さくぶん 三： 二十年 ごの わたし

はじめまして。　ホーン　です。　わたし　は　ニューヨーク　に　います。　でも　ニューヨーク　の　まち　に　いません。　一か月　に　三回　まち　へ　あそびに　行きます。

会社員　です。　わたし　の　会社　は　ゆうめい　じゃありません　ですが 、　とても　いい　会社　です。　毎日　くるま　で　会社　へ　しごとに　行きます。　三十分　だけ　かかります。　

かぞく　が　五人　います。　つま　と　むすめ　が　一人　と　むすこ　が　二人　います。　かぞく　が　おおい　です　から、　おおきい　うち　が　あります。　うち　の　うしろ　に　きれいな　にわ　が　あります。

わたし　の　生活　（せいかつ）　は　いそがしい　ですが、たのしい　です。　そして　いいですね。

漢字 （かんじ） は。。。

漢字　は　とても　むずかしい　ですが、　おもしろい　です。　わたし　は　漢字　の　書き方　（かきかた）　が　あまり　じょうず　じゃありません。　いつも、　わたし　の　かきかた　は　せいかい の　かきかた　(correct way of drawing?) より　わるい　です。

So, I'm finding Kanji really difficult... normally, I can recognize the reading (though sometimes I need some context), so that's not so bad, but I'm just *so* bad at drawing! When doing writing drills, I try my best to use the segmented squares to replicate what's in the book, but mine always comes out ugly: too fat or too short or out of proportion. Sometimes, I get back my Kanji worksheets, and it looks like 先生 simply drew over my characters in red pen.., but I don't really see the difference.

My stroke order's pretty good most of the time, but I still don't really make my stops distinct from my sweeps, and my hooks look too exaggerated.

Kanji's kinda crazy in some ways: why do 医者　の　者　と 会社　の　社 have the same reading? I get 半　と　来　mixed up alot... not when reading, but I end up getting stuff that looks like "平" (which apparently is a character...)

Out with the bad, in with the good:

I love Kanji: for all its difficulties, it's very rewarding once you "get it". Kanji is kind of the Japanese equivalent of English etymology: root words, prefixes, and suffixes. By knowing Kanji, you can know the meaning of words you can't even say! Here's an example that came up in class the other day: 誕生日。 At first look, you can't make neither heads nor tails of it, but if you think hard about it: you have the symbol for life (生), and the symbol for day (日), so this word has something to do with a "life day". A good guess *would* have been (I say, b/c I didn't make this connection at 9am that day) "birthday", or たんじょうび。

Kanji's full of wonderful puzzles like this, if you know their origins: 先生 is "one who has lived before (you)",　中国　is "middle country" (a name the Chinese gave themselves), and so on. As a hint to my fellow 日本語　の　一年生, in the back of our Kanji textbook, there's a mini-textbook full of Kanji origins and meanings: I actually find it easier to memorize those than knowing each of the readings.

じゃ　また！
ミカル・ホ一ン
土二月四日　(which is easier than saying/writing/remembering じゅうにがつよっか)

カタカナ ピロジェクト （まんが）

わたし　の　ピロジェクト　は　漫画　（まんが）　です。　あにめ　で　ドラゴンバル　（DragonBall) が　いちばん　ゆめい　です。
この　まんが　を　よんで　ください。





とても　よかった　ですね。　わかりますか。
Due to the internet, this is a famous scene in he Dragon Ball Z series. The plot of Dragon Ball Z is a group of heroes continuously protect earth (the galaxy, the dimension...) from extraterrestrial (intergalactic, extradimensional) villains. That's about it. The series measures each fighter's strength as Ki: "life energy" in Japanese or, in English, "power level".

The original scene looked a little like this:

This scene became popular because of this remix that appeared on YouTube years later (Warning: you may or may not lose brain cells...):

I decided to use this scene for the Katakana project for two reasons: 1) It has to do with anime, the original reason for pursuing the Japanese language, 2) The manga scene allowed me to use Katakana in three ways: loan words (Vegeta's name), onomatopoeia (the wind blowing, eg), and for emphasis (It's Over 9000! Note that in the original Japanese, Vegeta actually says "はっせん　いじょう　だん", meaning level greater than eight thousand, but 9000 apparently sounds better in English than 9000).