May 21, 2019 / Some Messy Class Notes + Doodles For You Guys. Just Wanted To Show How My In Class Notebook

18.08.20 / the sun rising on my all-nighter. i’ve got a list of errands to run today but after today, everything should be ironed out. just need to get through today!! hbu? i hope you’re doing okay. take care ♡

Download them here 💖✨

Chinese now available!!

15/100 DAYS OF PRODUCTIVITY

• attended volleyball practice (it went well and even found an old friend of mine who has basketball classes there)

• took some time to bujo/journal

• worked on some biology notes (even though the test was last week!)

• did my biology homework

• did my english (C2) homework

hello there! i would like to ask if you know any sites where i can practice reading japanese? like news sites, manga sites, or sites that offer free e-books that are in japanese. and are there any japanese podcasts that i can listen to? thank you in advance for answering this question. it'd mean a whole to me!

Hey there! There are actually quite a few recommended sites for Japanese learners, so I’ll link them right now :)

Japanese IO – I’ve used this site quite a few times and I love the interface! The design is really sleek and “to the point,” so there’s no distractions from what you’re trying to do, which is practice reading Japanese. It also has a great library and look-up feature.

朝日学生新聞社 – This is the “kid’s version” of the more adult 朝日新聞社. If you don’t feel that you’re quite up for the adult version, test out the version geared towards kids. They have fewer articles, but there’s plenty for a learner to pick through.

NHK NEWS EASY – I’m almost positive this is one of the most famous ones for learners. It’s similar to Asahi’s kid newspaper – articles are condensed with easier kanji and vocabulary, and it’s geared towards children, so learners can spend some time combing through updated articles and testing their skills.

Yahoo! Kids – More short news articles geared towards easier-to-understand Japanese.

MATCHA – A fun magazine similar in style to NHK EZ.

Watanoc – Another magazine-type site with a variety of articles.

Traditional Japanese Stories – Get your hands on some easily printed Japanese stories that are told to children. Great for language skills and culture! Similar to English pop culture stories (like Cinderella and so on), Japan has its own fairytales that are occasionally referenced.

Fuku Musume’s Fairy Tale Collection – More stories!

World of チョコチョコ – These are beginner stories, but as you progress you can read other stories on this website.

EhonNavi – Read hundreds of Japanese picture books for free!

If you’re looking for more advanced content…

NHK – Japan’s national broadcaster. You can read articles as well as stream audio and video (may be blocked depending on location).

毎日新聞 – Moderate/left-leaning national newspaper

朝日新聞 – Left-leaning national newspaper

読売新聞 – Conservative national newspaper

東洋経済オンライン – A well-known business and finance magazine.

Project Gutenberg (Japanese) – Get access to a ton of out-of-print and classical books for free.

小説家になろう – A site where authors can publish their works online in exchange for reviews.

青空文庫 – Another site where you can get older and out-of-print novels.

University of Virginia Japanese Text Initiative – Another place to access novels in Japanese for free (with the option to read them with furigana).

ComicWalker – Free manga from the publisher Kadokawa. There’s an app too!

最前線 – You can read some manga online for free.

コミコ – More free Japanese manga available here!

キナリノ – A woman’s lifestyle blog which covers fashion, cooking, decor, and more!

Magazine Lib – You can read PDFs of Japanese magazines.

1000文字小説 – A place where users can submit 1000 characters or less stories. 

I also highly recommend starting a Twitter (if you don’t already have one) and following Japanese accounts. I follow a lot of feminist and political accounts so that I’m learning words relevant to my interests, as well as interacting with people that are discussing topics of interest to me (i.e. women and their place in Japanese society).

If you’re curious, you can find me on Twitter at @sydney0313 :)

I hope this list proves useful to you! (And others.)

頑張ってください！

hi! what have you gained as an asian studies major? and do you know what your next steps are after graduating yet?

hi and thank you for this question! i’ve gained a lot as an asian studies major, both academically and otherwise!

- a good conversation starter, especially with the international students who are curious about my interest in their homes and cultures

- confidence. being white and studying asian cultures can seem a little suspect, especially with the current kpop craze going on. i used to get nervous when people asked me why i chose my major, but answering that question all the time has just made me more confident in my choice!

- access to lots of study abroad scholarships! this major makes it easy to continue my studies in a foreign country because that’s literally what i’m studying haha, so being there would actually make it easier

- a better understanding of multiple asian cultures, and a deeper sense of empathy for asian american students and their struggles here in the states!!! 

- more social awareness in general, because i’ve gotten better at considering multiple viewpoints on different subjects

- a newfound appreciation for chinese spiritual lore and mythology, they were wilding omg

- a similar appreciation for korean literature, my professor was AMAZING and she really got me hooked on learning about it!!

- my major allows me to pursue my love for language learning really easily!!

obviously nothing is set in stone, but as of right now my plans for after graduation are to spend a few years teaching english in taiwan and then start transitioning into a career in international education at the college level! i’m trying to get a lot of good experience in that area by getting involved with my university’s international affairs office while i’m still a student! i currently have no idea if i’ll ever pursue graduate school, even though i’d love to have the opportunity one day. but if in the future i have to choose between grad school and traveling and gaining life experience, i think i’d personally choose the latter :)

Hiya, your blog is so informative! I'm hopefully going to be studying a bachelors in linguistics starting in 2023, is there any reading or activities you could recommend to do/start to do now? Thanks 😊

Hey, I don't know where you're from and what your universities are like, so I can only talk from my experience here in Germany (or in my university at least):

Recommendations for Reading/Activities before starting Linguistic Studies:

In my first semester, the lectures were quite challenging for many students, since they're designed to give you a basic understanding of all of linguistics as fast as possible, so that you can progress in your studies. I think they were also designed to 'weed out' anyone who wasn't fit for this course or didn't take it seriously enough.

I had to learn the IPA alphabet, the terms used for how vowels and consonants are pronounced (e.g. open front; voiced alveolar fricative, etc.), how to note graphemes, allophones, morphemes, etc., what each of these terms means and how they work, word formation processes, all of the parts of speech, word classes, phrases, and clauses, semantic relations, some theories (e.g. speech act theory), and more. Most of it was just a lot of memorising / learning by heart.

But that's no reason to be scared :) in my uni, there were loads of "tutorial courses" where we met up once a week with a teaching assistant who was there to answer all of our questions and to repeat what we learned in that week's lecture. We were also repeatedly told that it's absolutely normal to struggle in the first semester; some of our lectures had a failure rate of 50% or higher. And that's perfectly fine. If you fail and have to do a course again, there won't be any new material, so you'll basically just get one semester more time to revise & study everything you learned.

So I would recommend to try finding out which books you'll be using in the "big" introductory courses (these lectures and books are usually called "Introduction to Linguistics" or "Introduction to [subject]"). Books like that are usually intended for students without any background knowledge. You could start looking through these books to get a first broad understanding of the different parts of linguistic studies and what you'll learn in the first semesters. The book I used in my "Introduction to Linguistics" lecture was "Introduction to English Linguistics" by Becker/Bieswanger (2017).

Also: if you have to write term papers for your lectures, try to schedule as few as possible in the first semester (if that's possible in your uni course). It's your first time writing a term paper, so it won't be perfect and you'll make mistakes. It's better to write one bad one at the beginning of your studies and learn from your mistakes than to rush ahead and write several bad ones. Maybe you could already find out which kind of citation rules your course uses and learn how to use that citation style.

Another thing I'd suggest is to inform yourself about your course beforehand. Read the exam regulations, what lectures you need, and what your suggested work load is. Don't go over this suggested work load in your first semester! In my course, I had about 6 suggested lectures a week which were each 2 hours long. That doesn't sound like a lot, but you'll also get homework and have to revise everything you learned. Some courses have midterm exams in addition to the final exams, so you basically have to revise/study from the start. And, as I said before, some courses have additional tutorials which you can attend during the week (most of them were 1 hour long).

I hope that this helps a bit :) All of this is solely based on my personal experience in my university, so your course outline and work load and schedule could be entirely different. But maybe it'll give you some first ideas about what to expect and what to keep in mind :) Good luck with your studies!

September 21 2017

Some of the MUJI notebooks I painted this summer; it’s bittersweet that I have to go back to UCLA soon and can’t paint any more until winter break :c

thank god for muji

instagram / youtube

old digital planner layout.

What books did you use to help you learn japanese (grammar&vocabulary)? Can you recommend me anything?(I’m at a beginner level)

I actually use more websites than books, but the main books I’ve used are the grammar dictionaries that are kind of famous (or so it seems).

There are three of them (each about $40-50 each):

A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar

A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar

A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar

These books are amazing. Basic is enough to get you at least to N4 and a little into N3 level grammar, while Advanced is N1 and highly complex stuff. 

I really regret not buying Intermediate and Advanced when I was in Japan because the entire Basic book is all review for me, and I should’ve bought Intermediate at least so I could practice more. Cryingggg.

If you can, try to buy these in Japan! They’re a lot cheaper. Only around ¥3000 per book or something like that?