Almost a year ago now I bought and reviewed my first impressions of An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese textbook. Since then, much to my dismay, they have bought out an updated version that includes the CDs. Dammit! Especially it is only now that I am really having the chance to start using this textbook. I’ve finished Japanese for Everyone (awesome textbook), and as here in Australia the kids are going back to school for the new year, I’ve decided to kick myself into gear and do a bit of my own formal study. So today I bought an exercise book and I’m going to get the show on the road… I’ve pretty much already done chapter one, so this week I’m going to take it easy and review it. Then it’s down to business. I’d like to ideally do a chapter a week. I think this means I will sacrifice how many new kanji I can learn in a week in my quest to complete Heisig . But while I love the progress I make with it, I feel like I need more, hence doing this text book. 会話 - Conversations First in the text book is a page in English with some culture notes. These are fine, interesting, but a bit of a waste of space. I will, of course, give it a glance before I move on to the first bit of meat in a chapter - 会話. There are three conversations, one super polite, one polite and one casual. To get through the conversations, I plan to do something like:

Listen to the dialogue and read along learn the vocab I don’t know yet read along as the dialogue is being spoken. Repeat this until I can say it at the same speed as the audio. My aim isn’t to memorize but rather just to get my tongue around talking as fast as the audio does. I’m not sure if they have done anything to the new version of audio is any different, but for my version it is pretty good, sounds almost as fast as real life (compared to other audio I’ve listened to!). If I could be bothered, I would also like to do something like “scriptorium”. Take a look at this video as an example:

You can read more about it on Professor Arguelles’ website, but here’s a quick run down: 1. Read a sentence aloud. 2. Say each word aloud again as you write it. 3. Read the sentence aloud as you have written it. I think it would be awesome writing practise, a chance to pay attention to the nitty gritty (it’s all to easy to understand something as you read it or listen to it, but when you go to say it, sometimes you are left wondering “what was that particle again?”). I also feel that I learn better when I write things down. Writing down the sentence will help me cement the vocab I have learnt.

To be honest, I’m not sure if I will start with 会話 even though it is at the beginning of the chapter. I think that I would listen to it while reading it, but do the rest of my study after I complete the rest of the chapter, or at least go through the grammar points. Listening is one of my poorer skills - I’m a good listener if you need to talk to someone, but I’m not good at learning something through listening. So this may end up being something I do later in the chapter. But, at this stage, this is what I want to do with the 会話 section of An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese.

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Voice ヴォイス Episode One First Aired: January 2009 Carlie’s Rating:
Rate This Episode: Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it. A group of five medical students take on the task of conveying the “voices of the dead.” Eita plays Daiki, who fails to get into a popular heart surgery seminar but is somehow accepted into a seminar on forensic pathology. When he approaches the professor Sagawa (Saburo Tokito) and asks him why he ended up in the seminar, Sagawa challenges him by asking why he wants to study heart surgery. Daiki replies that medicine is meaningless after the heart stops, but Sagawa counters that medicine also applies to the dead. Along with fellow students Ryosuke (Toma Ikuta) and Kanako (Satomi Ishihara), Daiki begins to explore the mysteries of death. from TokyoGraph

Let me start by saying Colonel Sanders haunts me. I must want chicken. As far as I can tell, it’s a different man than the Colonel Sanders linked above, but still, I’m making connections… I think my subconsciousness is trying to tell me something.

I am not really a fan of medical shows unless they are a comedy like Scrubs, but since I Eita and Toma, this show is a must!! Still, my unlove (but not hate) of medicals means that this show will probably never make it on to my “Most Awesomest Dramas Ever!” list, but may be one that I just enjoy. This episode revolves around a man who died from something heavy falling onto him from a construction site, but there is no sign of the object that hit him. It is an over all introduction to the characters and the show. I think some scenes felt really cheesy, but over all I did like it. It was sweet. I do like the overall chemistry of the characters. There is one guy who is a bit too silly - however, the other guy who is “tough”, even though he was over the top I didn’t mind it. Over all, I think what will make this drama a pleasure to watch isn’t the story line but the characters themselves. I hope that it doesn’t just have the same pattern week after week. I get the feeling it will. That may be tedious. The Leading Men!!! Not really a fan of medical dramas. It was good but it wasn’t great, so I’m giving this one

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Hana Yori Dango 花より男子 Boys Over Flowers Episode One First Aired: 2005 Carlie’s Rating: Rate This Episode: Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it. The story of Tsukushi Makino, a poor girl who goes to a school filled with rich people. Then there is this group of boys called the “F4″, a group of rich bullies. Well, really, only one is the bully, a Tsukasa Domioji. The group decides to pick on Makino, which is the biggest mistake they could have made as she plans to fight back… This was one of the first dramas that I watched, and is thus will always have a special place in my heart. I also read (in English) the manga years ago, and was one of the things that contributed to my Japanese learning journey. This drama was also the start of a love affair with Matsumoto Jun. At first I didn’t get his appeal, but then he had me on his hook - another one Jun baited. We flirted for a while, but eventually I dumped him and moved on to different pastures. Episode One has Makino get the reg tag, and thus becomes bullied by the school. Makino is a great heroine because she stands up for herself. Tsukasa, on the other hand, is a real piece of work. I’d forgotten how mean he was, how horrible he could be. I was definitely rooting for Rui at the start. I can’t remember if it was the same with the manga, it’s been so many years since I read it. We do get a bit of insight into Tsukasa’s home life, so we gain a bit of perspective on why he is a huge a hole. The poor (figuratively) boy has issues, that’s for sure. I love the punch near the end. Pow, right in the kisser. And then it ends on a cliff hanger, getting kidnapped by Tsukasa… oooh, what will happen next?? Overall, this is a pretty strong first episode for a drama compared to most. And hey, I already said I’ll probably be a bit biased to this, as it’s like a “precious” childhood memory.

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