演 - PERFORMING Enka Songs Wets My Eyes Straightaway

Readings & Meanings:

エン

to act, to perform a play

Common Usage:

演技

開演

Examples:

あの女優の演技はとても上手だ。

開演時間まであと５分しかない。

Translations:

That actress's acting is really great.

There's only 5 minutes until the curtain!

Radical:

San-zui again, the three droplets of 水.

寅 alone is the kanji for the Chinese astrological sign of the Tiger. This is a borrowed meaning. The original pictograph shows an arrow (矢) being grasped by two hands (picture 田 as being a picture of two hands, one on the left and one on the right). The hands were straightening the arrow. The idea: STRAIGHT. Then someone put a roof on top and the sense became to act "straight up" indoors: ACT WITH DISCRETION.

I'm not sure how water fits in with acting. The STRAIGHTEN or stretch idea survives in this kanji, if you think about the strange positions kabuki actors have to gesticulate themselves into.

Bonus:　演歌

Enka (演歌) is a Japanese genre of song. It's traditional in one sense, in that it doesn't follow current pop modes, and yet it's not completely Japanese in origin. That is to say, the genre got its start in a fusion of Western melodies and traditional Japanese structures of music. I guess you could call it as Japanese as ramen noodles, though; through syncretism, Japan has managed to create, time and again, completely new forms.

Recently, an American got pretty popular for being the first black Enka singer. See immediately below. The Japanese タレント seem quite amazed.

Since it goes slowly and uses pretty easy words, Enka is great way to study Japanese. Much better than listening to J-Pop, since most J-Pop singers sing as if they are speaking English--and in some cases they are, far too much.

According to Wikipedia, the "Queen of Enka" during Enka's heyday (Showa era) was Hibari Misora. The video below might be a nice, gentle way to ease yourself into the style.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enka
http://www.kanjinetworks.com/indices/radindex.html
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/node/kanji/e.htm

Facebook: Kanji Box (Japanese Study Aid)

So lately I've been all about Facebook. Games, social network integration, applications, and more. It's awesome.

Of course, I did a search for "Japanese" in their applications section. Most of what came up was not useful to me. Low level words-a-day and such.

One app stood out. Kanji Box, by Dave du Verle.

This little app doesn't encourage passive learning by slapping a random kanji on your profile page. Oh no. You actually have to do the drills and the quizzes to get anything out of it.

The drills, I haven't used much. But I will soon, once I've finished proving to Kanji Box all I really know of the kanji and vocab it's quizzing me on.

The quizzes are kind of fun. Multiple choice. Choose from the four kanji or 単語 the one that matches the English (if it's a kanji quiz, you're also given the multiple readings of the kanji). The quizzes go up in difficulty in 9 "waves." Within each wave, you must keep a score of 60% or higher, or the quiz will stop. This is good; it can be exasperating when you just don't know any of the options and have no clues.

After you take a bunch of quizzes, there are a couple of ways to figure out which ones you don't know. First off, you can just do the Drills. They're supposed to skew towards the kanji/vocab you did poorly on. Or you can Export the ones you didn't get right. I haven't used either of these features.

What I did my last session was go down to the JLPT4 level, just to prove to myself I really had all of that. And to prove it to Kanji Box.

The mysterious thing, though, was that the JLPT4 quiz had a few waves of completely unfamiliar vocabulary. Was this some bizarre trick on Dave's part? Or were they really JLPT4 level?

So curious was I that I copied all of the ones I didn't know. Some of them I got right (but just on hunches based on the radicals I knew), but a lot of them I just did not know. Are these JLPT4?

論議 [ろんぎ] - discussion, argument

開発 [かいはつ] - development, exploitation

輸出 [ゆしゅつ] - export

削減 [さくげん] - cut, reduction, curtailment

記録 [きろく] - record, minutes, document, a record (e.g., in sports), results, score, to record, to document, to set a record (e.g., in sports), to show a result, to reach a value

攻撃 [こうげき] - attack, strike, offensive, criticism, censure

監督 [かんとく] - supervision, control, superintendence, director, superintendent, supervisor, coach, foreman, manager, overseer, controller, boss

原則 [げんそく] - principle, general rule

方向 [ほうこう] - course

対応 [たいおう] - interaction, correspondence, coping with, dealing with, support

調査 [ちょうさ] - enquiry

降る [くだる] - to get down, to descend

降りる [おりる] - to alight (e.g., from bus)

連合 [れんごう] - union, alliance, combination

当時 [とうじ] - at that time, in those days

見通し [みとおし] - perspective, unobstructed view, outlook, forecast, prospect, insight, foresight

全体 [ぜんたい] - whole, entirety, whatever (is the matter)

革命 [かくめい] - revolution

国境 [こっきょう] - national or state border

制裁 [せいさい] - restraint, sanctions, punishment

要求 [ようきゅう] - demand

希望 [きぼう] - hope, wish, aspiration

公演 [こうえん] - public performance

発展 [はってん] - development, growth

結論 [けつろん] - conclusion

財源 [ざいげん] - source of funds, resources, finances

協調 [きょうちょう] - cooperation, conciliation, harmony, firm (market) tone

逆転 [ぎゃくてん] - (sudden) change

俳優 [はいゆう] - actor, actress, player, performer

疑問 [ぎもん] - doubt

権限 [けんげん] - power, authority, jurisdiction

生命 [せいめい] - existence

Japanese I'm Learning from My DS

I recently bought a Nintendo DS Lite. It's awesome. I've got a kanji dictionary for it, and also a kanji game.

Things I'm learning:

right-handed = みぎきき
left-handed = ひだりきき
screen = 画面（がめん）
assignment = 課題（かだい）
stroke order? = 書き順（かきじゅん）
learning = 学習（がくしゅう）
drill = ドリル　(this katakana is really confusing for us English speakers!)
to check = 確認する（かくにんする）

And that was just in the opening explanation!

Rikaichan for Firefox - The Key To Reading Kanji

When I get my daily assignments, and I don't know a certain kanji, I type it in here, toggle rikaichan, and mouse over the kanji I don't know. The hiragana and English meaning pops up under the word. Amazing!

Rikaichan is a free extension for Firefox and it is available at polarcloud.com.

The menches at JapanesePod101.com have created a video explaining how to download, install, and use rikaichan. Go directly to the post with video here, and then click on the Quicktime icon.

If you don't have Firefox already, download it here. It's free, safe, and supported nearly universally. Plus it's loads cooler than Internet Explorer, for the very simple reason that it allows you to add extensions like rikaichan and many more. Download it today if you haven't already.

Japanese Pod 101 - Free Podcasts, Pay for More

Since December of 2005, I've been listening to JapanesePod101.com's podcasts. They are free to all, and don't be fooled by the name, "podcasts" don't require iPods. JPod101 has the best material for beginners, intermediates, and even advanced learners of Japanese.

Before I explode with my admiration, I should tell you that, since I am a paying member of JapanesePod101.com, and since I have such faith in their product, I've signed on to be an affiliate. This means that, if you click here or on the JPod buttons to the left or on the bottom of my page, I get a commission from any service sale.

Why JapanesePod101 has the best Japanese-learning podcast:

1. The structure of each mp3. First, there's a short English intro. Then, the voice actors perform a Japanese dialogue, one time fast, one time slow, and one time with English inserted. (The actors, after the first month of the podcast, are all native Japanese speakers.) Then there's a little conversation about the dialogue, and after that they zoom in on the vocabulary and grammar points.

2. The friendliness of the hosts. The voices on this podcast are incredibly friendly. They love what they are doing, and they have fun with every topic. For over a year, I commuted every day to work with their voices in my ear. Recently, I've skipped a few lessons, and I really feel like I miss them.

3. It covers all bases. Listening, vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, idioms, culture, common phrases, survival phrases... Plus, if you pay them a pretty reasonable fee, you have access to the PDFs they create. The PDFs will increase your reading ability, both of hiragana and of kanji.

4. The forum is filled with tips of how to study Japanese. If you have a question, search the forum, and then ask it if it hasn't been answered already. There's such a lot of information on the forum pages that I haven't even looked into half of it.

5. The other Japanese podcasts are pretty bad. Others I've listened to have too much English, or are too low-level for me. Some are scant on details, preferring to teach just one sentence a week. What?! Why bother even opening that mp3? JPod gives you hundreds of times that kind of content.

So, dude, go. It's free to listen, more to read.