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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

JP lesson: Verb conjugations


Here's my weekly japanese class summary again! 

During yesterday's class, the teacher taught basic verb conjugations; positive and negative. 昨日のクラスに、先生は動詞の活用を教えた。 It was a revision for me since I had kinda forgotten it though I've learnt it before.


Basically to change 動詞 to negative (否定形);

for 五段动词:change last hiragana character to “あ” 段+ない。
例えば:
to read 読む(よむ)→読まない
to jump/fly 飛ぶ(とぶ)→飛ばない
to play 遊ぶ(あそぶ)→遊ばない
to drink 飲む(のむ)→飲まない
to meet 会う(あう)→会わない
to know/understand 分かる(わかる)→分からない
頂く(いただく)→頂かない
to hurry 急ぐ(いそぐ)→急がない
to tire 疲れる(つかれる)→疲れらない
to trial/experiment 試み(こころみ)→試みらない
to sleep 眠る(ねむる)→眠らない
to ascend/climb 昇る(のぼる)→昇らない
to move 動く(うごく)→動かない
to hit 殴る(なうる)→殴らない
to serve/work/be employed 勤める(つとめる)→勤めらない
to work/labour 働く(はたらく)→働かない
to sit 座る(すわる)→座らない
to hold 持つ(もつ)→持たない

for 一段动词、とても簡単です。Just replace る with ない
* Special 一段动词, not 五段 *寝る(ねる)→寝ない
to tidy up/put in order 片付ける(かたづける)→片付けない
to give 上げる(あげる)→上げない
to exist/be 居る→居ない

for (サ)する -> しない
to marry 結婚する→結婚しない

for (不)来る(くる)来ない

Whether a word is a verb or an adjective or how it is conjugated depends on its ending hiragana character. For example, 
Left-ADJECTIVE / right-VERB
欲しい(want)ー>欲しくない・欲しがる(to desire, to want, to wish for)ー>欲しがらない
楽しい(happy)ー>楽しくない・楽しむー>楽しまない
悲しい(sad)ー>悲しくない・悲しむ(to be sad/to mourn for/to regret)ー>悲しまない
痛い(painful)ー>痛くない・痛む(to hurt/to feel pain/to be injured)ー>痛まない

In general, verbs can also be split into 2 types:自動詞(Vi) と 他動詞(Vt)
A subject cannot be added after a 自動詞(Vi) e.g. run, cry, speak
But can be added after a 他動詞(Vt) e.g. love + you, tell + you, eat + it.
The significance is that after a 自動詞(Vi) use が, but after a 他動詞(Vt) use を before a verb.
例えば:Vi→鳥が飛びます。Vt→寿司を食べます。
Sentence order in japanese is subject + object + verb.

終わった!
じゃまた!


Saturday, February 23, 2013

Still CNY

Finally went for some sort of CNY celebratory meal at the Bugis Street Brasserie at Gloucester Road, one of the few Singaporean/Malaysian restaurants in London. Was secretly hoping they had yu sheng on their CNY menu, but discovered then that all the dishes were chinese but not distinctively Singaporean. Oh wells, but it turns out that I enjoyed every dish! 22.50pds per person was on the high side, but you do get alot of food of sizable portions. Was definitely stuffed even before dessert.


 Seafood & hot and sour soup.
 Complimentary tiger beer. It wasn't as bad as I remembered it to be, perhaps my tolerance to the taste of alcohol has increased by now. It was the first alcoholic drink I've ever tasted and I thought it was really bad at that time.
 The claypot braised beef was really tender and yummy. :)
 I really really like the black moss/mushroom/pak choi dish!



Glutinous rice ball in red bean soup dessert.
Am going back again tomorrow! 0.0 This time its a free buffet. :) Please let there be yusheng!

Also, chinese new year themed nail art which will only last till tuesday cause of hospital attachment. :X toothpicked the drawings in case anyone is wondering. Relatively fast to do actually!


Cheers!

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Jap lesson + update

今日は、日本語のクラスがまた始まるよ。今日のlesson covered some basic sentence structure。For my own note-taking, here is a short summary in a mishmash of chinese, english and japanese:

-----Japanese language notes----

Something kute/de, something desu.
For nouns and 'な' adjectives:

___くて、___です = 又———,又———。or ———,而———。
                                            i.e. ______, and also _____. or ______, while ______.
For ‘い’ adjectives:
_______で、_____です。

例えば1:彼女はきれいで、かわいいです vs 彼女はかわいくて、きれいです。
She is pretty, and also cute.

例えば2:これは二百円で、これは二百八十円です。
This is 200yen, while this is 280yen.

'kara'= 'because'(also means 'from').
因为——————,所以——————。

例えば:彼女はきれいで、かわいいから、好きです。
Because she is pretty and cute, I like her.

Numbers
100 = 百(ひゃく)、
1000=千(せん)、
1,0000=万(まん)、
1,0000,0000=億(おく)
1,0000,0000,0000=兆(ちょう)
例えば:9、8765、4321=九億(きゅうおく)はっせんななひゃくろくじゅうごまん(八千七百六十五万)よんせんさんぜんにじゅういち(四千三千二十一)。

Japanese verbs
Japanese verbs all end with ’う’。That is the original form (原形)e.g. 走る、飛ぶ、読む、泳ぐ。
There are 3 groups: 五段形容词,一段形容词 and 不规则形容词。

A) The easiest category is 不规则形容词 which contains ’する’ (to do) と’くる’ (to come) only.

You can use する after any noun which can also be used as a verb and vice versa such as practice/practise = 練習する、study/studying = 勉強する、marriage/marry = 結婚する、love/to love = 愛する.

Foreign nouns can also be used e.g. download ダウンロードする。

B) 一段形容词 has 2 sub categories 上一段 and 下一段。

All 一段形容词 must fulfill 3 conditions:
1. Must end in る。
2. Must have an い (i+ru is 上一段) or え(e+ru is下一段) that is not in a kanji character before る。
例えば:食べる、is 一段形容词 while 喋る(しゃべる)is not and therefore is 五段形容词.

C) Every other verb that is not in group A or B is 五段形容词. i.e. don't end with 'ru' or ends with a+ru, u+ru or o+ru.

Then lesson ended here! I've learnt verb conjugations before (my pet peeve) but forgot all of it and trying to do them mostly ends up in confusion so am looking forward to getting it right again!

----
Japanese gibberish aside,

Eschewed the french, italian, japanese, chinese, lebanese, filipino restaurants down the street in favour of indian for vday dinner lol. Usually I would associate vday dinners with something western cause hailing from an asian country, anything else seems less formal. But being in the UK, pasta is a staple food and supermarket prep dinners are usually western styled, so comparatively curry seems like a much more enticing bolder flavoured choice. "Masala zone" had candlelights/dimmed lighting so the atmosphere was comfortable anyways. The indian food is not bad, we ordered a grand thali each.





That reminds me I still need to visit a singaporean/malaysian restaurant for some cny fare!

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Cloud Atlas


Watched  Cloud Atlasyesterday, which is directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski siblings (matrix trilogy), and I would highly recommend it. I rarely comment about the movies I have watched even though I do it (or is forced to) on a regular basis. Its a very balanced movie, without really any faults I can pinpoint, which is a feat considering they inter-weaved 6 stories into one movie (and we all know that gives the potential for confusion). At the start I had to concentrate a little to remember all the different characters, but after 30 mins into the movie everything just flows quite naturally which is easy to understand and will not alienate anyone. In fact, I think the cuts to each different stories, which are in different time periods, helps keep the movie pace interesting without any lull period. This makes for a wonderful composition, much like the movie title track the Cloud Atlas Sextet, where six instruments, six stories interplay and ends with a touching and heart-rendering but simple crescendo at the end. The movie has a very ethereal, dream-like feel (listen to the soundtrack!), yet the issues and themes it covers e.g. racism, slavery, imprisonment, showing courage for the right cause are very real. I really enjoyed the landscapes, and though the concept of using the same actor/actress for multiple roles is not new, I think it was executed here with alot of finesse where an actor/actress was almost unrecognizable (by me at least) as sometimes they play a different gender, race, species (good makeup!). It was fun to try and spot them all. X)

Heres' a short description of the storyline from imdb:
Everything is connected: an 1849 diary of an ocean voyage across the Pacific; letters from a composer to his friend; a thriller about a murder at a nuclear power plant; a farce about a publisher in a nursing home; a rebellious clone in futuristic Korea; and the tale of a tribe living in post-apocalyptic Hawaii, far in the future. 
Watch and enjoy!

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Vday Totoro bento - キャラクター弁当!

Happy valentines' day!

 The 14th of february is here once again.  And this time I decided to make a charaben 'kyaraben' キャラ弁 (character bento) for the first time ever since I started obsessing about them 3 years ago (essentially looking at bento sites and buying cute boxes). Made Totoro bento (which is a highly popular character) based off designs from google images as he is associated with it in many ways.

totoro character bento
This took wayyy more time than it looks cause I had to figure out how to make it based on whatever's in the fridge! Its kinda like doing art and craft which is fun except I had to keep in mind everything is to be eaten and had to be clean (so much washing!). Also, taste is an additional factor, along with a balance of ingredients e.g. how much rice is needed. It takes more planning then expected. Had to improvise by colouring rice with mashed up boiled curly kale (with a fork!). Never knew colouring rice with natural foods can be so much fun lol. Didn't have fishcake which is commonly used for the eyes so i cut cheese with a scissors! *_* All the nori (seaweed) pieces are hand cut too as I don't have fancy bento cutters!



The tomato heart is the only hint to the bento's purpose. Would ideally have made it more vday-ish but for a first attempt, I'm satisfied! Wouldn't do this on a daily basis for future kids though, kyarabens take too much effort. :P

ととろ after microwaving for 6mins and stabbed with a spoon for eating by hungry soul returned from school.

Anyway, first options class tomorrow plus workshop, perhaps a meal out later?

x Van

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Happy Chinese New Year!

Its been a week since I updated, and I think its cause I've been too busy slacking and chilling from everything, including most of the online world. But its 除夕夜 so here's some time off to record the week. 

A week ago, on Saturday we took a ride on the Eurostar across the English channel, pass France into Belgium. Its kinda like a random destination, but since tickets were cheap (on sale for 30pds pp!) and I wanted to get somewhere after being stuck indoor revising the last few weeks, AND I've promised to visit Karlien sometime, there we went. Booked a place at Hotel van Belle in Brussels for 2 nights, which turned out to be a pretty decent basic hotel that I'm glad we picked as its worth the price and the location is not too far off from the train station. (I keep seeing the word "van" everywhere and it turns out it means "of"!). 


Arrived there at night and after walking around the main tourist area namely the Grand Place and its surrounding streets, St Hubert gallery, had dinner at an Italian restaurant (one of the rare few without touts) on Rue de Bouchers.





Grand Place


One of the many Belgium food specialty shops littered around the area.
Window shopping in Gallery St. Hubert
Tintin! and chocolates!
Italian waiter counting the bills.

Anyway, more on the 2nd and 3rd day on a second post.

After I came back, mostly been playing the 3DS spending my time in virtual cartoonized shibuya fighting "noise" in a shinigami game to help the characters survive and regain their life. I quite like this game so far cause it appeals to my interest in Japan (Shibuya fashion and jpop/rock background music, plus I dig the art style.) I'm completing the chapter with Shiki soon, there are 2 more left. Might pace this out more cause the game mechanics rewards players for a more regular progressive play (shutdown time lapse needed for certain exp gain etc).
The world ends with you
As for CNY festivities, well I did go to Chinatown to shop for ingredients for hotpot at Liz's place. There were tons of Chinese shopping for CNY stuff last time and also some western curious onlookers. Also paid a visit to the salon to which had awesome complimentary neck massage and good service (cute welcome message and tea+biscuits/sweets!). Its a Japanese hair salon in Covent Garden called Hayato London! Haircut was average but I think I might be abit harsh.




xxx 新年快乐!
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