Writing style is really important to my enjoyment of reading a book. Reading a description of the plot or reading a book review isn’t enough for me to make a decision.

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How I make Japanese Grammar SRS cards

I decided to write this blog post due to the amount of time I have tried different formats for grammar cards. There have been so many times I downloaded grammar decks or created grammar decks and ended up trashing them. I have finally found a card style that works for me and I have been using it for a few months now.

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Japanese Novel Review: 魔女の宅急便 Kiki’s Delivery Service

 

 

This is a great book for N3-N4 level students!

This is the review for 魔女の宅急便 Kiki’s Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono(角野 栄子).  This is her most popular novel.  After watching the Ghibli film adaption of her novel, she was inspired to continue to story and has written 5 additional novels to expand on Kiki’s story.

Kiki’s Delivery Service is by far my favorite Ghibli movie, although recently I did see Whisper of the Heart for the first time and really enjoyed it. When I first moved to Japan, I really related to Kiki’s story. I felt like I didn’t really have any skills or any specific plan, but just basically set out on my own and moved to a random new sea side location. I was really excited to live so close to the ocean as the area I am from is extremely land-locked. When I saw the novel that the book was based off of in a store, I quickly brought it. I think this may have been one of the first books that I bought in Japanese.

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Reading practice on Youtube: かずえちゃん

Picture taken from かずえちゃん twitter account

Today I would like to introduce a source of reading practice outside of novels, youtube channels with subtitles! The first channel I would like to introduce in this series of post is かずえちゃん.

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Japanese Novel Review: 君の名は Your Name

 

Last year, I did not watch animated films often. I think that I didn’t have enough knowledge of anime to find movies that I would be interested in.

I remember when I first started hearing about the movie Your Name. I saw it mentioned a few times in the news about breaking records in ticket sales. I read articles that mentioned that people loved the movie so much that individuals were going to the movie theater multiple times to see it. Even then I didn’t really look into it. I just figured that it would be too new to be available in America. And the fact that anime fans saw it multiple times? My image of anime fans is that they watch their favorite series on repeat. So I didn’t really see the big deal about that either. But I was wrong, and now I am a repeat watcher of Your Name as well.

I started watching it with no prior knowledge of the story line. I really enjoyed the music and the scenery shown in the movie. I did not expect the plot twist at all and over all really enjoyed the movie! This movie inspired me to start looking into other animated films as well and I have found a few that I really enjoy.

I purchased Your Name at Kinokuniya in Chicago for 10.99. Kinokuniya also had copies of novels based off of other popular movies directed by Makoto Shinkai.

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