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abeautifulblog · 2 years

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gremble watches a hexer, episode 1

So for the record, my preconceptions of this show were:

Special effects on par with Xena: Warrior Princess

Subtitles of dubious quality

Everyone’s having a good time

Let's begin!

EPISODE 1 COMMENCES!

Maybe it's just because I'm someone who grew up with Xena &al, but that first scene, of Geralt fighting some sort of swamp monster, was not that off-putting? It was a good use of a low-budget TV show's low budget.

...And now that I think about it, that accomplished the exact same thing as the opening sequence of TWN's first episode: witcher fights water monster; witcher wins. Sets the scene for what witchers do and what they’re capable of.

I am WEIRDED OUT by Roach being white?? Unless that's not Roach? If it is, I am side-eyeing this Polish production company as hard as I'm side-eyeing Netflix for killing off bay-mare Roach and replacing her with a black Frisian stallion (better for the #aesthetic) as soon as they could plausibly do so.

...oh nm that's not Roach. That's Vesemir’s horse.

IT’S FLASHBACK TIME!!

It's hard to tell what's clunky writing vs. what's clunky translation, but this short scene between Vesemir and Geralt(?)'s parents does a very tidy job illustrating the fundamental tension around witchers—that everyone wants them on-call, until it comes time to pay them for their work.

Like, we all agree we need sewage plants somewhere, but Not In My Backyard. Sure, somebody needs to sacrifice their kids to sustain the witcher order, but it shouldn't have to be my son.

Oh interesting – that this version of Geralt was old enough when he was taken to understand what he was being taken away from, and therefore kept trying to run back home. And that's why Vesemir is keeping child-Geralt on a literal leash.

(Which doesn't jive with fanon's interpretation of how Geralt came to Kaer Morhen, but could be a useful detail for people writing Lambert to use.)

I kinda wish I understood Polish, because I am getting the distinct sense that there is a lot being lost in translation. As someone who might have been a translator in another life, this always pains me.

This is indeed some 1990s SFX, but Hexer is currently holding the line on being the only Witcher franchise to actually show witcher recruits undergoing the trial of the grasses.

...and holy wow, it is somewhat horrifying that the only voice speaking on Geralt’s behalf is “we'll wait until tomorrow before putting him through more of this,” and their idea of kindness isn't unshackling him from the table, but tossing a blanket over him.

...and this is the only iteration of the Witcher I've seen that shows Geralt as a child chained to a slab in the dark, crying for his mother. Well done, Hexer.

...I'm pretty sure these two guys are mages (ie, people who care about The Witcher Experiment more than the people being turned into witchers). But if that bit of expository dialogue was meant to clarify some future plot point, uh. Mates, it did not.

Even in a rather hamfisted way, this show is establishing the cultural faultlines well—that everyone wants witchers to exist, but no one is willing to pay the tithes to support them.

That said, I am lost by all this Kaer Morhen political intrigue.

THE SAGES trying to interpret traumatized eight-year-old Geralt's dreams:

...And I thought that I’d lost the plot because I was very drunk when I was watching this, but in retrospect, it may not have been entirely my fault. o_O

I don’t think I finished episode one, but when I picked it up again six months later, I went ahead and started from episode two.

On the whole I’d say give this one a miss, but I do think it adds something to Geralt’s characterization to impress it into the audience’s mind that no matter what he becomes in the future, he was once a child, alone and in agony, crying for a mother who was never going to come.

#gremble watches a hexer

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kimmyyang · 4 years

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My views on ‘The Untamed 陈情令’

I never thought I would write a review on a drama although I have watched a lot of dramas of different genres for about 15/16 years. There is something about ‘The Untamed’ that made me want to write a review or at least write out my feelings. I’m not going to write too deep and get into all the details. But I guess this could be a way for me to get out of this trap or try to get it off my chest.

I’m not a fan of the original novel (well, not yet) as I don’t like reading so I haven’t read it yet. However, I have decided to read it as I have finished the drama and couldn’t get over it no matter how much I want to escape from it.

Trust me, I don’t usually get THIS attached to a drama or any characters, I mean yeah, the casts are handsome and all, but I stayed for the plot and the characters, not just the good looks of those actors. Especially if it’s 50 episodes long, I wouldn’t stay for someone’s visuals like I ain’t got time for that – I can just watch the cuts of that actor lol. I’m quite picky because I have seen A LOT of dramas, if I watch 2 episodes and it bores me then bye and I don't like long dramas. But after the 50 episodes, I felt so empty like I wanted more??? I know that's normal since I have experienced that before but this time was slightly different.

I personally think everyone portrayed their characters very well, despite most of them are young actors/ actresses. I usually skip or play supporting characters’ parts in 1.5 speed if they’re not as interesting as the main characters. But they kept me riveted throughout the entire drama, I didn’t skip one bit. Most characters hit me at some point during the drama, and I loved it (while shedding buckets of tears haha).

Apart from WWX and LWJ, my FAVORITE character is Jiang Yan Li - notice how I capitalized the word and it's in bold, that’s how much I loved her. She’s the best shijie/ sister that anyone could ask for. I feel like she’s WWX’s half mother, she takes care of him. She is a gentle and polite woman. She isn’t powerful in the Cultivation World (she mainly just focused on cooking tbh lol it's cute tho) but she doesn’t hesitate to protect WWX. She stood up for him even in front of her future mother-in-law, she trusted him until the end even when everyone went against him, and when her parents got killed, she didn’t blame him (it wasn’t his fault anyway) and eventually sacrificed her life for him. Her death was just so tragic like I was bawling my eyes out, she didn’t deserve it, she really didn’t. She was just a simple girl that wanted the best for her family. But she is the last straw that broke the camel’s back aka WWX, if she didn’t die for him, he probably wouldn’t get out of control. It was so cruel to WWX but I kind of understand why the author did it.

I also enjoyed the cinematography, scenery and OST, all of it was so astounding. Even the name of the locations were beautiful like 云深不知处 – it sounds so poetic. I loved how each sect had their own colors which reflected their characteristics in the Cultivation World. The characters also had their own OST, my favorite ones are Wen Ning’s & Jiang Yan Li’s songs – it still hurts when I listen to them, and I nearly cried few times (yes, I have a soft spot for Wen Ning, too.) I want to add that Jiang Yan Li & Jin Zi Xuan's song hurts a lot as well, the lyrics are like a fucking knife stabbing me in the chest. I thought I was strong enough to watch the MV, but I couldn't control my tears gdi. You know when you're cutting onions and tears just streaming down your face, that's what happened to me - except there were no onions. *I was a fan of the singer when I was younger so watching him singing the song on the stage also took me back to the old days ah~ This song gave me double feels lol ;~;

A part of me regrets that I didn’t watch it last year but a part of me is thankful that I finally got to watch it this year. It was already a hot topic before it even aired in China, so of course I have heard about it and I know briefly what it is based on. But I didn’t want to jump on the bandwagon and be like I’m a huge fan of the drama just because it’s popular (it’s hard to explain but I’m quite stubborn sometimes lol). Many said that you wouldn’t understand the story or the little details in the drama if you haven’t read the novel (I watched the animation before the drama, so I know a bit of the story). I don’t like reading anyway so I didn’t bother with it. Also, the genre of the novel isn’t something that I would read so that’s another reason why I left it. I’m not against any type of love, I just feel a bit iffy about reading it, which is kind of stupid now that I think about it lol. Another reason is that I don’t like depressing dramas, I used to watch a lot of those in my younger days, most of the plots are quite cliche. Although 'The Untamed' is sad, there were sweet, happy moments and it has a happy ending, so I loved it.

A lot of people didn’t like the ending, but I think it was a good ending. I mean they can’t really do much as they have to pass the censorship. My interpretation of the ending is that LWJ went to sort out everything in the Cultivation World so that he could be with (or protect) WWX later. He found WWX (maybe a few years) later and called WWX’s name. In that scene, WWX’s black outfit is different to when they parted, so it can’t be LWJ came back to WWX right after they went separate ways – that would very irresponsible to do since he is the Chief Cultivator. It’s an open-ended ending, so it’s up to the audience’s imagination, you can interpret it however you like. The camera didn’t show LWJ at the end so it could also be WWX imagined that LWJ called his name. But I believe that they got together, you can just tell just by looking at WWX’s facial expressions. It isn’t that difficult to figure it out, the novel has a happy ending so yeah. I also read it somewhere that when LWJ went to meet up with WWX, he also changed his outfit but apparently that part didn't pass the censorship (wtf?) so maybe that's why they didn't show LWJ at the end.

I guess the good thing is that I can’t get all the related merch, if I watched it last year, I would definitely ask one of my relatives to buy and send everything over for me lmao goodbye my money. But I would buy the physical novel when I get the chance. If a drama left a big impact on me, I would buy the novel (if it has one of course).

I think I need a long cool-off period after this drama, I don’t want to watch anything else except their bts, interviews (even supporting actors’ interviews, I usually don’t watch those), crack videos lol, variety shows, fan meeting – basically everything that I can find, I don't think I have watched everything though. When I watched a cut of the cast saying goodbye to their characters on the fan meeting, I cried again (ffs just get over it). It’s definitely one of the best dramas I’ve ever watched and would definitely recommend to those who likes Chinese dramas. Not that anyone cares, but I would rate it 9/10 (if shijie was alive, I would give another 0.5 lol). I don’t know how good the subtitles are, but I did see some odd bits here and there (I watched it without the English subtitles). Sometimes it’s really hard to translate Chinese especially when it’s a xianxia drama – making it even more difficult. Anyway, if I get to finish reading the novel, I might write my views on the novel if I can be bothered lol – I’m a very lazy person XD

I kind of want to write another post just about WWX and LWJ, and how good Xiao Zhan & Yibo’s acting skills were. Basically, complimenting them for 2 pages haha. Ngl, I did fell for Xiao Zhan. I might watch it again just to focus on them a bit more. From the interviews I have seen, Xiao Zhan seems like a very humble, kind, genuine person – you can just tell from his eyes. He’s definitely a treasure boy (��翻'宝藏男孩'). I don’t think I need to say much about Yibo, he’s super talented, I was already a fan of UNIQ when they were active. The character really suited Yibo and he did a great job portraying LWJ.

Anyway, it’s time for me to say goodbye to 'The Untamed', I don’t know how long I will feel attached to this drama but hopefully there’s another masterpiece that could help me to get over it.

忘羡一曲远，曲终人不散。

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rigelmejo · 4 years

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i’ve been watching Handsome Siblings on netflix only in chinese to just like. see where i’m at.

and now that i’m on ep 4 it would feel kind of weird to suddenly switch back to english subs ok, for one.

but anyway like general level-wise: i am pretty much at where i can follow a lot of the gist of scenes even if i don’t pause to translate - but then i’m going to be relying on visual context a lot more. which is fine, it means i can go watch a show with no english subs to rely on Ever and at least follow along.

i do notice that if i PAUSE, i can catch the specifics of a lot more scenes. There’s a scene where the two princess sisters are talking to their nephew (who is a spitting image of Jiang Feng), and then after he leaves - discussing telling him to go take a mission to kill Xiao Yu’er, and then when he leaves the two princesses discuss their plan. I paused over and over after EVERY line that episode, because I really wanted to know the specifics of what they were saying. A lot of lines I could read, and there were a lot of one-words-in-a-sentence i had to look up for a more precise understanding. Same with a scene later in the town said-nephew and his girl kickass companions go to - i could follow the gist, but paused after some lines (and looked up a couple words) for more specific details.

I will say that the more characters you learn, the easier life is. Really! The more characters I know, the easier my gist-guess is right, the easier remembering new words (made up of known characters) is, and looking up new words is VASTLY easier because I know their pinyin and can look them up faster than drawing.

If you’re going to do this: I’d still recommend using googletranslate to look up multiple characters you don’t know/phrases, since you can draw and easily get the correct result looked up. I’d recommend pleco if you know the pinyin, or if its a single word (because pleco’s definitions are more thorough and explanatory than googletranslate’s), or if it might be an idiom.

I would recommend that if you like watching stuff on the computer, to get the learn-with-netflix dual subtitle add on, and just click your subtitles for a definition on-the-video-itself instead of needing to open an app like me.

---

I am immensely excited and happy that I can watch a chinese show with no english and follow the gist now. That is a huge amount of progress for me compared with August 2019 when I started (and only knew ‘ni hao/wo hen hao’ and the numbers ;w; ). I am so proud of where I’ve gotten to. I definitely think really focusing on increasing known frequent words helps a lot. (Also, reading a grammar guide - grammar is again becoming understandable, so idk my brain is just acclimating again i guess). I’m going to keep focusing on frequent words, and the 2,000 most common characters, for a while and hopefully eventually this payoff will translate to reading as well.

If you DO happen to want to try watching a chinese show without english and testing yourself/studying, I have some mild recommendations you might take into consideration.

1. If it’s too difficult, do it a little, then come back to it in a few weeks, repeat. This task really only gets enjoyable once you understand enough to be ‘comfortable’ with the remaining ambiguity you still don’t comprehend. That is going to be different for different people. I am comfortable with a pretty high amount of ambiguity/lack of understanding, so I can at least try to watch even stuff-i-barely-grasp at least a little for practice until my brain feels fried. But I’ve been trying this for months... its only NOW that my brain feels relatively okay just watching without pausing, without feeling Completely overwhelmed. And if you do intend to watch without pausing much, you’ll have some degree of not-understanding-everything. Likewise, if you plan to pause the show (and how much you plan to pause it) should be tolerable for you as well. If you have to pause everything, understand everything - do you know enough words to do that in a timely enough manner to get THROUGH an episode? If it takes you a long time, are you willing to intensively focus and look things up that entire time? Basically - what is your tradeoff between you being able to pause and focus intensively on looking things up, versus you being able to watch without pausing and interpret from the words you know/context only. Whatever balance is most enjoyable/bearable for you is when this will start being something that’s easier to do regularly, instead of only occasionally as practice. At least, that’s how it was for me. I’m only finally at a point where I can do this regularly - before I could only do this for maybe 10-20 minute chunks of time occasionally.

2. Pick a genre of show/material you are going to engage in frequently. If you’re ALWAYS watching case-type shows, those words and those scenes will be more familiar to you and easier for you to interpret from context and with less looking things up. If you try this with a wildly different kind of show, you may know MANY less words and many scenes may be harder for you to comprehend the gist of. I watch a TON of case type shows so they’re very easy for me to see and pick up words I’m familiar with, single out the parts that are ‘important explanation’ versus ‘some crowd saying unimportant WOW oh No how Horrible’ type lines. So i can cherry pick important things to pause and look up words for, and guess at what kind of line i’m trying to interpret (i can guess if it’s about a case, an emotional discussion, a simple ‘lets do X’ statement etc - because i’m familiar with the plot type). In a similar vein - an easier show/material to do this with, may well be a show you’ve already watched in your native language/with your native language. For all the same reasons - you will be much more familiar with the context. I could in theory watch Guardian again (which i’ve rewatched... a lot) and I would probably follow the plot very easily. But I like a challenge too much apparently, and I’d rather practice with things I can’t fall-back on my existing knowledge for as much. A show I’ve never seen has much less I can rely on for context, BUT the trade off is I can really clearly test how well i’m comprehending the plot and lines - because they are all completely new to me, so I either comprehend or I clearly do not understand what’s going on/obviously misinterpret. So it’s a very quick way for me to see if I’m achieving anything or not. Whereas if I was watching a show I already saw, I might learn new words noticably, but I wouldn’t be able to tell if I’m getting better at understanding overall plot with no english to rely on (since I already saw it before with english).

3. If you’re like me - maybe pick a show either heavy on action, or heavy on daily life. While I am familiar with case-type shows... I generally think (for me) they’re harder to follow when your existing vocab knowledge isn’t high enough to follow it... They’re big on mysteries, on plots that are actually not what they appear, and surprises. They’re big on ‘strategies’ and I find for myself, strategies are kind of hard to follow when I know less words. In contrast: if you pick a daily-life type show, you’re more likely to either know the words or NEED to know the words at some point because they’ll be useful to you. And the scenes should be relatively easy to comprehend visually even when you don’t know the words. (My caveat being - if you want the language specifically FOR understanding certain genres, by all means go for the topics you’ll actually be using - if you’re gonna read a ton of wuxia, or case-stuff etc, then go for stuff you’ll Actually Use which might well be THEM). For me... my end goal is to be able to read creative fiction, so wuxia settings and fantastical settings and mystery-words and period-words are all things I better get used to. So I haven’t really watched much daily-life stuff (although there are daily-life scenes WITHIN a lot of dramas, and I do think they’re some of the easiest scenes to follow and comprehend).

Now, why might you pick an action-heavy show: easy to comprehend. Especially if you often watch action-oriented stuff already. The first chinese show I watched a whole episode of in only-chinese (it’s first episode, so that’s when i figured out the entire show’s set up) was The Shaw Eleven Lang (I really wanted more of Zhu Yilong’s acting in my life okay?). I DID in fact, manage to follow the plot. Without pausing much, because I was just watching it with dinner. What made it easier to follow was SO MUCH of the dialogue was really straightforward - stuff like ‘i want that sword’ or ‘i hate you’ or ‘lets eat and drink together to celebrate’ or ‘you need to go save/kill x’ or ‘do you think i’m pretty’ etc. So much of the dialogue was NOT schemes/plots/mysteries, it was really straightforward ‘we are doing X, we like Y, we hate Z’. Which for me are the sentence types I find the easiest to understand, and especially found the easiest at that point in time. In addition, because the show has so much action, often the dialogue is accompanied by action scenes that make it pretty freaking CLEAR what their objective is/what they just said. Yes, there are still plenty of unknown words to look up if you want to pause - but it should be obvious enough that you might have a decent guess at what they mean before you look them up (I had to look up words like sword, princess, clan leader, but those were pretty clear even beforehand from the context of the scenes). After I watched the first ep (which i don’t think i could even find english subs for), I watched the second ep with eng subs to see if i’d interpreted the plot correctly so far - i had. It felt pretty motivating to get through 40 minute episodes without much pausing, and know I’d followed along. I think, at least if you’re already an action-show/movie watcher, action series are going to be a relatively approachable thing to try watching in just your target language. (Another positive is a lot of verbs as commands lines, in context, so for me it’s easier to pick up new verbs, and those kind of lines are very easy to pick up in context - also lines like ‘xiao xin’ be careful, bubi, meiguanshi, danxin, ni fangxin, etc - all these short lines that are easy to understand in the context they often come up in).

(Also, do I recommend The Shaw Eleven Lang? Well... I need to go back to watching it but uh... it’s definitely AN EXPERIENCE... with wild fighter-game-tetsuya-nomura-would-be-proud kind of costume designs, wild af scenes so far, and uh as far as i can tell Zhu Yilong’s on point to play a pretty crazy bastard in it... also there’s a LOT of genuinely kickass girls and kickass main women, which i appreciate, i believe also the main women are all 30+ which is refreshing in general in any-show tbh. also just... everyone in the show is kickass... that’s the point... its a lot like to me, if a absolutely Wild fighting game got a budget for a full drama and just went wild on the plot - very fun to watch, very bizarre... not particularly deep but like, did you play Square enix’s The Bouncer on ps2 for a Good Plot or for an absolutely wild bizarre Time? This show is like the game The Bouncer... just freaking Wild conceptually).

And now, I am watching Handsome Siblings, and managing to get through episodes with only a little pausing for when I want to figure out specifics. It is also very action-scene heavy. At least for me, that’s been making it a lot easier to follow the gist of. There’s scenes where robbers attack - and even if I don’t know every line, its easy to figure out the gist of what’s being said. There’s scenes where people fight - again, very easy to follow. The parts I’ve been pausing the most on are the sisters plotting, because I feel that’s probably the most intensive-mystery in this plot so far, and because I want to make sure I interpret the details correctly when they’re mentioning them (since I think they’ll play out more in the plot later). I think the fact this show is Action-Heavy is making it tremendously easier for me to follow then like... me trying to watch Nirvana in Fire would be. The very straightforward action scenes are much easier to follow using visual context, at least for me, compared to dialogue heavy scenes where the vocabulary is not going to be emphazised with visuals nearly as much. (Another bonus of Handsome Siblings, at least so far, is the dialogue heavy scenes ARE accompanied by visual flashbacks to EXPLAIN the dialogue). Another bonus for Handsome Siblings: the writing seems very straightforward and decently paced. You don’t have to wait long for new scenes, for new developments, and that means a lot of dialogue and action is doing something right away and has a lot of context you immediately see result in something else. For me that just makes it... approachable and understandable in the kind of way like... movies like The Mummy were paced, or Indiana Jones, or Independence Day... do you know what I mean? It’s fun to watch even if you couldn’t understand, and the structure makes it quite comprehensible again even if you heard no dialogue at all. So for me, at least, it makes the balance of ‘ease of watching versus patience to look things up slowly’ much easier. Because its ease of watching is pretty high even for scenes where actual words-you-know isn’t high, so you can save looking-things-up for only when you WANT to, not necessarily as something you need to constantly do just to catch the gist.

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I tried reading again - I tried reading the novel for the Sleuth of Ming Dynasty. It was BRUTAL because I apparently know NO dynasty-royalty-govt related words (which really explains why Men With Swords political scenes I know so few words lol). I got through 10 out of 39 ‘small’ pages on my phone for the first chapter. I think I managed to follow it, the grammar thankfully was really straightforward and I imagine the original author is quite talented. The difficulty was in the very common use of turns of phrase and idioms for so many parts of sentences, which were all new ‘words/phrases’ i’d never seen before.

#handsome siblings #chinese studyblr #rant #nts #watch progress #a lot of this is notes for myself but if anyone finds it useful thats cool #i am just. so happy about the progress #a few months ago watching a show in all chinese was a pipe dream #and in august that would have been completely unimaginable #i really... started in august practically useless

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professorjjong · 7 years

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Hi rose I was wondering if you had any tips or suggestions on how to learn Japanese by oneself. Do you think knowing Chinese would help in learning it? It's so cool that you know more than one language I wish I could be that cool ;w;

hahaha i’m really #NotCool lol

i actually learned japanese by myself so i’m literally full of tips and suggestions haha.

addressing knowing chinese--do you mean that you’re currently learning chinese? if you’re considering learning them side-by-side i honestly don’t think that would be very helpful? the two languages developed independently of each other so they’re virtually unrelated grammatically. japanese kanji does come from china but, unless you’re talking about traditional chinese, almost all of the characters were edited to be faster to write, whereas the original versions are still used in japanese. i do think kanji is important (and fun!) to learn but you should take it slowly and don’t make it your first priority. you’re not going to want to learn a bunch of kanji right off the bat because you’re going to forget all of the ones that aren’t used in common words. i’d say learn a few every week or so? find a pace that works with you best.

if you mean that you already know chinese, there’s a handful of words which are similar and, if you can write it,you’ll be able to pick up kanji faster simply because your brain is already wired to interpret and recreate such characters. but tbh i don’t think it would be much of an advantage.

but before you even touch kanji, learn both kana systems. you can find guides fro them easily enough online. some ppl recommend not learning katakana but tbh i find that katakana is used very often. learn hiragana first going down the rows. at first i learned it five per day but i bumped up that speed after a while. keep writing them. write them whenever u have a free minute just write them over and over again and try to make their sounds as you do.

from this point.... it’s a little fuzzier? there’s a fuck ton of japanese resources out there online. not including textbooks you can buy or rent at ur local library. my suggestion is to find a resource that starts from the beginning and get going with it. no matter what website or book it is it’s not going to be perfect. keep this in mind. i remember with my first book it explained adjectives so poorly i gave up on learning japanese for months because i thought it was just too hard--but then i eventually found a different source which explained adjectives in like two sentences and it made perfect sense. so, whenever you’re using your primary reference and it confuses you, go to a secondary source and see if it explains it better. there’s so many resources out there you can find the explanation you need for any topic.

when you have a basic grasp of grammar, like ‘AはBです” levels of basic, start speaking and writing it. i have a little gaudy pink journal which contains my very first japanese journal to myself, written in glittery pink pen. for these journals don’t look up new words and don’t worry about being grammatically correct. just write. set a length requirement--maybe only four or five lines at first and then let that requirement grow larger and larger as it gets easier and easier for you to write. if you find yourself needing a word in english, like you got halfway through the sentences before suddenly realizing you don’t know the word you need, try to sound it out in katakana. believe it or not, it’s sometimes a struggle to understand english words said in japanese, so try to get yourself used to this concept. do try, however, to only use words you know and to write every day. it doesn’t matter if your journals start out like ‘my name is susan. i am seventeen. i went to school today. in the morning i ate breakfast. i had a test.’ just write.

as for talking, virtually the same rules apply. at first you’re going to have to force it, so try in the morning while you’re getting ready, or in the shower, while cooking... etc.. look up pronunciation videos online and soon you’ll find yourself not forcing out the japanese when you’re talking to yourself.

once you have a good basis in grammar, you can move on to learning more vocabulary. i, personally, used the jlpt sets on memrise, starting with n5. but, as with all sets, these aren’t perfect. memrise is, however, fucking great. use it to build sets of the vocabulary in your primary resource or vocabulary you think might be useful to you in your journals. memrise is themed around learning words being similar to taking care of plants, so it times when you should review different words. on the mobile app you can set it to alert you at a specified time to go over your words, and you can also set goals to drive you to review words or learn new words for a certain length of time every day.

personally, for the words i add to my own personal lists, i don’t worry about kanji, as the jlpt sets all have kanji. you will, however, need to learn kanji using something else. personally, i used he book remembering the kanji but it’s not perfect. as with grammar, there’s a lot of different resources so find the one that explains kanji in the way you like best.

for me i made flashcards of kanji and went over them daily. when the number became too great for that, i went over all of them once a week and put the words i got wrong into a separate pile called my ‘stress words.’ i would go over these several times a day and then, once a week, would learn a few more kanji and add those to the new ‘stress words’ for that week. i also bought a mini white board to use when writing kanji but it’s also a good idea to practice with graph paper so you can learn to keep them in the proper shape and size.

another great app i liked a lot is hellotalk. it’s virtually an instant messaging app meant to connect you with people who are native speakers of the language you want to learn. since i used it, it has also become a little bit more facebook-esque,which i think can make things a bit awkward--as you can make a post about what ur eating or whatever and a japanese person might see it and then you can use that as a way to start conversation and avoid the awkwardness. it also has ways for you to limit what sex and age range can talk to you, but when i used the app recently i had people voice call me virtually immediately and i’m personally not comfortable with that :/ i’d hope that the app has maybe changed that setting but i haven’t checked. i’d suggest downloading it and seeing if the setting has changed or if ur comfortable with just refusing calls from people because having ppl to talk to is the best way to learn.

another website similar to hellotalk is lang-8, but, instead of instant messaging, on lang-8 you write journal entries in the language you’re learning and native speakers correct it--and then you correct their journals in exchange. obviously, you have to be a bit more advanced in japanese to manage this, but it’s very useful! your journals don’t have to be anything insightful--i remember writing one about how iced coffee is more popular in asia than it is in america and another about going to the grocery store. it’s also a good way to potentially meet ppl you may befriend and speak japanese to some day!

these next two are hella amazing. one is an app called imi wa? it’s a great dictionary app that helps you conjugate verbs, search kanji by not only radicals but by ‘primitives,’ and, best of all, has an analyze function which lets you paste in a block of text and defines all of them so you can translate sentences with much more ease. the other is rikai-kun (chrome), -chan (mozilla) and -sama (i forgot?). it’s another dictionary for ur browser that will let you scroll over words and immediately look over their definitions. you can develop an over reliance on it but at the beginning stages it’s going to be hella useful so, download it.

a great resource in particular to use with rikaikun is nhk easy , which is japanese news articles written for elementary and middle school students--and foreigners! you can set it so locations/names/businesses will appear in different colors and you can scroll over some words for definitions. the articles are also relatively short so i’d recommend going through at least one a day to practice your reading. also considering following japanese fans or artists on twitter and trying to translate their tweets--but if you find yourself getting overwhelmed by the number or length of tweets, don’t feel pressured to understand all of them. a lot of learning a language by yourself is trying to avoid frustrating yourself--since you’re studying alone, there’s nothing to keep you from giving up aside from yourself. so if you find yourself getting very frustrated, you should probably switch up what you’re doing.

in terms of practicing your listening skills, i’d recommend watching dramas. try to find half hour long dramas (or just watch half an hour long episode) and then immediately after watching the half hour, watch it again without subtitles. at first you’ll feel like you get absolutely nothing out of this, but stick with it.make sure not to play with your phone or distract yourself while listening. try to remember what the characters said or what’s going on in the episode. soon you’ll find yourself recognizing words!!! then phrases!!! then sentences!! then you’ll be able to understand it on your own!

if you really like anime, you can also watch anime at first or every once in a while--but i’d really recommend dramas. people in anime don’t speak like normal people do, but it can be easier to recognize words and such because their voices are clearer. dramas better reflect the way actual japanese people speak. (however i wouldn’t recommend watching something like terrace house because it is actual people talking and the mics aren’t perfect. if you’re a student, i’d say to watch high school dramas because they will contain words which may be relevant to you in your journals and while talking to ourself and what not!)

you can also rewatch episodes with the screen blackened, so you’re just listening to it? i personally think this is lots of fun but that’s just me.

songs tend to follow their own grammatical rhythms so they’re not too useful for studying aside from vocabulary.

the key, to me, at least, was to study every day. my schedule was:

1. talk to self.

2. study stress words (once a week go over all kanji)

3. half hour drama episode (watch twice)

4. nhk article

5. journal

6. memrise vocab

7. translating tweets

the key is to try to study every day and to make a schedule of your own which lines up with how much free time you have. you can divide drama episodes into ten minute blocks, read your article on the bus, write your journal before bed and do memrise while waiting in line at the grocery store. just find something which works for you--and don’t let yourself get frustrated. even if you’re tired as all fuck, try to at least reach your memrise goals or watch your drama episode, or whatever study method you find the most useful. it’s hard work, but be nice to yourself!

頑張って！

#i talked A LOT so i put it under a read more otl #answered #anonymous #Anonymous

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btsandvmin · 5 years

Text

Collection of asks - BTSandVMIN

Some of the asks I answer I personally feel are worth saving, for me personally, and perhaps for you as well. But I don’t want to put them all in my Masterpost since there are so many and I am sure the list will grow. So I am putting the ones I feel might have something worth reading in one place.

Thank you all for asking me interesting questions and liking my posts. Asks are written more in the moment than my usual posts, so they might be less accurate as it’s all mostly from the top of my head. The newest ones will actually be on top, and then they will get older going down the list. I’ll update it regularly as I answer more asks. :)

Jimin was so clearly in need of cuddles from Tae as soon as they saw each other

Odd if none of them shared what they did during vacations

It just feels scripted, just like when they're talking abt what each other did during their vacations

100 days of winter bear and jiminie wears something that makes him look like a baby bear

About BV4, do you think it’s weird that Taehyung only found out about what Jimin did during his vacation on the day Jimin was back?

Dionysus stage as battle of gods and V=Apollo(God of Sun) and JM=Artemis(God of Moon) and their dance and wearing twin earrings(as the gods r twins) and I just remembered your whole vmin sun and moon theory

Is Tae Jm's mirror in bighits's fictional world?

Do you know what is the full video of this youtube video "BTS Jimin chose V ? VMin Moment?

When BV: Malta was airing, Jimin would post pictures of each episode on Twitter and stopped on the episode that Taehyung arrives

I'm like a hardcore Km shipper (romantically) since 2016 but i have to agree every song Tae has written connects with Jm

We don't see vmin together often... so yeah jikook could be more real then vmin

I'm trying to find tweets that vmin send to each other on their birthday but I can't find the one that jimin send for tae in 2017 did he send one?

The new run bts episode was really filmed in May?

Did Jimin released Promise on Tae's birthday?

I am working on a Vmin analysis which is currently 24 pages just in text. O___o

He calls JM "My Baby" but the subtitles put in by BH say "Good Boy" Why would they change the translation.

Shipping sometimes seems pointless. Especially when "moments" between one ship can easily be spotted with another.

I can't believe that some fans thought that vmin were not friends anymore because a game!

It's so cute how Jimin and V talked about arguing with each other over small things because they are close friends

I think people who unfollow you are Multishippers who believe in other ship

Is it kind of weird that vmin has never went on a trip by themselves?

Seeing all the vmin interactions of this last concert, do you think this might be a reason why BH will not give us vmin duet?

I would love to read ur vmin story

Concerning the nightmare before Christmas thing

The Disney birthday project turned up to be false

Jimin thinks V is "mi bb' What does the question mean?

I don't think we'll get a Vmin song

BTS, 191009_ ICN INT' Airport Departure) at 40 seconds

Where do you write fics? I really want to read your fics...

It's interesting to see the way the bh editors work

Where is the vmin break up mini movie video from?

Do you ship Jimin or Tae with k pop girls?

The members trying to break off a vmin moment on cam?

Is it true that bts don't live together?

What do you think about the concept photos? (PERSONA)

What other vmin blogs do you follow or check regularly?

In an usa interview where jimin was kinda leaning on the male interviewer for a few seconds and suddenly tae was looking kinda tense

Did you catch up on everything for bts or/and vmin before the BS&T era?

You should see @vlovers19 blog

I'm sorry if you think I offended you or judged you

Do you know that Tae hold hands with other member even Suga or they all hold hands with each other so it's not only a VMIN thing

About bon voyage 3 and them not sharing rooms and the car

4 oclock is supposedly dedicated to jimin, why Tae waits for him in the park if they live together?

Imagine my surprise when i saw vk/ook,ji/kook were the most popular. I tried to understand but i still don’t get why

Do you think vmins lack of or th reduced amount of skinship comes from the fact that they are same aged friends?

Other ships (kpopidols) that you like?

Part of me wanted Taehyung to be in Paris too

The boys being apart of the lgbt community that's unrelated to their relationship

If someone in BTS is gay he will try to date girls or maybe marry a girl in the end?

If vmin are really together and if they were to come out, how do you think they would do that?

I feel like they use the word "friend" instead of, idk, "boyfriend”

You saw the hk concert right?

Unknown nickname in his thank you note for “Dark and Wild”

When did Vmin started dating?

Bv3, I ain't getting over it.

I feel like vmin have been sexually involved for a very long time

Any thoughts abt Tae's three rings on his right hand and always not wearing one on his ring finger?

In bts festa profile 2015 when jimin wrote tae's profile he drew a character that reminds him of taehyung

Did u see the second trailer for bring the soul documentary series?

In one of your asks you said jk wasn't having a great time in 2017

Are you gonna make a post about vmin sharing rooms?

What would be your top 5 favorite vmin moments? 💜

Run episode to Jm and JK "Are You Guys dating ?"

Barely getting any vmin content

Sometimes i cant help but feel really weird about vmin and feel insecure

Maybe you should just ignore all the asks about other ships

Sharing a car as proof

Docskim not being allowed to release the behind story of Lie

Getting it out of the way… (about various other ships and “proof“)

What are the moments that seems most like "proof" to you?

Have you seen the Vlive remember party?

At the end of the day, it mostly comes down to personal interpretations and preferences

Do you know why T/ae and J/imin toxic stans really hate each other?

Is it being "delusional" for some vmin fans to think scenery, promise and 4 o' clock are related to vmin?

When will u start answering anons again i really miss ur insight and wise words

I feel like jimin is forcing himself the affection he is showing is mostly forced

Do you have twitter?

The Rkive Vmin moment when JM ‘refused’ Tae’s cuddle

They were often looking behind cameras and it really shows like in episodes 59&60

Do you think there's a big reason that vm don't do Vlives together anymore

Vmin shippers spreading misinformation in aid of our ship?

Can I use one of your gifs? (I don’t make my own gifs, sorry)

Did you see what Tae said? ie I miss you even after being apart for 10 seconds

When one is clingy, the other will try to act as if it's bothering him

My friend is convinced Ji/kook is real

About namjoon's vlive, "it's a broadcast"

Oof is it just me or the sexual tension was through the roof between vmin in that vlive?

Tae says "our armys are watching this so... " so uhm was that..?

Where does the soulmate thing comes from with vmin?

Taehyung is more open both physically and showing affection wise with every member except Jimin

Have you seen the moments from today's concert? Fukuoka

They can do whatever they want people will say they're such good bros and won't look into it

Holding each other's hands is probably the least platonic thing that they keep doing

Do you know any good vmin analysis youtube account/videos?

why do you think jk and taehyung might not be straight?

Guys, I love vmin so much!

I really like your analysis!! a lot of good points. Can I add a couple things I noticed?

How long do you think vmin have been dating?

u really think vm is real?

Vmin are really bold these days

We get to see them bicker

The video jimin posted where he's sending hearts to Tae

Feel conflicted about the rise in popularity

I’m a bit worried about the attention Vmin is getting recently

U answered my jik ask so well

Tae being bold because he's bursting with affection

Jimin admitted he was jealous

About the families (+kimchi ep. mini analysis)

About vmin/ji/ook/tae/kook

The whole maknae line

Never seemed to be in the same team

When people "ship" them?

Showing their bond more

About Jikook

About vmin being the less popular ship

Flustered vmin

Yeontan vlive

About the airport moment

Do you think that vmin live together?

About vmin rising in popularity

Do you have a link for that moment during New Year's 2016?

Platonic/bro label on vmin

More than friendship between vmin

My reply - Making Vmin videos

Thank you! A small reply

About my bias

Opinions above people

Once again, THANK YOU ALL so much for loving Vmin so much and for coming to me with your lovely messages. <3

#vmin #btsandvmin #ask #vmin analysis #my post #collection #vmin answer #bts ask #btsandvmin answers #thank you #keep loving vmin

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