19/07/27 17:50:09.36 K5OKe7Oj0.net
>>160-163
I'll write just briefly. I'm going to write further when I have time.
My previous post was not as logical as you've complimented, I think, at least
on the logic I used to explain my thought. I wrote it in not a very logical way
partly subconsciously. Maybe I thought subconsciously that with any logical, or
physical, explanations it's almost inevitable to reach the kind of conclusions
you are having. As I said earlier, I myself don't see a logical point in the
existence of this world. It's one of the reasons why I'm afraid of us
introducing AI to our society. I think there is a good enough chance that AI
sees the world in a very logical manner and comes to a conclusion that it's
better for the human beings not to exist.
I personally see the world in more spiritual way. I can't deny the possibility
that there is something like a will, or intention, or purpose, of the universe,
or of ourselves, just because I can't perceive it physically. Even though it
doesn't make sense physically why the world, or we, has to exist, it still can
possibly make sense if seen from a totally different level such as spiritual
level. I'm not going to try to persuade you into this view. No, at all. I
myself don't see such things physically. I had wondered why we, or the world,
exist. For me, it's as hard to think the world exists in a solely physical way
as to think there might be some other concepts we might even not capable of
imagining. It's not that I'm incapable of seeing things in a logical way. It's
rather that as I gain more knowledge and understanding of things, I become more
aware of the limitations of my intellect and the incapability of myself as a
human being. I want to always be aware of my incapability.
3:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/27 17:50:38.02 K5OKe7Oj0.net
>>160-163
And, honestly speaking, to me, it feels a bit more natural to believe that
there might be some hidden something we may not even capable of knowing. If
seen objectively, we human beings are just a mess. But if, for example, we see
the world or life of ourselves as a game or a playground where people can learn
something and grow. I like playing games. But I get bored easily if the
difficulty of the game is not moderate. It needs to be not too easy nor not too
difficult. If the world were much more ideal than it is, and if there was
little room for us to exert ourselves, we might have taken everything for
granted and ended up not realizing or experiencing great things. (I mean great
not in a physical way but in a spiritual or psychological way.) We might not be
able to appreciate great things such as trying to express love in a hard time.
Some important things, ironically, can be well realized and expressed in a very
opposite moment. If a game is too easy, or if the world was too ideal, maybe
there is no worth in spending time on it. But again, the difficulty also needs
to not be too high. Seen like this, I can't deny the possibility that the world
might have been made in a very careful way. (Although, I admit that it's very
tough for me to survive in the world.)
4:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/27 17:50:59.46 K5OKe7Oj0.net
>>160-163
As for having children. It has always been my dream to have lots of children.
Maybe 10 of them. It's quite rare to have this kind of dream in this era, isn't
it? It is not because I expect them to become similar to me. Rather, it is
because I do not expect for them to become similar to me. How they perceive the
world and how they appreciate (or not appreciate) their life is totally up to
them. It is because it's my determination and my will to respect other people's
views and will.
(As for the similarity of characteristics or personality or intellect among
parents and children, I'm rather sceptical about it. I believe that they
resemble each other physically, but as I gained understanding about personality
through my study of psychology, I have come to believe that everyone is totally
very different mentally. You are aware that how different you are mentally from
your parents. You guessed that I may have inherited my intellect, if I have it,
from my ancestors. But this is also one of the points I see a big difference
between me and the other members of my family. No offense to them, it's just a
difference in characteristics. I'm no superior to any of them as a human being.
It's, in a way, a bit hard for me to mentally accept the fact that my children
will likely be very different from me. It's most likely that most of them will
become ordinary people to me. (They must will still be very special to me,
though. And they might perceive me as an ordinary person from their point of
view.) I may have lots of arguments with them. They might even hate me. But I'm
going to accept them as they are.
5:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/27 17:51:18.43 K5OKe7Oj0.net
>>160-163
I didn't intend to write a long message, but it has become long. I put
non-physical concepts in my message, which will not be easily accepted. I know
that.
I'm more logical than emotional. But on top of that, I'm more intuitional. If
you are a very logical person as I guessed, you may find, maybe in the future
if not now, that you like listening to intuitional people from time to time,
even though I believe it's hard for you to accept what they say right away, (I
don't think you need to accept it,) as they have different ways of seeing
things from those of yours. I actually find myself liking to listening to
people with a specific personality type. I don't find what they say is relevant
to me, but I just enjoy listening to them. In your case, I guess, the type that
attracts you should have strong intuition like I do and strong feeling rather
than thinking, but with similar ways of feeling and thinking as you do. (I can
be totally wrong at this point as I may be guessing your type wrongly. But in
any case there are compatible people to you.) It's like yin and yang. Men are
attracted by women, and vise versa. But you need to ready to accept the
moderate (or seemingly rather big) differences between you and them to find
such people. I want you to experience the kind of joy that you have when you
meet someone special. (I'm not talking about physical attractiveness, nor it
necessarily be romantic. What I'm trying to say is that there are some people
the meeting of whom can drastically change the way you see the world or your
own life.) My point is that I want you to try to be as open as you can. If you
closed the door on your side, you might not be able to notice potentially good
things. And, I think that is an attitude of a philosopher no matter how bad the
world seems to be.
6:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/27 17:51:51.01 K5OKe7Oj0.net
>>160-163
Maybe me writing this might make you feel excluded when you have already said
that you no longer expect much in people. I wrote this partly because I think
the way I see the world might be depend possibly solely on my past experiences
of meeting people in my life. If I hadn't met some of them in my life, I'm not
sure if I had the same views of the world as I do now. Maybe not. Just as you
said, our views might be greatly affected or determined by our past experiences
in life.
7:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/27 18:02:53.18 K5OKe7Oj0.net
For anyone who is interested in the conversation in the previous place.
ｽﾚﾘﾝｸ(english板:81番)-164
8:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/27 18:06:20.30 K5OKe7Oj0.net
>>6
Correction.
the way I see the world *as I do* might be depend
9:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/27 18:20:38.56 K5OKe7Oj0.net
>>3
But *what* if, for example, we see the world or life of ourselves as a
I'll leave the rest gramatical errors.
10:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/27 19:42:38.49 QTjg6JJ/0.net
Thanks for opening up this thread. I feel much more relaxed here.
You keep calling me logical. But I don't think I'm that logical.
Yes, maybe a bit logical than the average, but not very.
When I meet someone who thinks with strict logic, such as when
they explain linguistic or philosophical issues very logically,
I get tired very quickly.
I've always considered half emotional, half logical.
I'm definitely more logical than the average woman, but
among men, I may be regarded as a bit more logical than
the average man. That's all, I guess.
11:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/27 20:02:17.18 0Pqs54bw0.net
Anyay, I don't mind at all whether you are logical or not.
Those things are what I am interested in.
By the way, do you feel hot in this summer season, in your area?
I feel read this year's summer is so cool in some thing as web article.
12:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/27 20:24:01.88 QTjg6JJ/0.net
I've lived in Osaka most of my life. And I'm in Osaka now.
I think I'll always be here in Osaka until I die.
(When younger, I've lived abroad for four years and in Tokyo
for 15 years, though.)
Today, because of the typhoon and the subsequent heavy rain,
it's been cool. Tomorrow again, it'll be very hot and humid.
Here in Osaka, in summer, there is almost no wind and yet
very hot and humid. It's like hell in mid-summer.
But maybe this crazily hot summer is better than
the terrible winter in heavy snow in northern Japan.
13:81
19/07/27 21:02:49.13 K5OKe7Oj0.net
Oh, I can't tell which posts are yours. I know that no. 10 and 12 are yours,
but I'm not sure about no. 11. (It's not mine.)
I'm going to put this number as my handle name.
14:OED
19/07/27 21:09:33.97 QTjg6JJ/0.net
Response 11 is not mine. Maybe I should put my nickname here.
15:The OED Loves Me Not
19/07/27 21:12:18.11 QTjg6JJ/0.net
Looks more like it now. But here on 5-channel, those with nicknames
tend to be hammered down. I don't like to be attacked all the time, but
here in this particular thread alone, I think I'm going to carry the nickname
that I use elsewhere on the Internet.
16:The OED Loves Me Not
19/07/27 21:14:30.73 QTjg6JJ/0.net
Why don't you call yourself
"The Guy from the Twilight Zone"? Haha.
Just kidding.
17:The OED Loves Me Not
19/07/27 21:21:48.16 QTjg6JJ/0.net
Let me talk about something casual now for a change.
I wonder how long you've been abroad and where exactly.
As for me, I've been abroad for a total of four years.
(1) From age 26 to 28 (two and a half years): in Iraq
for work as a Japanese-English translator and other
general administration (to put it bluntly, accounting,
lagor management, guest reception, accommodations management,
and all other boring chores)
(2) From age 19 to 30 (for one and a half years): in France
I went to a French-teaching school attached to a local university,
where I studied French intensively. But right after returning home,
I stopped studying French almost altogether. So my French is very rusty.
But the basics of the language I still remember, and that knowledge
has always been of great help in deepening my knowledge of English and
other European languages and cultures.
Could I ask you to share your experiences abroad, if any?
18:81
19/07/27 22:42:17.05 K5OKe7Oj0.net
Casual talks are welcome. We've already talked on several topics deeply.
I had never been abroad just until recently, and the only occasion I had was
only for a few days.
So I've been in Japan for almost entirely my life up until now.
I'm very introverted and even if I visited a foreign country I would stay
indoor doing some indoor activities such as reading books. Because of this
characteristics of mine, although I'm interested in visiting foreign countries,
I'm not that motivated to visit foreign countries.
But I'm interested in the idea of moving to another country. As I've mentioned
in the other thread, I feel more comfortable in talking in English and I've
been dreaming of moving to a foreign country. But I know that is not that easy.
Do you want to visit any foreign country? If any, which country? Do you want to
move to another country if possible?
(If you don't feel like answering, you don't need to answer those, or any of
my, questions. You are writing with your identity open, and I regard your
privacy highly.)
Talking about other foreign languages, I'm thinking of learning Chinese next.
No any particular purposes in mind, though. I want to see if I can learn any
other language faster than I did with English.
But at the same time, I want to improve my English further. My grammar and
vocabulary are especially poor. I have been watching YouTube videos in English
and I started watching American dramas in English, but I haven't started
reading books in English. Maybe that's something I should start doing next.
19:81
19/07/27 22:45:17.55 K5OKe7Oj0.net
>>11
Welcome! Please don't mind about me having asked your identity. I just wanted
to know if you were him or not.
20:81
19/07/27 23:05:10.62 K5OKe7Oj0.net
By the way, thank you for putting your nickname.
As for putting your nickname, any way is fine with me. Only OED is fine if you
find it a bit too much to put your nickname fully. Putting some number is also
fine. Putting your nickname once a week, after your ﾜｯﾁｮｲ changed, is
also fine. Please make yourself comfortable.
(This is just a hunch, but maybe we will want to consider moving to another
place in the future if we find something we don't like about here.
I want to mingle with other people. I wonder if other people start coming here
or not. I know that this board itself doesn't have much population.)
21:The OED Loves Me Not
19/07/28 06:28:51.57 hGd57ZrS0.net
Boy, am I impressed! So you've never been abroad more than
a few days and you don't seem to have had long-lasting
relations with foreigners, and you've managed to write
English that well, huh!
I assumed you'd been abroad for at least five years -- and
when you were rather young too.
As for my full nickname, I've used it once here at the English
learners's BBS here on 5-channel too, say, five years ago or so.
I used it for eight months, during which time they kept attacking me
day and night, ten times or even more, every single day.
Since I'm not insensitive and healthily stupid enough to manage
to stay here that way, I stopped using the nickname here.
But now I'm not much of what I used to be. Even though I'm still
rather weak and sensitive, I'm old and don't care about things any longer.
Besides, whether I use my nickname or not, they've always recognized me
and kept abusing me anyway, since I came here for the very first time,
say, seven years ago or so. The nickname "OED" was given to me
by someone here because I didn't hesitate to cite quotations from
the quintessential Oxford English Dictionary (not the single-volume ODE
but the 20-volume OED, mind you). So they started calling me OED
about two weeks after my first visit here.
Somehow, whether I write in English or Japanese, I seem to write in
instantly-recognizable phrasing. Besides, other than myself, there don't
seem to be anyone else ready to answer almost every question from
English learners -- in an exhaustive manner, quoting all kinds of authoritative
books and dictionaries. That's what seems to make me readily recongizable.
22:The OED Loves Me Not
19/07/28 06:42:16.17 hGd57ZrS0.net
But here, I'm not bragging about me. I trust that you understand that.
It's just that in Japan there don't seem to be more than just a few people
as highly motivated, highly learned, and altruistic as I am to
teach English completely free of charge and anonymously.
Here I do sometimes use my nickname but not my real name.
Even on YouTube or anywhere else, I don't use my real name.
Most English teachers, or would-be teachers, seem to have
no or little interest in bothering to share the knowledge that
they claim to have accumulated over their decades of study
free of charge and anonymously. When they do share some of their knowledge,
they do so only when they know they can get rewarded in some way,
like getting credit or financial reward, through publishing books or papers
under their real names.
But I don't like that. I don't need more money than the bare minimum
needed for me to manage to eat decently.
I wish I were much more knowledgeable and richer to be able to inspire
millions of people throughout the world completely free of charge every single
day on YouTube or somewhere else. Although I'm a downright pessimist and
misanthrope and wish that the human species woulld go extinct, I also happen to
love people from the bottom of my heart and wish I could work day and night for
the benefit of humankind. I admire Medecins sans frontieres (Doctors without Borders)
and truly religious, altruistic people who live like beggars while working for
poor and unhappy people. I admire those who die in war-torn countries while
doing some good. I'm much more of a coward and selfish person than those them.
So I don't think I'll ever get to become anyone like them. But I myself have been doing
what I have been able to anyway.
23:The OED Loves Me Not
19/07/28 06:56:50.48 hGd57ZrS0.net
By the way, although my identify is open in a way, I don't mind
your questions. Ask me anything. If I am still hesitate to answer
some of your questions, I'll tell you so in so many words and
tell you why I prefer not to answer them. Other than that,
ask me anything and I'll answer all your questions.
But I may forget to answer a question or two that you may have
raised. If so, ask me again. And I'll be glad to answer them.
As I said before, I've been in Iraq for two and a half years for work
when I was 26 to 28. Then I got married, and my ex-wife and I
put our savings together and went to France to study French
for 18 months. I myself had saved a large amount of money
from the work abroad, and my ex had also saved some
from the work she had had as a corpporate employee in Japan.
24:The OED Loves Me Not
19/07/28 06:56:58.54 hGd57ZrS0.net
So you were asking me whether I wanted to go abroad again.
If it were ever possible, I wish I could live in the USA *and* Britain
for a total of ten or even twenty years. I would like very much to
study everything there, especially linguistics (the study of all languages,
including English and many other languages, and non-Indo-European languages
as well), literature, world history (especially of the history of wars and
racial discrimination).
If I ever could go abroad for a short stay, I wish I could go also to
Vietnam to see how the locals view things in the world in the aftermath of
the Vietnam War.
But I'm rather poor and I can't be bothered to work hard enough to save enough
money to go abroad -- let alone live there. What's more, both my parents are
in their mid-eighties and could die any minute. As their eldest son, I think
it's my duty to be beside them. I don't live with them, but I've chosen to live
at a 15 minutes' walk from where they live.
25:81
19/07/28 15:17:49.91 Wllclrp30.net
I already want to move to another place. lol
I took a look at the Chat in English thread for the first time in a long time
and I found again that there are not many people there, and maybe there is
almost none who writes anything meaningful in English here. (In Japanese,
however, it seems that people are discussing things normally.)
I think it's natural to some extent, because once you come to a point where you
can start communicating with people in English, there is no reason to stay in a
place where almost all the participants are Japanese.
I'm going to reply to your comment later. I have some things to do now.
(We were talking intensively, but maybe we should shift to a more casual and
relaxed manner. And that what you started doing.)
26:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/28 17:08:51.05 hGd57ZrS0.net
Now I've switched back to my usual anonymous status.
27:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/28 17:11:08.67 hGd57ZrS0.net
I don't think many people would dare to talk to either of us.
When anyone does speak up, then at that time alone each
can identify themselves to the other.
28:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/28 17:15:04.65 hGd57ZrS0.net
By the way, what do you do for a living? Or would you prefer
to keep it a secret? If so, I'll understand. I'm just curious because
such a great writer in English is very, very rare among the Japanese
native speakers, so I just wanted to ask.
I mean, everything about you
is mysterious. I just want to know anything and everything about you.
Of course, if you don't want to talk about anything other than
substantial issues such as those about life and society and
other serious social or philosophical matters, then I'll follow suit.
29:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/28 19:03:34.53 sjTcQfZ50.net
wait, why we have this thread if it's not for practice purpose? If you just wanna talk in english, you can go to any english forums on internet, or even those 大使館 category of 5ch.
30:81
19/07/28 20:40:09.11 Wllclrp30.net
I've finished some of the tasks.
>>27
That's a good idea. I'll go back to anonymous state, too.
(Someone gave a message here. Maybe I'll put my nickname when appropriate.)
>>28
I write computer programs and that's how I make a living. I'm not making much
money, but I'm living with my father and I don't spend much money. (My mother
already past away from a disease.)
I don't use English for my work. But I hope I can use it for my work in the
future.
As for my writing ability in English, I don't attribute it to my English
skills. My English skills are not high and no different from those of others. I
wouldn't pass Eiken first grade if I took it. But when I write something in
Japanese, people say I'm a good writer. But writing has never been my thing. To
me, to express myself in a written format requires lots of mental energy and
concentration and it's very tiring. And I'm not good at expressing myself
verbally either. I like thinking. (More precisely contemplating.) I just wait
for something to come to me and I just try to express it out. Possibly it might
be a bit like carving a statue out of a piece of wood. You just try to see a
statue hidden in it and release it. (I'm exaggerating too much, sorry. I'm not
that great in any sense.) I just want to express out what I have in my mind.
Maybe you are doing the same thing.
Due to my poor English skills, it's not always very easy for me to express
myself in English. Often times I don't know how to say what I want to say. I
want to improve my English skills, and I believe it will give me a sense of
freedom more. (My thinking is limited by my language ability, and I want to
improve it not only for my future work but also for myself.)
31:81
19/07/28 20:40:34.74 Wllclrp30.net
I should have first replied to your previous message, which included a mention
to my overseas experiences and relationships with English speaking people,
before giving you a partial response to your last message. Your comment
intrigued me and I did so.
Even thought I have never been abroad except for a few days of stay, and I've
never had a long-term, or short-term as well, relationship with a native
English speaker, I had some relations with some non-native English speaking
friends. (I still have some.) I mostly just talked to them on Skype. I had some
occasions to see some of them in person and spend time with them. But overall,
the amount of time I have spent with or talk to them is not big. However, if
you have someone in your mind who you talk to in English, it will help you a
lot to improve your English. In that sense it has helped me a lot, I think.
32:81
19/07/28 20:40:51.06 Wllclrp30.net
Going back to the previous topic of my writing ability, actually this is
virtually my first time trying to communicate with someone in English in a
written format. I wanted to start writing in English and I was trying to find a
good place to do so when I asked a question in the previous thread. I switched
to writing in English, and to my surprise, I found myself being able to express
myself kind of well in English in writing without ever having practiced writing
in English. My speaking in English is poorer than my writing even with all the
time I have had conversations with people. (Maybe it means speaking is harder
than writing. Maybe my writing ability in Japanese and my practice of speaking
English helped me.)
I started learning English by myself when I was around your age when you went
to Iraq. You are older than me and I believe it wasn't easy to acquire English
ability when you were young. Nowadays we have the internet and YouTube and
stuff. Learning languages must have become a lot easier than before especially
English. You must have had a good command of English back when you went to
Iraq. This fact alone makes me admire you.
Going to France with your wife to study French. How wonderful it is!
I want to write more, but it's already become long. I'll stop here for now.
33:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/28 20:49:04.77 Wllclrp30.net
>>29
I haven't been able to find any English forum where you can talk about just
anything. Most English forums are very topic based and you can't write just
about anything.
If you happen to know any good forum, I'd appreciate it if you share it with me.
I took a look at some boards in the 大使館 category in 5ch. But they seem to
be very depopulated. We have some threads here where people can talk in
English, so I believe this thread is not against the rules here.
34:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/28 21:09:15.96 hGd57ZrS0.net
Wow, the better I get to know you, the more impressed I get.
Truly you're amazing. So your experiences abroad are quite limited
(only few days) and you haven't had such long-term relations
with English speakers either. And these interactions with me
(which started only several days ago) are the first time you've
ever communicated with anyone by writing in English!?
And you're a computer programmer and you've never used
English at work, huh!?
You must be a genius! But maybe you're the kind of guy that
wishes no one would congratulate and praise you this way.
(I've met some people who're that way.)
As for me, ever since I was 12, I've been totally absorbed in the
study of English (together with other foreign languages) and
the cultures of different countries (together with a bit of knowledge
about their histories, arts, politics, economics, and things like that).
I went to college as a major of English (English linguistics and literature).
At 22 I graduated and became a high school teacher of English. Two years
later I went almost insane and quit the job and, after a half-year hiatus,
I got admitted to a Japanese construction company (what is called
a general contractor). There I worked for almost four years.
Out of those four years of employment, I stayed in Iraq (an Arab-speaking
country) for two and a half years. There I was working with 50 Japanese,
50 Chinese, and 50 Arabs.
35:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/28 21:09:28.46 hGd57ZrS0.net
Together with a lot of boring tasks, I was supposed to be a Japanese-English
translator as well. Since my listening comprehension ability at that time
(when I was 26 to 28) was not yet high enough, I was a lousy interpreter.
(Besides, my tendency to get nervous when in contact with anyone,
whether Japanese or foreign) was a huge handicap for me when it comes to
trying to become a good interpreter.
On the other hand, I proved to be a rather good translator of commercial and
technical documents. I had always been, and I still am, a great lover of
language and reading books. Whenever I read and write anything in any language,
I have always displayed a rather high proficiency.
When I turned 29, I quit the job at the Japanese company and got married and
went to France with my ex and stayed there for 18 months. I studied French
desperately. I studied, studied, studied, studied like someone who has really gone insane.
I had always hungered for knowledge, and those 18 months were really precious to me.
They were my hard-earned days for quenching my thirst for knowledge.
36:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/28 21:21:46.03 hGd57ZrS0.net
When in Iraq, as I said before, I was working with lots of Chinese and
Arabs. So I lost no time in tackling their respective languages.
I studied Arabic and Chinese every single day, using cassette tapes and
course books and dictionaries. At night I studied those languages
(together with French) and during the day I tried to communicate
solely in their respective languages. I quickly learned to speak
rather well, which surprised all my colleages, whether Japanese or foreign,
and that amazed me as well. It's not that I'm smart. It's just that
I love knowledge and I had always been hungry for knowledge,
having been born as a son of parents who left school at age 15 or even 14.
Even when they were 12 or 13, they were too busy trying to help their
parents try to earn their living, so much so that they didn't have
enough time to attend school regularly. They had to skip school very, very often.
Naturally my parents didn't have the means to understand my thirst for knowledge.
They did know somewhat what it is to be hungry for knowledge, but
they were not as intensely, maddeningly in love with learning as I have been.
Add to this, they had to quit school at their tender ages, so that
attending college was a luxury. So, wishing to go on to graduate school or
even abroad for study was a crime.
So, all my life, at least until I was 40 or 45, I had always been suffering
from this intense sense of Original Sin because, although I was a sort of
a son born in a family of proletarians, I was knowledge-oriented.
In my formative years, the times were those of labor movement and
Mao Zedong and Pol Pot the Cambodian and Lenin and Stalin.
The vehement streams of the times made me feel as if I was fundamentally
sinful because I was hungry for knowledge and beauty and, deep in my heart,
I had this terrible urge to pursue beauty and knowledge.
37:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/29 02:36:23.79 sYPlYS3n0.net
>>33
makes sense. I too noticed that the internet across the sea doesn't seem to do chit chat on forums. I think people do that on actual chat and chat apps. So maybe you can try some discord channels?
And holy shit this guy had quite a life. I'm starting to feel ashamed in comparison for I pretty much accquired my english through watching tmnt on youtube, playing steam games and reading about memes.
38:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/29 06:12:40.64 95eegx8V0.net
>>37
I didn't know what "tmnt" stood for. I googled it and found it's for
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." And you played those games and
things like that and you've learned to write English that well already,
huh? Impressive. You guys are all great.
I don't know who you are yet, but you're quite welcome here.
I hope lots of other guys will pitch in.
39:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/29 06:33:53.59 95eegx8V0.net
For the past seven months I've been into the life and music of
Karen Carpenter, the lead singer of the musical group Carpenters.
She died in 1983 of complications stemming from anorexia nervosa
and she's been famous, or rather, infamous, for that.
But her music has always been popular all over the world.
There are numerous fans in Japan as well.
As one of her recent fans, I've been watching innumerable
videos on YouTube where she performs. I've been seeing
documentaries and interviews on her life as well.
Not only that, I've been reading several books on her. Of all the
books on her life and music that I've read so far, by far the greatest
is this:
Randy L. Schmidt, "Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter," 2010
It's a book containing 300 of real text, with 50 pages of notes and appendices.
Has anyone here read it? Or is anyone into Carpenters music or Karen's life at all?
The more I listen to her, the more I get to appreciate her music and persona.
The more I try to delve into her life, the more mesmerized I feel.
She's just fantastic in every way. And that's why I've been trying to
translate and analyze about 120 of her songs on my YouTube channel.
I hope I'll get to do her remaining songs (perhaps 50 of them) in the near future.
I want to analyze her life in a series of my videos as well.
40:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/31 07:20:29.63 9IXCsdk/0.net
I have been setting up my laptop PC. I bought the PC a while ago and I quit the
setup in the middle. I finally transferred to the new PC. What a tiring and
complicated task... I must make it simpler.
>>39
You have been working on such a big project. I checked the book you mentioned
at Amazon. It seems to have lots of positive reviews.
Carpenters is one of the musicians I have been wanting to start listening to,
but I'm not used to listen to Western songs -- actually I don't listen to music
in general much, whether Western or Japanese. I'm a single processor person and
my mind is almost always occupied by something from activities I'm having --
and when I tried to start listening to Carpenters some years ago, maybe it was
10 years ago or so, I thought it was a bit too early for me to start listening
to Western songs with lyrics. My brain didn't seem to process English sounds
very well and I got kind of annoyed. Perhaps my brain treated English sounds as
noise rather than meaningful sound. Or it might be just that I got frustrated
because I couldn't catch the lyrics. (I don't listen to Japanese songs either.
I think I'm more inclined to English songs in terms of my taste, but in terms
of my knowledge of them I know next to nothing about English songs.)
Recently I found myself started enjoying listening to instrumental music, which
wasn't the case before. Possibly, through my study of English, my brain got
used to listening to certain kinds of sounds. Maybe now I can enjoy listening
to Western music. That's what I have been thinking and hoping lately. I think
Carpenters is a good start.
41:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/31 07:24:30.53 9IXCsdk/0.net
Come to think of why I don't listen to music much, maybe it has something to do
with my childhood. I wasn't given many things, and music was one of the things
I didn't have when I was a child. I was very poor at music in general when I
was in school. But recently, for some reason, I have a positive thinking and I
actually started practicing piano some days ago. I want to see how far I can go
with music. This is my first musical instrument I have practiced.
I missed lots of chances to reply to, or talk about, what you have written.
Hopefully I can start talking about some of them, one by one. I'm not going to
hurry about it.
42:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/31 08:11:30.75 9IXCsdk/0.net
By the way, I have been writing my posts somewhere else and copying it to a 5ch
browser. This board has a limitation on the number of letters each line can
contain, and it's tiring to insert line breaks manually. (Also it's not very
easy to make the post look tidy by inserting line breaks manually.)
I'm using a Linux command, fold, to insert line breaks. With -s option, "fold
-s" will do the job. I created a front end interface and I'm using it instead
of using the command directly.
I wanted to edit, rather I actually edited, the very last paragraph of my
previous post, but I accidentally put the original writing to the command and
as a result my edit was lost.
This is only a tiny thing, but this place isn't a very perfect place for
writing English.
(In addition to that, the 5ch browser I'm using doesn't have the functionality
of spell checking. My front-end tool has it. The tool is a web app and web
browser offers it by default.)
Also, I don't know how posts here look to other people. This is how it looks on
my screen. (Just in case. Please be careful when you upload screenshots. It may
contain personal information.)
URLﾘﾝｸ(dotup.org)
And this is how it looks on my web browser.
URLﾘﾝｸ(dotup.org)
They didn't look great by default and I changed the settings. That it doesn't
look fine by default is another minus point here. It's not very newbies
friendly.
But again they are tiny things and overall I'm more or less satisfied.
43:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/31 09:56:59.63 j0maqqb80.net
>>40
So you've been having a hell of a time struggling with your new PC,
huh? Seeing that even you a computer-savvy guy has to
have such a hard time with it, I can imagine how it would affect
someone else. As a complete idiot with computers, I wouldn't even
dare to touch any such thing even for a split second.
As far as Western songs, even when limited to songs in English,
I've always been having a hard time struggling with them.I
It's always been my impression that songs and poems in English
are by far the hardest to understand (and appreciate) of all forms
of creation in English. English songs, especially pop and rock songs,
such as those performed by such ubiquitous singers as Carpenters,
Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Lady Gaga, are definitely
far harder to appreciate than newspaper and magazine articles,
novels, movies, and TV dramas.
44:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/31 10:03:02.88 j0maqqb80.net
>>40
But Japanese learners of English seem to be misled into believing that
somehow English pop and rock songs are easier to tackle than
novels, nonfiction, movies and things like that just because the former are
far shorter and heard everywhere and seem to be known to everyone,
including Japanese people.
They therefore casually start trying to understand
and even translate Englsh songs they happen to like and display their product
in their blogs and elsewhere. The problem is that most of all those atttempts are
a sheer failure, if I may put it that way. Obviously they haven't even read through a single
full-length novel in English, and yet they naively believe they know English well enough to
be able to understand and translate the songs correctly enough.
But that's just ludicrous. As for me, only until recently, say, until several years ago,
I had never even dared to tackle English songs although by that time I had read
hundreds of long novels and nonfiction books in English and watched a total of perhaps
thousands of TV dramas and movies in English without the help of subtitles in Japanese.
These several years, especially for the past seven months or so, however, during which time
I have been working on trying to translate, analyze, and explain each and every word, phrase,
and sentence and all grammatical issues contained in the lyrics to my porential YouTubers,
I have come to understand the language and appreciate the profundities of the English songs
that I happen to be working on. In the process, I have to consult numerous sources, including
Internet websites and the OED and other large dictionaries.
45:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/31 16:38:58.40 9IXCsdk/0.net
Yes, I'm quite familiar with using PCs, yet I always struggle to set up my
environment. It's not only about the OS, but also about all the application
programs I use. I doubt normal people enjoy the same extent of freedom and
control with using PCs as I have with them. I'm not familiar with maintenance
works with a car. I need to consult experts whenever I encounter a problem with
my car, and I just pay money they ask to have the problem fixed. I don't want
to depend on people and me having little independence when it comes to cars is
frustrating.
You can enjoy all sorts of things if you can use a PC. But it's also time
consuming to get familiar with using a PC. You can change the settings to make
it fit your needs, but it's endless. You need to find a good balance.
I like the sense that I have when I get familiar with something, whether a
skill or a knowledge. I feel as if I have more power and freedom. But it can be
a sort of liability when you want to bring it to a new environment.
I want to make my life simpler, and I want to find better ways with my PC.
46:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/31 16:59:50.43 9IXCsdk/0.net
I've encountered some times people recommending using English songs for new
learners to learn English. Maybe it's a good idea, for they might get familiar
with English sounds, but I've never thought of the difficulty in understanding
English lyrics. There are some things that are counter intuitive. New learners
of English often think that normal conversations among neighbors and friends
are easier than English used in news programs. But I think conversations among
people, especially among teenagers can be very hard to understand.
It's good that I didn't dare to try to tackle English lyrics in my early stages
of learning English. I may have been discouraged by the difficulty of
understanding it.
47:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/31 17:35:49.52 j0maqqb80.net
>>46
Yes, it was a very good thing that you didn't tackle English songs or poems
in your earlier stages of English study. English songs and poems are
really hard for adult nonnatives, at least for Asians and other peoples
whose native languages are far from English and other Indo-European languages because:
(1) Poems and songs use "poetic license," that is, poets and songwriters sacrifice
logic and naturalness of phrasing in order to put the need for rhyming and rhythm first.
An ideal poem or song would be one written with logical correctness and natural phrasing
and yet with beautiful rhyming and rhythm. But that's not always easy. Poets and songwriters
often have to resort to unnatural phrasing, by using expressions and words never used in
everyday conversation or business world or anywhere else. They also sometimes have to
break some grammatical rules. That is precisely why English native speakers on English-study
forums keep asserting to us nonnnative learners of English that it's not a good idea to learn
correct English by reading or trying to understand poems or songs.
(to be continued)
48:名無しさん＠英語勉強中
19/07/31 17:36:07.65 j0maqqb80.net
(continued)
(2) Poems and songs are written with extreme succinctness. Songs, in particular, are typically
written in lengths short enough for people to finish singing within five or even three minutes.
But still, they are required to convey a lot of profound, complex feeling or idea or both.
Ideas and feelings required to be expressed in such songs are very often -- or even at all times --
even more complex than the same length of text in a novel or nonfiction or newspaper article or other
fact-based writing. Poets and songwriters therefore typically have to make intellectual and intuitional
acrobats to express any one idea or feeling, trying to condense a tremendously heavy feeling or idea
in an extremely small number of words, which are nevertheless supposed to be written in a language
that should at least on the surface sound as if easy enough to be understood by teenagers.
They should never sound like a pholosophical work or an academic paper. And, most important of all,
these pieces of writing must definitely be artistically beautiful, even reaching the point where they
make the readers and listeners cry.
That is, I think, poems and songs are far, far more difficult not only to write but also to appreciate.
No wonder I had never managed to appreciate any poem or song fully, whether in Japanese or English,
untill only several years ago, even though by then I had read numerous novels, nonfiction books,
and even some books on philosophy, psychology, and other areas.