Tonari no Totoro!

Even though I know ideally I should really spend 1-2 hours on Japanese everyday, usually nothing much is accomplished between the end of Wednesday's class and the start of the weekend. Doing Japanese on a peaceful Sunday afternoon is really a great treat. I can learn Japanese at my own pace and normally I am more efficient than average. However, there are distractions under the disguise of academically related activities, that can be dangerous. For instance, I came across this great Japanese anime called "totoro" on youtube while I was doing my homework this morning. Since the movie was in Japanese, I thought to myself: mh... nothing helps me learn Japanese better than watching a Japanese movie. Despite the good intentions, I ended up watching a bunch of movies, both Japanese-related and not-so-Japanese related ( like Seinfeld...) anyway, I was glad to realize that I could actually recognize a few phrases in Japanese here and there during my non-stop movie marathon that soon got out of hand.

Back to Totoro: the story is about two sisters who had an interesting encounter with a magical creature called Totoro. They soon became friends with him and had quite an adventure together. It is a touching story of friendship and family - one that captures the essence of childhood's happiness and innocence. I had actually watched the movie before, but it was really refreshing to watch it again so many years later from a grown-up's perspective.

Now - back to my Japanese homework... Ima nan-ji desu ka?

learning japanese

Nihongo! I've wanted to learn Japanese ever since I was a little kid. Growing up in Taiwan, I was a big fan of Japanese anime and Japanese comic books. My grand parents could speak some Japanese, and they used to take my family and my cousins to Japan when I was very little. Now twenty something years later, I finally have the opportunity to learn the Japenese language. I'm absolutely excited, and am looking forward to learning Japanese with Sato Sansei and my classmates!