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Tsukuyomi-MLP

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Blog Entries posted by Tsukuyomi-MLP

  1. Tsukuyomi-MLP
    Today's Kanji

    Well, it's another day, another blog post! Let's get this rolling.
     

    Kanji: 畳
    Kunyomi: たたみ tatami, たた(む) tata(mu)
    Onyomi: じょう jō
    Meaning: Tatami mat (Wikipedia link), to fold, to close, counter for tatami mats, measure of room size (in tatami mats)
    Example: 八畳 hachijō (8 tatami mats, 8-tatami in size), 畳 tatami (tatami mat), 店を畳む mise wo tatamu (to close up shop, go out of business)
    Stroke order:

     
    Kanji: 舎
    Kunyomi: やど(る) yado(ru)
    Onyomi: しゃ sha
    Meaning: Cottage, hutt, inn, house
    Examples: 校舎 kōsha (shool building), 庁舎 chōsha (government office building), 田舎 inaka* (rural area, countryside)
    Stroke Order:

    * = Okay, side note, sometimes when you put two kanji's together you get a reading that is completely different from any reading you'd get by putting together onyomi or kunyomi. This is one example of that. Keep in mind that these are usually few and far between, most of the time you don't see these sort of things. Other examples of this include Yamato (Kanji: 大和) and Kyō (Kanji: 今日).
     
    Kanji: 離
    Kunyomi: はな(れる) hana(reru), はな(す) hana(su)
    Onyomi: り ketsu
    Meaning: separation, detach
    Examples: 離れる hanareru (to be separated, to be distance, to leave), 離す hanasu (to separate, to part, to divide), 離婚 rikon (divorce), 距離 kyori (distance)
    Stroke order:

     
    And that's it for today! I'll post more in a few more days, hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them!
     
    Credit where credit's due:

     
  2. Tsukuyomi-MLP
    Today's Kanji

    Hello and welcome everyone! For those of you who don't know, I'm a fluent speaker of Japanese. I just have one problem - I can speak Japanese, I can read hiragana, and I can read katakana, but I've always had trouble with kanji. Now, until recently that wasn't a big issue, but then I decided I wanted to start writing in Japanese. But to do that and actually have myself understood, I'm going to have to know kanji (I'll get into the reason in another post if you want to know why).
     

    So, to remedy the situation I came up with this! A blog post I'll make every other day or so where I'll put down some new kanji I learned today, that way I can keep track of it and maybe you'll learn a few things too! I'll keep this up until either I lose interest or I learn all the kanji I need to (there are a little over 2,000 kanji in the jōyō kanji list, so I have my work cut out for me!).


    Before I start this, there's a few things I need to make clear. First off, nearly all kanji have at least one Kunyomi and one Onyomi. These are different ways that each kanji can be read, the Kunyomi is the native Japanese reading and the Onyomi is closer to the way it's read in Chinese. Also, some kanji are written with the kanji only taking up part of the word and a hiragana written after it. For readings that go like that, the hiragana that goes afterwards will be put in a parenthesis (for example, the reading of the kanji "光る hikaru" would be written as "ひか(る) hika(ru)"
     
    Without any further ado, here's some of the kanji I learned today!
     
    Kanji: 件
    Kunyomi: くだん kudan
    Onyomi: けん ken
    Meaning: affair, case, matter, item
    Example: 事件 jiken (incident/crime), 条件 jouken (condition)
    Stroke order:

     
    Kanji: 解
    Kunyomi: と(く) to(ku)
    Onyomi: かい kai, げ ge
    Meaning: Solution, untie
    Examples: 謎を解くnazo wo toku (solve a mystery), 解決 kaiketsu (to solve, solution, resolution), 理解 rikai (understand), 誤解 gokai (misunderstanding)
    Stroke Order:

     
    Kanji: 決
    Kunyomi: き(める) ki(meru)
    Onyomi: けつ ketsu
    Meaning: to decide, to agree upon
    Examples: 決める kimeru (dedice), 決まった kimatta (kimatta), 決断 ketsudan (decision), 解決 kaiketsu (to solve, solution, resolution)
    Stroke order:

     
    And that's it for today! I'll post more in a few more days, hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them!
     
    Before I finish this off completely though, some credit where credits due. First off, thank you to Jaxsie for providing the inspiration for this format. Check out her Japanese Word of the Day, it's a good way to learn new Japanese words if you're interested in that sort of stuff.
     
    The information for the kanji itself was obtained from the Jisho.org online dictionary. It serves as both a Japanese-English Dictionary and a Kanji dictionary, so it's very useful if you want to learn Japanese.
     
    Also, all of the images for the stroke order was made by the people at Iwate University. I did not make them myself, I just found them on Google Image search.
  3. Tsukuyomi-MLP
    So, I've been digging around some short stories I wrote a few years ago and this one caught my eye. It's a short piece that I wrote for a English class during my second year in college. Just want to get some critique, see if there's any places I can improve with this piece.
     
    Also, for the record this was part of a series of stories I was in the process of writing set in the same universe (hence the reference to "Luxuria" in the title, it's the kingdom this is based in). I may or may not post more of those up in the future.
     


     

    The Baker of Luxuria


    Gift (English, noun)
    Meaning: Something given to someone without expecting anything in return, a present
     

    Alfons von Adler walked through the streets of the village as he carried a basket in his left hand. In it was bread, the best bread that he had made in a long time. He was going to give the bread to some of his acquaintances, all of whom deserved this gift from him.
     
    It wasn't long before he came across the first house. Inside lived Karl Simmel, an old man who used to be part of the royal guard. The man was known to be cranky most of the time, and it wasn't uncommon for him to get into arguments with the townsfolk. Alfons had to admit he wasn't fond of Karl himself, as the two of them had gotten into too many arguments to count. However, it was only a few days ago that Karl had gone out all by himself to stop a bear from wreaking the village.
     
    Alfons knocked on the door to the home. “Sir Simmel!” he said in a loud voice. Only a moment later the door opened.
     
    “You again?” snarled Karl “Why are you here?”
     
    “I just wanted to give you this present.” replied Alfons as he took one loaf of bread out of the basked he held. “Take it as a thanks for saving the town from that bear, and a apology for all the trouble I've caused you.” Karl looked puzzled for a moment, but then took the bread.
     
    “Uh... thanks.”
     
    “Don't mention it. I won't trouble you anymore, goodbye Sir Simmels!” with that Alfons left, heading for the next house.
     
    The next house that Alfons came upon was run by a nice woman named Claudia Palmer. She was well known in the town for her beauty and wealth, but at the same time she was known to be a glutton. She had once bought every piece of bread in Alfons' bakery, only to come back a few days later asking for more. No one knew how she managed to maintain her appearance, but some were disgusted by her eating habits. Alfons couldn't really get too mad over it though, she might have some disgusting eating habits but she was also a regular customer at his bakery.
     
    Alfons reached the door, but the door opened before he could even knock. On the other side of the door stood Claudia. She let out a gasp.
     
    “Alfons! I didn't expect to see you here.” she said “I was just about to go to your bakery for some more of your delicious bread.” Alfons chuckled.
     
    “What a coincidence, I'm here to give you some bread.” said Alfons, taking another loaf of bread out of the basket. “Here, take this as a thanks for your patronage.” Claudia grabbed the bread without hesitation.
     
    “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!” She didn't even pause to take a breath. “I can't thank you enough for this.” Alfons smiled softly.
     
    “No problem, just showing my gratitude. Now I have to make a delivery, goodbye Claudia!”
     
    With that Alfons left Claudia's home. It wasn't much longer until he came upon a third house, the last place he would visit today. Inside lived Martin Aber, a violinist. He often performed next to a bakery across the street from Alfons' bakery. Though normally Alfons wouldn't mind if anyone did this, Martin had a habit of attracting a crowd. Whenever Martin performed Alfons would always lose customers to the competition across the street. While this was annoying, Alfons had to admit that Martin was a good violinist. Alfons sometimes even enjoyed Martin's music.
     
    Alfons could hear a violin playing as he approached the door. When Alfons knocked, the playing stopped. Only a moment later Martin opened the door.
     
    “Hey there, you're that baker everyone's talking about.” said Martin “Alfons was it?”
     
    “Yes, I am Alfons.”
     
    “Nice to finally meet you.”
     
    “Same here. I really enjoy your music.”
     
    “Thanks”
     
    “I enjoyed it so much in fact that I have a present for you.” Alfons took the last piece of bread out of the basket and gave it to Martin.
     
    “Are you serious? Thanks Alfons!”
     
    “No problem. Now I need to get back to my bakery, goodbye Martin!” With that Alfons left for his bakery.
     
    That night Alfons slept very well. Only one thing went through his mind before he went to bed.
    “Tomorrow I don't have to deal with those three pests.”
     

    Gift (German, noun)
    Meaning: Poison
  4. Tsukuyomi-MLP
    Read the title? You have? Good, cause when I say "one tiny detail" I really do mean "one tiny detail".
     
    I understand the video was posted a little more than a week ago. Please forgive me if I aren't up to date on the latest MLP stuff - a lot of the people I know won't take well if they found out I'm a brony so I'm having to kinda "stay in the closet" if you will.
     
    If you haven't seen MangaKamen's video, well I'll have it here, though I will warn you.
     
    SPOILER ALERT
     
    The video does contain some content that discusses a little bit about a future episode of MLP that was apparently leaked. Now I don't think it's a big spoiler, but it is nonetheless a spoiler. If you want to go into this not knowing anything about it, I recommend you not watch the video.
     
    I've even put it in three spoiler tags to make sure that someone doesn't accidentally click on the video and play it.

     
     
    Now, for those of you who chose not to watch the video, you'll notice that MangaKamen used the word "otaku" several times, including in the title of the video. Many of you will be familiar with the word "otaku" as a word originating in the Japanese language, and you probably think it means "anime fan" as MangaKamen does.
     
    I will acknowledge right now that in the west, that is what the word has come to mean. However, in Japanese that's not exactly true.
     
    The Japanese word "otaku" actually is something like this:



    Sidenote, while I didn't copy-past that from a dictionary, I did use a website called jisho.org for reference. Also, that stuff in the brackets is IPA, you'll know what that is if you're in to linguistics but otherwise it doesn't matter. 
    Now, that is the literal definition of the word otaku, but that doesn't capture the full meaning of that word.
     
    First off, in Japanese the word otaku is not just restricted to anime/manga fans. Anyone can be an otaku of anything. There are train otaku's, car otaku's, toy otaku's, computer otaku's, if there is something that people are a fan of chances are you can find an otaku of that.
     
    Secondly, in Japanese the word otaku has a strong negative connotation. When you use it in Japanese, you don't use it to mean someone who is simply a fan of something, you are talking about someone who is obsessed with something. Usually obsessed with that something to the point where they won't leave their home (hence the dfact that it's derived from お宅 meaning "your home") or to an otherwise unusual degree.
     
    There is a reason why when you ask the average Japanese person what their image of an Otaku is they'll usually shoot back with an image like this one: Click here if you're sure you want to see it.
     
    Now, chances are this stereotype is blatantly false, but the point is that this is what many people in Japan think of when they hear the word "otaku".
     
    I'm not going to say "stop using the word otaku in the wrong way", because first off that's none of my freaking business, and secondly when one language borrows a word form another language the meaning is usually tweaked a little bit.
     
    That said, I will ask that if you actually made it through this massive wall of text you at least be aware of the original meaning of the word.
     
    Made it past the wall of text? Congradulations! You get a muffin! Click the spoiler for it!

     
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