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| Primary wall stare face, though this is more of a ceiling stare. |
So contrary to this blogs theme of general galavanting and documenting the bits that most people won't be completely disinterested in. I actually DO have real life university here... all be it only 3 days a week.... hmm
For your inner patriot, i'm going recap a selection of moments from my first week of Japanese lesson that make people from England look REALLY clever.
So, its first lesson and due to my lucky clicking on multiple choose questions and habit of talking myself into holes superb Japanese language ability I am in swag class 3-2, which is despite every textbook suggesting we are 'progressing from intermediate', is in fact an advanced class (woo me!). Anyway, I go in and take a seat and we are asked to do a little self introduction, so, i'm gleefully thinking; 'right, I've got this one in the bag' as I bask in the ocean of memories of my awesome self introduction I did in first year. Then the voice of my class mates intrudes on my mental bask like a slimy eel... the reason, they are awesome. One by one they yabber for what seems like an eternity in fluent Japanese and I suddenly realise that my self introduction sounds about the same level as one from a toddler.
The moment approaches and all heads turn to listen to the selection of interesting and insightful details about myself I have ready to explain. Heres an almost accurate representation of how it went:
Moving swiffffftly on, I want to say a bit about my recent thoughts about the Japanese counting system with the help of our internet friend the amazing and soft Pusheen!!
SUPER QUICK BASIC EXPLANATION OF COUNTERS: In Japanese objects are grouped into categories by their physical properties; long and cylindrical, flat and thin, RECEPTACLE, and so on rather than by what they actually are.... This difference means in english, if we want to count for example, sticks of wood, we would say '1 stick, 2 sticks, 3 sticks'. In Japanese we would say '1 long and cylindrical, 2 long and cylindrical, 3 long and cylindrical'... This means some sentences come out very odd sounding in direct translation, such as: 猫を三匹飼っている - I have 3 small animal of cat!
So, the rule regarding animal counters is; small animals are 匹 [hiki] and large animals are 頭 [tou].
Here are some examples of things you count with 匹.
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| Cats |
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| Dogs |
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| Hamsters |
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| Pokemon |
And, here are some examples of things you count with 頭:
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| Horses |
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| Bears |
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| TIGERS |
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| T-rexes |
using the counter 匹 you count....
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| Lions‽ ‽ |
and using 頭 you count.....
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| Butterflies‽‽ |
Well that makes a whole bucket of sense.... So obviously I got it wrong on my first lesson to a symphony of sighs.... I'm now affirming my place as a preschooler by proving I can't count.. not even to eleventy four. (or schwifty five) Thanks Japan.
NEWS FLASH!!!
Hello, this is just a little extra I wanted to shove on the end... On a more serious note i've seen some posters around recently and it seems that it could be the case that my favourite round faced cat has gone missing.... I wasn't sure what the posters meant exactly, but they had a picture of him on them and a number, plus I haven't seen him about in a while..... It's this little guy:
I've named him Ser Jamie of LannisPAWt, and he's really soft and fat. So, if you see his cute little tabby face around, please let me know and even if you stole him while drunk i'll take him home anonymously.
I've been Sam, and this is my blog. NOW GET OUT. ;)
Pictures of cute cute Pusheen belong to Pusheen.com
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