Tips from the book club
18/09/05 10:07 Filed in: Japanese
I wouldn't expect to find language learning tips in a
science fiction novel, but Mary Doria Russell's
The Sparrow has this, in a
conversation between a whizz-bang linguist and
the 'vulture' who has been tasked with
replicating his approach:-
"Sometimes I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, songs of love for the present."
"I do the same thing. Have you noticed that lullabies nearly always use a lot of command form?"
So, thanks to Alice from Sarah's book club for that little nugget.
After which, I came across a site of Japanese songs specifically for people learning the language. They're graded by language level, and each song has the lyrics in either romaji or kanji/kana, a vocabulary list, an MP3 file and even a karaoke version in midi format. I looked at 春が来た, and liked the repetitiveness and stickiness of it.
"Sometimes I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, songs of love for the present."
"I do the same thing. Have you noticed that lullabies nearly always use a lot of command form?"
So, thanks to Alice from Sarah's book club for that little nugget.
After which, I came across a site of Japanese songs specifically for people learning the language. They're graded by language level, and each song has the lyrics in either romaji or kanji/kana, a vocabulary list, an MP3 file and even a karaoke version in midi format. I looked at 春が来た, and liked the repetitiveness and stickiness of it.
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