私の好きな音楽

私の大好きな歌手は宇多田 ヒカルです。五年前にいとこは宇多田ヒカルの歌をしょかいしてくれました。こえがうつくしし、歌のことばがしてきだし、コロンビア大学の学生だったし、一ばんいい歌手です。三年前にいとこと宇多田ヒカルのコンサートへ行きました。「BLUE」と「PASSION」がとても好きな歌です。

今と子どもの時に私はスペイン語の歌が大好きです。一ばん好きなバンドはGipsy Kings です。これはGipsy Kings のとてもきれいな歌です：

   

今年の夏休み

今年の夏休みにたぶん日本へ行きます。私の空手道場のメンバーと空手先生と日本へ行きます。とてもこうふんしているよ。先生は東京からきましたから私たちは日本の道場で空手をします。そして京都へ行きます。金閣寺を見たいです。旅行の間に日本語でれんしゅうすることができます。

金閣寺

Composition #1--Travel Plans

旅行に行きたいですか。じゃ、ひこうきで Grand Cayman へ行かなければなりません。アメリカの近くで Grand Cayman は一ばんきれいなところです。ニューヨークから Grand Cayman までひこうきで三時間かかります。あそこでいろいろなことができます。うみでおよいだりスポーツをしたりすることができで楽しいです。てんきはとてもあついですから小さいせんぷうきをもってきてください。Grand Cayman にたくさんどうぶつがあります。魚やとかげは Grand Cayman にすんでいます。カメラをもってください。

About Communication

1) The most effective communication employs a lucid and concise manner to be as informative and persuasive as possible. One should consider their audience and tailor the method of conveying the desired message accordingly, making sure not to use jargon. In our podcast, to communicate effectively we should make sure to explain all unknown terms or locations in the dialogue that would be unfamiliar to a native Japanese speaker who has never been to NY.

2) From this project I expect to become better at speaking Japanese fluidly, to learn more vocabulary, and to learn new grammatical patterns. Communication to me means the transfer of ideas through various means, either visual, aural or otherwise.

空手 [Karate]

みんなさん、どんなスポ-ツが好きですか。私は空手が好きです。十年ぐらい空手をしています。空手で、かた(form)とくみて(sparring)があります。私は四だん(fourth degree)ですから、たくさんかたがしっています。

-- くみて-- かた

Literary Work

Here's a short manga I designed about a little's boy's daily playtime, meant to showcase a few different uses of katakana. As you can see, I've heavily utilized katakana for the sake of onomatopoeia, mimicking the sounds as the boy runs about, hits different toys and jumps. I also used katakana for emphasis on the word "strong", as the boy lifts his blocks, and on the word "I" in the boy's dialogue box to emphasize the feeling of toughness and masculinity. Lastly, I used katakana for Superman's name, as it is a foreign word/character name. (Just to be clear, this manga reads left to right, not right to left as usual in manga. Hopefully there was no confusion, sorry about that.)

Katakana Analysis (Final)

The words オレ and カワイイ, found written as such in a manga and on a magazine cover respectively, highlight two distinctive reasons for choosing to write in katakana rather than hiragana or kanji.

The オレexample was found in a speech bubble of a manga entitled 先生, in which the character speaking is referring to himself. It is written out in katakana rather than in kanji (俺) or hiragana (おれ), because the angular, "hard" lines of katakana serve to emphasize the masculine feeling conveyed by the word.  おれ is a form of the word "I", used by men, and is both more formal and more masculine than  ぼく, another form of "I" most commonly used by young boys . While katakana is thought to be more masculine, hiragana on the other hand, is thought to be a more feminine form of writing. In this particular manga, the male character speaking is younger than the girl he is interested in, so he tries to behave maturely to prove his manliness. Knowing this, it makes sense that katakana would be used here in his speech.

Having been found on the front page of CanCam, a fashion magazine, it is easy to imagine why katakana is used in the case of カワイイ. In this example, katakana is used to draw immediate attention the word. Because the subject of the magazine is fashion, the editors must have wanted to emphasize keywords pertaining to the styles highlighted inside, perhaps to give a preview to those browsing magazines about what to expect in the issue from just seeing the outside cover. Interestingly, surveying a large number of Japanese magazine covers reveals that カワイイ appears frequently on magazine covers in hiragana as well, not solely in katakana. In fact, a different month's issue of CanCam magazine features the word splayed across the cover in hiragana. It seems almost strange that a magazine targeted at young women would use katakana, when the magazine should be attempting to emphasize femininity. Maybe this plays into the choice of hiragana over katakana in that particular issue, in that it was chosen to exude femininity rather than catch the onlooker's eye.

The textbook definitions mentioned emphasis as a usage of katakana--this is seen in both examples--but they did not mention that katakana can be specifically used for emphasizing masculinity or femininity.