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elfsWoke up this morning about 5:30, after being roused by Kouryou-chan around 3:30 but managed to get back to sleep. Made it to the pool by 5:50-- had everything set and ready to go. I even brought the waterproof stopwatch.
I started off easy, doing the breast stroke, and by 200 meters I was concerned that I wasn't pushing hard enough; my heart rate didn't feel as heavy as it has the past couple of times. I went with another 100 meters leg-only, then shifted into doing a crawl for another 200 meters. I kept looking at the clock and timing myself. By the time I'd done 600 meters, I'd only been in the pool for 17 minutes. Silly me, I crawled another 100 meters and it was still not time to get out of the pool. So I did another 100 meters. A total of 800 meters in twenty minutes-- not bad. Getting faster and stronger, and not feeling it too badly this morning. I think part of my problem is lung capacity; I haven't needed athletic lungs for years and they've weakened along with everything else.
I got home, made myself a thermos of coffee (Mmm... French pressed Torrefazione Palermo...), and ran out to catch the bus. On board, I sat down and managed to hammer out almost a thousand words of story. The latest one just keeps growing and growing, but it's going to need re-writing; scenes are out of proportion, one crisis is badly telegraphed, "it feels like they're trying to stretch two servings of tension out for seven people!"
I also managed to round out the interface for Story Templates in Plotlines. This is just the internal memory model for "what a story contains," not the story itself. Today, I need to finish the implementation of the story templates memory model, then do the interface for generate XML objects that correspond to the memory model. If I get done in time, I might actually get around to writing the file interface and implementation during lunch. If all goes well, I'll have the Templatizer finished and be able to move on to an actual Story memory model, XML representation, and file mananger. I'm a little concerned that the two-layer indirection of fields in the Template might represent an inefficiency, but unless this thing becomes insanely successful I won't have to go to some hash model or some such silliness. And it makes the internal default and XML representation code so much easier to write.
I tried picking up a pencil and doing some drawing yesterday and discovered that my faculties for visualization are seriously atrophied. When I draw, I want to say something, communicate something interesting or amusing or telling, but I don't have the experience, the skill with which to do it. I do find myself looking at comics more nowadays, trying to figure out how a penciller did this or that, trying to understand the pace and presentation. Eventually.
This week's Japanese lesson is on telling time, counting, and expressing thanks. Ima means "now" and is used in an adverbial context. The prefix nan- means "what." The suffix -ji means "time." Ima, nanji desu ka? means "Now, what time is it?" In this context, ima can be dropped without a loss of understanding.
The numbers in Japanese are ichi, ni, san, yon, go, roku, shichi, hachi, ku, and juu. These are suffixed with -ji to make the hours of the day. juuniji desu. is therefore "It is twelve o'clock."
The word for "one hundred" is hyaku. Prefixes and suffixes act as expected.
Gogo is "at night," and gozen is "in the day." These are usually said before the time counter: Tookyoo wa gozen juuji desu ka means "Is it ten in the morning in Tokyo?"
Useful phrases: Sumimasen: "Excuse me" or "I'm sorry." Arigatoo or arigatoo gozaimasu (polite form) mean "Thank you." Doo-itashimashite literally means "How can it be?" but is translated, "Not at all" or, more directly, "You're welcome."
I haven't figured out how to use the Japanese Input Methods on my Linux box, so I'll probably be waiting a while until I can start to do hirigana/katakana/kanji studies and recording progress here.
I started off easy, doing the breast stroke, and by 200 meters I was concerned that I wasn't pushing hard enough; my heart rate didn't feel as heavy as it has the past couple of times. I went with another 100 meters leg-only, then shifted into doing a crawl for another 200 meters. I kept looking at the clock and timing myself. By the time I'd done 600 meters, I'd only been in the pool for 17 minutes. Silly me, I crawled another 100 meters and it was still not time to get out of the pool. So I did another 100 meters. A total of 800 meters in twenty minutes-- not bad. Getting faster and stronger, and not feeling it too badly this morning. I think part of my problem is lung capacity; I haven't needed athletic lungs for years and they've weakened along with everything else.
I got home, made myself a thermos of coffee (Mmm... French pressed Torrefazione Palermo...), and ran out to catch the bus. On board, I sat down and managed to hammer out almost a thousand words of story. The latest one just keeps growing and growing, but it's going to need re-writing; scenes are out of proportion, one crisis is badly telegraphed, "it feels like they're trying to stretch two servings of tension out for seven people!"
I also managed to round out the interface for Story Templates in Plotlines. This is just the internal memory model for "what a story contains," not the story itself. Today, I need to finish the implementation of the story templates memory model, then do the interface for generate XML objects that correspond to the memory model. If I get done in time, I might actually get around to writing the file interface and implementation during lunch. If all goes well, I'll have the Templatizer finished and be able to move on to an actual Story memory model, XML representation, and file mananger. I'm a little concerned that the two-layer indirection of fields in the Template might represent an inefficiency, but unless this thing becomes insanely successful I won't have to go to some hash model or some such silliness. And it makes the internal default and XML representation code so much easier to write.
I tried picking up a pencil and doing some drawing yesterday and discovered that my faculties for visualization are seriously atrophied. When I draw, I want to say something, communicate something interesting or amusing or telling, but I don't have the experience, the skill with which to do it. I do find myself looking at comics more nowadays, trying to figure out how a penciller did this or that, trying to understand the pace and presentation. Eventually.
This week's Japanese lesson is on telling time, counting, and expressing thanks. Ima means "now" and is used in an adverbial context. The prefix nan- means "what." The suffix -ji means "time." Ima, nanji desu ka? means "Now, what time is it?" In this context, ima can be dropped without a loss of understanding.
The numbers in Japanese are ichi, ni, san, yon, go, roku, shichi, hachi, ku, and juu. These are suffixed with -ji to make the hours of the day. juuniji desu. is therefore "It is twelve o'clock."
The word for "one hundred" is hyaku. Prefixes and suffixes act as expected.
Gogo is "at night," and gozen is "in the day." These are usually said before the time counter: Tookyoo wa gozen juuji desu ka means "Is it ten in the morning in Tokyo?"
Useful phrases: Sumimasen: "Excuse me" or "I'm sorry." Arigatoo or arigatoo gozaimasu (polite form) mean "Thank you." Doo-itashimashite literally means "How can it be?" but is translated, "Not at all" or, more directly, "You're welcome."
I haven't figured out how to use the Japanese Input Methods on my Linux box, so I'll probably be waiting a while until I can start to do hirigana/katakana/kanji studies and recording progress here.
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this all seems perfectly logical until...
Date: 2003-10-22 05:59 pm (UTC)Then your head explodes. I am completely convinced that the nihongo system of "counting words" is designed for the explicit purpose of driving gaijen completely insane by making certain that they cannot help but sound like a complete idiot during any retail transaction.
Not that I'm still scarred by the experience or anything.
Re: this all seems perfectly logical until...
Date: 2003-10-22 07:14 pm (UTC)I am just glad that I found out how to do the ー character on my normal non-japanese keyboard. I have a japanese Microsoft Natrual at home. I have penciled in all the kana on the outer edge of the keys on my work one.
I just can't wait until the Japanese class gets taught at work. We are going with the Genki books as the texts. They are very very dense, but very good. Has anyone seen a good flash-card tool that works with kana? It would have to be browser based so that it would translate to say, a smartphone or pda. I am thinking of writing one, but I don't want to duplicate effort.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-22 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 03:20 am (UTC)Nissan and particles
Date: 2003-10-23 03:22 pm (UTC)When you see a doubled consonant, you usually can't break the word into two parts there.
So Nissan != Ni + San
On to particles. The thing about particles is that a lot of the time, they have _no meaning_, they're just placeholders in a sentence. Which is unlike the English 'a/an' (signifying singular/generic) or 'the' (singular/specific). Japanese has 'o', whose only purpose is to appear in certain places in a sentence by a rule which is never explicitly spelled out. This is like the (Biblical) Hebrew 'et'.
I liked Japanese grammar, even tho I had problems with the numbering system. I just never had time to study, so my vocab + kanji were lousy.
-Malthus
Interesting...
Date: 2003-10-31 06:23 am (UTC)Interesting.... I learned the first four as ichi, ni, san, shi, go... and I learned them from a Japanese in Japan some 20 years ago.
I wonder what the difference is and why it is there now!
Res
(PS -- wandered in by following friends of friends of friends links, hope you don't mind the comment!)