Commercials

I'm sure some people have seen their fair share of ridiculous commercials, particularly Japanese ones, but this one seemed particularly relevant:

あきやすみ

さくねんのあきやすみにわたしはのんきだった、でもことしにわたしがいそがしい。にちようびにうちにかえります。げつようびにかぞくはわたしのたんじょうびをいわう。わたしのかぞくはレストランにいきます。そのご、うちでテシス(Thesis)をべｎきょうしますそしてだいがくいんせいのアプリケーションをします。そのご、きんようびにピッツバーグにいきます。そのしゅうまつピッツバーグにジャグリングのまつりがあります。そのにちようび、プリンスソンにかえりますそしててつがくのエッセイをします。しゅうはいそがしい。

Introduction

The Many Faces of ぐれんのゆみや

I'm sure most of you are probably familiar with this song:

You may know it from the extremely popular しんげきのきょじん (Attack on Titan) anime, or just from your first class with しばたせんせい. Either way, Attack on Titan has become almost as popular to riff on as it is to watch, with the OP (opening animation) being the primary point of focus. The intense, to the point of being ridiculous, nature of the OP makes for prime parody material. Styles of parody include, but are not limited to:

Bollywood dubbings

Pingu dubbings

Other (Ridiculous) Anime dubbings

Kazoo covers

Along with a host of reverse covers (i.e. alternative OP's to SnK in the style of other anime OP's).
The sheer number of different kinds of parodies is staggering. To make my point, as I write this article, I am given around 59,500 results for "SnK OP" on Youtube, compared with 125,000 for "SnK OP parody". As with any meme, eventually the meme gets pretty played out, leading to posts such as the highlighted post in this thread, dismayed at the lack of funny or original content. Which of course led to the best SnK OP parody of all:

Hope this was informative and amusing.

Goals for PE

The main barrier to sounding like a native speaker is intonation patterns (I suppose speed as well, but I figure that comes naturally, much like with English). Focusing on an even tone, rather than the tendency of English to emphasize the first syllable. Another challenge may be to establish quick transcription skills, as I usually need to write romaji on paper before I write in hiragana or katakana.

As for ways to do this, I think that the weekly homework does a good job in providing practice, but it's always nice to do something extra. I'd like to make my goals realistic, however, as I tend to overestimate time commitments, and unrealistic goals do not lead to keeping good habits. I will attempt to commit to at least:

-1 episode of anime per week, and a few minutes of shadowing for each episode

-1 session of office hours every 1.5 weeks (though weekly is what I'd like to do)

-10 minutes of vocabulary study during the weekend.

come up with at least 1 new word for each "Today's phrase" during class.

There are obvious ways to add to this (more anime episodes, more shadowing per episode, more sessions of office hours), but I think this should be sufficient for now. One more passive way to help my proficiency is to passively remember/say the Japanese phrase for something when it comes up. An example would be to say the time in Japanese when you want to know what the time is. Another thing to incorporate into this daily exercise is to recall the hiragana/katakana for every phrase you call to mind.

Shadowing Practice for the Brave

Teachers should try as well!