Re: Negima! Vol. 1 -- Peter David vs. Akamatsu-sensei

Which is about as reasonable as me telling you to learn how to
repair your car by yourself, and cut out the mechanic. Or learn to
hunt, and cut out all the middle men.

I do fix my own car, and when I was in the military I handled the
survival training very well. Admittedly, raw insects taste like the 7
levels of hell wrapped in used toilet paper, but it is alleged they
will keep you alive should you be hapless enogh not to catch anything
red blooded.
But seriously - learning another language is just a minor hobby, it

Maybe for you. I've got enough trouble with the one I have.

I am not young anymore and have serious short term memory problem from a bit
of brain damage I copped years ago, but I am pottering away in Japanese (3
hours classtime and another 3 or so home study) and making slow and steady
progress. I enjoy watching anime trying to pick up instances of new words
have learned though and try to work a bit in with everyday activities, for
example I learned to count by saying aloud in Japanese which gear I was in
whilst cycling to work. It also helpded me to keep an eye on the road as I
didn't have to keep looking down to see what gear I was in all the time as
well.

Every time I checked the time on my iPod I would say it aloud in Japanese,
often much to the amusement of other people on the bus or in the office.
Listening to Japanese music on the said pod is a new opportunity to play
"spot the known word" as well. I am finding these little everyday activities
are compensating a log way for my terrible short term.

is no big deal. I had a Taiwanese GF at one stage who knew a bunch of
languages (Mandarin, Taiwanese, Japanese, French, German, Italian and
English) and she did not beleive that a the time I could only speak
english. She thought it was a great joke me "playing dumb" until she
realised I actually did only understand english at which time she
became somewhat horrified at how ignorant I was.

And I would be horrified at how ignorant she is. Yes, she knows a bunch
of languages. That's good. But she still hasn't figured out that there's
more knowledge out there than one person can ever learn, and each person
picks the sphere of knowledge they wish to study. For her to set her
sphere of understanding above all others is both arrogant and ignorant.

I can understand what your trying to say, but in this particular case I am
ignorant and she was very talented. The reason she knew so many languages
was from her Masters of Music (opera singing) and even before getting into
that she was already a trained mechanical engineer. On the other hand I
would get rotten drunk after work on a ISP help desk and come home in vomit
flecked shoes and pass out on her doorstep. The only surprising thing is how
we managed to live together for 18 months.

Just as I can't be shocked that people don't know how to run nuclear
power plants or which side of a ship is port and which is starboard.

For me, ignorance is shown not so much as by what a person has not learned,
but what they stubbornly refuse to learn because of arrogance or stubborness


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Negima! Vol. 1 -- Peter David vs. Akamatsu-sensei
    ... I do fix my own car, and when I was in the military I handled the ... languages (Mandarin, Taiwanese, Japanese, French, German, Italian and ... English) and she did not beleive that a the time I could only speak ... And I would be horrified at how ignorant she is. ...
    (rec.arts.anime.misc)
  • Re: What news reader to use?
    ... I have done nothing to agent, because I asumed that agent used the ... the next step is to install the Japanese ... languages or if I did it separately. ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
  • Re: How to spy on the Japanese Rubists
    ... much more consistently than in other languages. ... Kanji, are the Chinese pictorial characters, each Kanji stands for a ... Japanese children usually learn hiragana ... The translator has no way of knowing this was a short ...
    (comp.lang.ruby)
  • Re: Gaywood S2E1 Rear of the Year
    ... IGNORANT PC LOONY! ... The Japanese as individuals can decide for themselves what is or isn't ... They don't need ignorant PC ... The character Naoko Mori plays in Torchwood is Doctor Toshiko Sato. ...
    (rec.arts.drwho)
  • Re: URL: Nova goes belly up in Japan.
    ... quite a bit of German - enough to get the gist of what is going on ... Japan - between my English, Dutch, and JLPT level 3 Japanese I ... Certainly both languages creep into ... had difficulty decoding the characters. ...
    (sci.lang.japan)