#slime study

So this one's a wee bit different from the other stuff I've posted thus far (well, it's bound to be, this is a third attempt at having a study blog for my madness that hopefully won't get overtaken by people who mistake aesthetic for a theme and start asking me specific fandom related questions).

Last evening, my friend asked me how I do studying (he has an exam coming up and isn't very studious person) since he knows that I am very serious about learning. Keyword learning, not studying.

So I ended up making the following list.

I. Optimise

Make sure that your study environment is comfortable and that you're wearing clothes that you feel comfortable in.

The more comfortable you feel, the less stressing the study situation will become to you. Wear soft clothes, sit in a weird position, lay on the floor, have snacks with you. Keep the room clean and ventilated for fresh air. Put on music.

Learning and magic have a lot of things in common, like the repetition making the master, but the thing that most matters in them are the circumstances. No trick will work and no lessons are learned unless certain criteria are met. And if you cannot find the right setting for it, you create it.

II. Breaks

Every 45 minutes, take a 5-10 minute pause, get up and walk around, every 2 hours take a longer break to get more snacks, food and something to drink.

The important thing is to move your body and stretch, get your blood to circulate and to get away from the studies for a moment to rest your mind.

While it is good to study, too much studying can slow you down as after a certain time limit, our brains stop taking in new information for the sake of processing the previous knowledge. As powerful as a human brain is, it isn't limitless and just like your computer and phone, it can very easily be overwhelmed by too many tasks and often there isn't enough memory left for processing.

III. Snacking

Light snacks, biscuits, cookies (preferably with chocolate), tea, coffee, juice, energy bars, berries, fruits, vegetable sticks, crisps. Your mind cannot concentrate on the important things when your stomach is fully empty and you can't stay sharp if it's too full.

You've seen the anime girls/boys/beings snack while they study at home and there's often something with chocolate, salt, and tea (mostly green tea) along with some fruits. And they're not there just to fuel your brain either, some of these foods actually help you to concentrate better like dark chocolate, coffee/tea, while the rest are there to give you vitamins (fruits, juice) or help bind water into your system and to cleanse your palate (crisps/chips) while also providing you with some energy (crisps/chips, salted roasted peanuts).

Snacks like these also help you to keep your blood sugar and pressure at a good level, which also optimises your chance to learn and memorise things.

If you're about to take an exam and have a low blood pressure, taking a chocolate bar and an energy drink might help you. It's basically using the wrong method to somehow come to the right solution.

IV. Air

Taking a longer break every once in a while to get some fresh air is always good. If you just stay indoors, you'll eventually start feeling sleepy, dizzy and tired. Fresh air and going outside for a bit can help you fix that. It's also good to detox for a bit and just chill in the park, relax and listen to birds and other nature sounds.

Don't forget your mask during the times when you're feeling sick or if there's an outbreak for a sickness. I'd recommend one that's made out of fabric, it's easier on your skin and there's a lot of cool patterns for them. They're also a lot easier to match to your outfit, either making you look cooler or cuter, giving you some space for yourself (because people won't recognise you that easily) and helping with potential dysphoria.

V. Notes

So notes right? You have to take them in the class, they're ugly, they make no sense, they're annoying. Let's change that shall we? Get your cutest notebooks, stickers, pens and just... Redo your notes with thought? When you're at home, you will have no pressure to write it down fast, you already have the things the teacher said, you can now take your time with them.

There's a word that you can't understand? Look up the dictionary for what it means and make a note of it write it next to the word (like this). Spend time with these notes and make them for yourself, you don't need to return that to the teacher and the teacher sure as hell doesn't deserve to see the masterful penmanship and the little doodles and illustrations for just talking at the front and making you take notes at the speed of light without really explaining anything.

You can also expand on what the teacher has already told you by going through that 50USD book that you were told to buy only for the bastard of a teacher to not even use it, you bought that thing, you might as well use it to the fullest before you sell it forward to the next student.

Here's the kicker.

You can redo your notes as many times as you want. And at the end of it you'll have that cool and beautiful looking handwriting you always envied that one studyblr for. You can make it even better?

And once you're done with the studies, don't throw the notebook away, the final version, you might want to go through it later. And seeing how well you made it, will fill you with pride and joy.

With each version of the notes, you will end up remembering more of the topic, that's why teachers at first tell you that your notes are important. But it's not the first draft of the notes that's important, no that's just there to showcase that you were there to listen to the teacher ramble, it's the final notebook that matters. Your notebook.

VI. Learning methods

So what type of learner are you, really? Visual? Audio? Kinetic? Which way are you more likely to remember what happened? Use this to your advantage. Record yourself reading the textbook, add music to the back ground and listen to it. Draw examples to help you visualise what it means. Do something with your hands while you read or listen. There is no right way to learn. Try things out, it will help. And if the method you tried wasn't for you, at least you can say that you learned about yourself.

VII. Profit

Your notes are finished and can be read through over and over again. You remember things and while the exam may not have gone like you anticipated, please don't be discouraged or disappointed with yourself.

After all, school doesn't really test about your actual knowledge but rather how much you can memorise within a certain time limit along with your ability to self study and independent work skills. And sometimes teachers are just assholes.

After you finish school, you'll end up noticing that there are no tests and that everything comes down to your ability to be independent and search for things and knowledge on your own. And learning how to study and search for information to obtain new skills is what school is really supposed to be teaching you.

Good luck!

Kanji, the much dreaded and often viewed as the hardest part of learning to read Japanese due to the sheer amount of them, is where many students stop their studies and give up. And this is no wonder as there are well over 50 000 of them. However, not all of them are in use and most Japanese natives know from 2 000 to 5 000 of them depending on their educational background. Around 2 000 is the average for a regular adult, 3 000 is a university educated, while a well-read person with a technical expertise knows 5 000.

While this also appears to be a huge amount of work, we must keep in mind that what you are learning are words and like with any language, was it your native or a foreign, you never learn vocabulary as one chunk, nay, you learn it in pieces over the course of many many years.

By dividing the kanji into smaller groups, learning them becomes more manageable as long as you remember to bring in what you learned previously into your newer lessons.

The Grade 1 kanji are the first 80 kanji that a child would learn, varying from numbers (on the right) to nature and colour related words along with some for body parts.

By dividing this into one lesson, each taking 1-2 hours, you should have up to 80 lessons in total. Though if you are impatient, you could try to group them based on theme to create more compact lessons and adjust the time accordingly. However, keep in mind that unless you have something to use the skill on, you will end up loosing your knowledge fast. And thus it'd be good to have simple books to read in this language, like old fairytales, if you wish to simultaneously be able to hear the said words, it'd be good idea to purchase a sound book along with the physical copy so you may read along to the voice and familiarise yourself with how the language sounds like to ensure that you have easier time learning the tonal shifts in the spoken Japanese so you won't mistake rain (a-me (⬆️-⬇️)) to candy (a-me (⬇️-⬆️)).

[Think of it as being surprised to see that it's raining versus asking your friend if they want sweets, you use different intonation for them in English.]

With each Grade Level, the amount of Kanji in it grows, and thus you'll need to plan your studies with more care. And while it may end up looking more and more overwhelming, there are things you can do to help you on the journey like purchasing Kanji Flashcards or making your own, there are also plenty ready to download and print ones available.

For a successful study journey however, your own notes will be the most crucial ones to carry you to victory over this seemingly overwhelming journey. Make sure that you write and rewrite your study notes in a way that you'll enjoy looking at them, onto paper that you like, in a way that you can read it later! Get those cute notebooks you desire! Fill them up with knowledge! If you make studying this language into a passion, you will go far!

And it always makes me imagine the actual conversation go like this if it was in a story or comic:

N: How do I become famous on tumblr?

O: Why would you want to become famous anywhere? Its exhausting.

N: So I'll be popular and people will want to befriend me

O: Honey... What you want isn't fame or popularity, what you want are loyal friends who understand and listen to you. And for that you'll need to step out of your own head and talk to people. Or alternatively you can attempt to create a connection via reblogging something from someone else and gushing on that thread, that sometimes does the thing.

N: But that's so much work!

O: Making and maintaining friendships is a full time job.

N: But I want a lot of people as my friends and I want them now! I want to be famous and cool! I want everyone to love me!

O:

O: Cult. You're thinking about a cult. And those are not good, they radicalise too easily, they go south even faster, not worth it.

N: What? No? I want to be popular and famous!

O: What for? What benefits would fame give you? Nothing. You'd have no space to move nor breathe in, all the eyes would be always on you, you'd be unable to act like you normally do, there would be no moment of rest for you, you'd have to be perfect, become the golden standard, and stay perfect forever. There would be no room for error of any kind no matter how minor, the second you slip it's all over and you'll be left in the dust as humans would find someone else to worship and idolise until that person, too, breaks.

N:

O: By the way you don't get famous on tumblr from anything. Everyone here just goes on with their lives, talks about things they like, dislike, shows, things that happened, funny things, sad things, art, music, videos, memes, writings, if something blows up, it's never the thing the person wanted to blow up. Like something they wrote while high that they'd rather forget having ever happened. Because people find these things to be funny or relatable. You gain nothing from trying to act opposed to who you are and you gain even less from attempting to fish attention in hopes of it boosting your ego and giving you some perks. Because this is the website where people come to get away from the rest of the social media.

*If you are more interested in looking up and finding actually helpful vocab and phrases, @valiantschool (I chose not to tag them as it could be a bit confusing) has amazing illustrated pieces, they're also on twitter under the name @valiantjapanese, they're easy to grasp and absolutely delightful to look at.

Just like any other language, there isn't just one way to speak Japanese, each region and each big city has its own dialect (ben). And often these dialects sound like nothing to the standardised version of the language itself, though I'd still recommend learning the standard Japanese first and only concentrating on a dialect later on as a means to broaden your ability to understand the spoken language.

Also if you do end up moving in Japan, it is highly likely that you end up subconsciously picking up the local dialect and lingo. The same thing tends to happen while you listen and watch dramas in a certain language (my friend who speaks Tokyo-ben is still confused over me somehow picking up Osaka-ben from listening to dramas. Then again my father's English is purely movie Texan thanks to Bruce Springsteen movies, so I'm not that surprised about it myself).

However, do not expect to hear speech identical to anime in Japan and please do not base your own way of speaking on it. I'd recommend searching for Japanese radio shows, podcasts and some VTubers to learn it or to watch live action dramas. This way, you may be able to pick up the pronunciation and more over the intonations of Japanese easier.

Another thing that is good to keep track of while learning is the level of formality and politeness especially when referring to other people:

*Image sources: MLC (mlcjapanese.co.jp), the first one appears to be a scan of a Japanese textbook.

As you can see from these three images, the usage of "You" (あなた) is still being encouraged to be not used if you know the person's name, instead the usage of one's name is brought up (ex スライムさん, Slime-san). While which "I" to use is up to the speaker themselves.

*Image source: BondLingo

There are of course more than these listed, though some of them such as Washi (わし/儂) are specific to a dialect (in this case Kansai) and are mostly used by a certain age group (儂 is used by elderly men), so if you are familiar with another word for "I" in Japanese, don't be surprised if you don't see it in you textbook.

My past teacher didn't really talk about this one so my notes of the matter aren't very detailed, this seems to have been more of a personal note to self as I notably had trouble with referring to myself as 私 due to me not liking sharper s and sh sounds in the past, nor that I'd have to slow down my speech. I'd get a lot of words from my past 先生 for stubbornly saying "僕はスライム、どうもっす" or "スライムです、どうも" instead of "私はスライム、よろしくお願いします". Teenage me was a prick.

Which is a great segway to talk about the formality/polite speech, keigo.

*Image source: RisuPress

There are three main branches of keigo, mainly, Sonkeigo (尊敬語) or the “Honorifics keigo”, Teineigo (丁寧語) the “Polite keigo”, and Kenjogo (謙譲語) or what we call the “Humble Keigo”.

*Image source: Bondlingo

丁寧語 is characterized by the usage of sentence ender "Desu", verb ending "-masu" and the usage of the prefixes like o and go- when it comes to neutral objects. This is also the version that is often spoken by TV presenters and is taught to non-native learners. This version of polite speech can be used to describe your own actions.

*Image source: BondLingo

尊敬語 is what you will use while speaking to your superiors or customers. This version of keigo often involves changing words and it's never used to refer to one's own actions. Usage of 尊敬語 implies that the speaker is acting in a professional capacity.

This is also what most foreigners think of when the mention of keigo is brought up as 尊敬語 is known for its lengthy polite expressions, verbs and nouns go through similar change.

*Image source: BondLingo

謙譲語 is used in settings where it is implied that one's actions take place in order to assist another person, similar to respectful language verb substitution into other forms can place along with verb form change via addition of prefix and the verb suru or itasu while nouns can go through changes. In this way of speech, formal suffixes are dropped within the group (ex. I am Kelpie, the president, and this is Slime, the CEO).

Creating a proper chart to track what is casual Japanese and what is which level of Keigo is highly recommended, it can get wilder from here, this isn't even the final form and to be quite frank, I myself haven't yet even scratched the surface, there's a lot of things I need to relearn before I can start writing notes that aren't weird and all over the place.

Don't be like this delinquent Slime and learn your keigo properly, it'll help you with the contextual stuff on the long run and you won't get thrown out of a high standard place over impoliteness.

If you are planning on visiting Japan, or moving there, the ability to distinguish between types of situations becomes even more important, you must listen to how things are being said and respond accordingly, yet respectably.

In foreign country:

When in another country, you aren't there to represent only yourself, but you're often there to represent all of your people. An old Finnish saying goes "In the land, do as the natives do or leave." this roughly means that you will need to step up and behave in a manner that is appropriate for the said country, follow its rules and regulations and not make a scene, if you aren't able to do a common courtesy, a polite thing, like that then you aren't ready to travel, you shouldn't be there.

Foreign countries often observe the tourists and draw their conclusions of how the people of a certain place are based on these tourists, it takes only couple of incidents for the locals to start looking at your entire nation with a side eye.

You are responsible for your own actions, but you are also responsible for how your country appears to the common people in a foreign country. Be smart, be considerate, don't do stupid things that'll get you in trouble, you aren't above the law.

Now please make way for porg

And this Ewock

*Disclaimer: I am not a teacher, these are my old notes translated to English from the time I took one Japanese course that I had to drop out of due to time management issues. I am currently working on self studying it.

These are the basic Hiragana and Katakana, however a lot of combinations that are used also exist such as the following hiragana chart.

It is advisable to write down as often as possible at first and search for literature that uses simple Japanese to keep them in your memory.

The main difference between hiragana and katakana are their usages, katakana is mostly used for borrowed words such as "エルフ" (Elf) and "スライム" (Slime) along with foreign names like "ジャック" (Jack) and "エリザベス" (Elizabeth). However Japanese does not always have the corresponding sounds and thus it is very usual to substitute it with another like we see in the name Elizabeth. If we were to romajisize the katakana, we'd get "Erizabesu" as "th" sound doesn't exist in Japanese and depending on the dialect, R or L may not exist either.

Japanese is also works in syllables hence many words are given extra sounds like seen in エルフ (rom. E-ru-fu), this also carries over to names like ジャック (ja-k-ku).

While studying the language and especially how the katakana works, please bear in mind that not every loan word comes from the same language. For example the Japanese word for Christ is actually taken from Portugal as is the word for captain.

Some texts also have small script written above kanji, these are referred to as furigana and they are there to help you to read the kanji correctly as they often have multiple reading ways which change depending on the context. The sentences in this image reads as "Watashi no inu" which translates into "My dog".

Apps I've used for self study: Kanji Study, Obenkyo, Japanese Dictionary Takoboto, Learn Japanese, J-Crosswords (by renshuu)

You've lost the Game.