Perks

My 3rd generation iPod battery has finally failed me. It won't hold a charge for more than a minute, which makes attempting to sync it with my iTunes library impossible. So this past weekend I ordered and arranged, through the link you see to the right (cheers for customer rebates!), for the battery to be replaced. I hope this will fix the problem that has been keeping me from using it. If not, I'll be getting a new toy shortly.

I'm particularly keen to get it back into use, though, as I've purchased around 800 Japanese songs so far and am using them in my study of the language. How? you might ask. Simple. A huge part of learning a language is listening to and understanding what is being said. At first, new languages are pretty much just sounds. In fact, the past few months, as was suggested by a finer source of learning, have been spent listening to Japanese with the sole purpose of learning to distinguish sound. Next, comes learning to associate those sounds with meaning. Third, being able to understand it all. Fourth, being able to create it. So the more time I spend listening to Japanese, the easier it will be for me to distinguish Japanese in a spoken context. But the songs have their reading benefits, too.

When purchased, the music in Japan comes with the lyrics, because attempting to decipher all the homonyms of Japanese would surely drive any audiophile insane. So while I travel, drive, spend time at school, I listen. When I'm at home, I listen and attempt to read. It's really great practice and has implanted several helpful readings of some kanji I didn't know before. For those songs lent to me on a temporary basis by friends, these lyrics can be found online and much more easily deciphered through a Firefox attachment called Rikaichan.

In case you're wondering, I've deleted all my non-Japanese music. Overboard? I don't think so. Not when one of my very great desires is to be able to live and act as a native speaker. Again, with some suggestion, I realized that crutching along with English won't help.

Random picture for fun: I made this crane at a restaurant in Nago at dinner with Cliff one night. Note: you're not supposed to use black or white paper when making cranes; can't say why.