Whatcha thinking about now?

[anubisa]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

I'm thinking about how I wish heads could be taken off. I'm having a frigging bad migraine. I hate them.

[Gleb]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

I'm thinking about how I wish heads could be taken off. I'm having a frigging bad migraine. I hate them.

Migraines suck. Get well soon!

[Jembru]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

In Finnish, if you've done hard work (either physically or mentally), you'd say something about getting heavily drunk (or at least deserving a beer).

Haha. Yeah, I think we have the same greeting in British English too!

Our government has just issued new guidelines on alcohol consumption. There's no longer a 'safe' amount. We're being told ANY alcohol is harmful, and they're saying if we must drink, not to exceed 7 pints a week, and have at least 3 alcohol free days per week.

Not as catchy as the 5-a-day campaign. Or as easy to stick to...

[Näre]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

Haha. Yeah, I think we have the same greeting in British English too!

[neráida]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

This thread is really long. I almost responded to something on the first page before I realized that.

[Eofor]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

I studied German for around 2 years but don't remember much at all now. It's definitely something I plan to return to eventually. We have a few fluent German speakers on the forum, which always makes me regret not sticking to it. Not that I had much choice. Japanese was the most immediately useful language for me and I wanted to reach a conversational level of fluency in as short a time as possible. That meant no time for a third language.

Linguistics wasn't something I cared about in my teens or early twenties, but I'm pretty fascinated by the subject these days. Although the actual process of language acquisition is a bigger field of interest for me!

What a coincidence! I tried to learn Japanese when I was a kid, but I gave up after 2 years. It wasn't so useful for me, as I was only ten years old when I started. Also, the classes were basically written Japanese. I can't even hold a basic conversation and I only remember sentences like "Neko ga hashirimasu", which is pretty disappointing. Now that I'm going to university, I'm studying Portuguese and German. Here in Brazil we have a course called "Letras" (Letters) in which you can learn not only literature, linguistics and Portuguese, but another foreign language as well. Besides, in some universities you can study translation as well, which I'm planning to do. The process of language acquisition is interesting, although my knowledge in this field is pretty basic.

[Medusa]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

Woke up and feel like I got ran over by a giant truck. Whole left side of my body is screwy. And I just ate 4 ibuprofen tablets like skittles.

I have the rest of today to rest up because I need to go into work tomorrow.

[Kiesha'ra]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

1.) How much i'm going to kill the person who touched my 47 string harp and broke a string, now it will take me 3 to 5 days to re-tune after replacing the string. Now I'm stuck playing the 32.

2.) New puppy already ruined his first rug in the kitchen and scared 2 of the horses today (it was actually kind of funny)

3.) Making a lot of choices lately that are not ones I was wanting to think about for a long time.

[EndlessCravings]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

1.) How much i'm going to kill the person who touched my 47 string harp and broke a string, now it will take me 3 to 5 days to re-tune after replacing the string. Now I'm stuck playing the 32.

2.) New puppy already ruined his first rug in the kitchen and scared 2 of the horses today (it was actually kind of funny)

3.) Making a lot of choices lately that are not ones I was wanting to think about for a long time.

As long as you get away with #1 and fix your instrument I'm sure it'll be okay. Cabin in the woods, large tub and chemicals. You'll do just fine.

[kalynraye]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

Its 6:30 here and I am ready for bed. Thses 5 am shifts make me go to bed WAY to early. I don't mind them I just think its weird that I'm ready for bed so early.

[Yorin]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

1.) How much i'm going to kill the person who touched my 47 string harp and broke a string, now it will take me 3 to 5 days to re-tune after replacing the string. Now I'm stuck playing the 32.

Do I need to make a road trip?

[Kiesha'ra]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

Do I need to make a road trip?

Thanks Yorin but, it's fine. re-stringing and re-tuning will help keep me busy. It's tedious but enjoyable.... still annoyed though

[EndlessCravings]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

Slightly amused. I made a not so "nice" comment the other day and my teacher was not happy.

[Jembru]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

What a coincidence! I tried to learn Japanese when I was a kid, but I gave up after 2 years. It wasn't so useful for me, as I was only ten years old when I started. Also, the classes were basically written Japanese. I can't even hold a basic conversation and I only remember sentences like "Neko ga hashirimasu", which is pretty disappointing. Now that I'm going to university, I'm studying Portuguese and German. Here in Brazil we have a course called "Letras" (Letters) in which you can learn not only literature, linguistics and Portuguese, but another foreign language as well. Besides, in some universities you can study translation as well, which I'm planning to do. The process of language acquisition is interesting, although my knowledge in this field is pretty basic.

Listen.. can you hear that? That's the sound of Pagan Forum members groaning in unison 'don't give her an excuse to talk about Japanese!!'. Lol.

I can totally understand about the focus on reading. This was standard just about everywhere until fairly recently and even in universities there still isn't nearly enough focus on speaking. Even the Japanese proficiency test, the JLPT ignores speaking and writing (it kind of has to because it's electronically marked, but it means that some students that pass N1, the highest level, can't hold down a conversation, or if they can, their Japanese is unusual and robotic because spoken and written Japanese are so different).

I'm self-taught though, so I got to pick and choose what I learnt. For the longest time I only knew the kanji used in the textbooks I originally studied from (under 300 characters), and any that came up so frequently that I couldn't help but pick them up by proxy. Words like 勉強 (benkyou) 頑張る (ganbaru) and 大丈夫 (daijoubu). Otherwise, I got by using rikaikun to read online. My study was heavily conversation-focused. I learnt vocabulary in context, learning short phrases rather than isolated words, I practiced speaking via the 'shadowing method', I kept a video journal where I recorded myself speaking on various topics, and of course I hung out with other Japanese speakers.

In 2014 I realised I was finally fluent enough to hold down a conversation without much difficulty. But because spoken and written Japanese are so different, to take my Japanese to the next level I needed to focus my study around authentic texts; reference books, textbooks, novels and magazines written in Japanese for a Japanese audience. Besides a handful of textbooks for Japanese elementary school kids, I couldn't really access the above material until I learnt all jouyou kanji once and for all. So I spent most of last year memorising kanji and studying from books aimed at Japanese kids who are still learning kanji.

My Japanese is still a work in progress, but it's a wonderful feeling to finally be able to pick up a novel or magazine and just read it!

I'm not embarrassed to tell people I'm an advanced student now either. When I couldn't read and write, I always felt like a bit of a fraud!

[Rae'ya]

Re: Whatcha thinking about now?

Dear Australia,

Do you think that it would be possible for the water to come out of the cold water tap cold? Or at least room temperature? Anything other than 'hot straight from hell'? I understand that it's 40C outside and that our sun has superpowers which allows it's heat to penetrate through bricks into our water pipes, but I'd really rather not have to run the tap for five minutes before the water has cooled down enough to drink.