I envy you for knowing how to converse and write in Japanese!
How long have you been studying it? Has it been hard?
Believe it or not, it’s a highly selective liberal arts college. A friend of mine from grad school taught there for a few years. The only downside, it seems, is that he would periodically write to say that the temperature was something entirely absurd like -15F. :eek:
The fightin’ Hornets!
Rusty my butt. Your Japanese seems pretty good. Almost as good as mine possibly 
I was with you perfectly up until that last expression: “kubi wo nagaku narimasu.” Literally meaning “my neck will become long,” I’ve never heard this phrase before and I couldn’t find it on my online dictionary. I’m sure it’s correct though.
そっかそっか。僕は一番きれいな芭蕉って銀閣寺かもね。 Personally, I think kinkakuji is the prettiest. But, I think all of Kyoto is gorgeous.
奈良に行ったことがあるの？Have you ever been to Nara. I loooove Nara.鹿はかわいい！ The deer are so cute.
関西弁が分かる？面白いと思うそりゃ。 Can you understand the Kansai dialect? I think it’s pretty interesting. わっかへん！ｗ
Let’s chat on MSN sometime 
Having gone to Western Michigan University and living in Kalamazoo, I say “Greetings to you my good sir.”
And yes, even those of us at WMU considered you a branch campus. 
I haven’t been to kinkakuji yet, but I’m definitely going to go before I leave! I also have nara on my list for the same reason, too.
Ah, kubi wo nagaku naru (it might be suru, actually) means “to look forward to”. I’ll have to double check my dictionary too, it might be suru.
Kansai ben is such a pain! I know I need to learn it, I understand the “–kya” like “shinakya” and “wakahen”, but that’s my extent. The headmistress of my dorm speaks in pure kansai-ben, and 90% of the time I just sit there and nod and pretend that I understand what she’s saying. 
It sounds like you know more of the endings than I do. I always here “zo” and “sorya” and a million others but I never know what the meanings are. That’s on my list of things that I want to find out.
I don’t use much MSN, mostly AIM and Yahoo. I’ll try to figure things out once my normal internet decides to start working again!
Welcome, Niko!
Culture shock isn’t about length of stay, I’ve been in Switzerland for 3 months and I go into culture shock every day. But I was at the national meeting of A Certain International Food Club last weekend and I found out that:
- the Swiss branch of said food club is full of foreigners,
- some of those foreigners are still having problems after 19 years,
- several of the Swiss are having culture shock in their own country after spending some time elsewhere.
So it’s not just me, yay! I’m glad your stay in Japan is going more smoothly and hope you have a happy stay here too 
Ah, yes, I found it. It’s suru ^^ The more standard way of saying that though is 楽しみしてる, or tanoshimi shiteru.
As for casual Japanese and dialects and stuff, the “kya” that I know is “nakya” and is casual but not a dialect. 行かなきゃ！ “I must go!”
“Zo” is the same as “yo” but is very casual. Zo can then become “Ze” for a rude ending. Slang in Japanese though is just like English; it’s always changing.
”Ｓｏｒｙａ” is a contraction of “Sore ha” Pretty simple. Same for Korya and Arya, although I dont hear Arya often.
I am very bad at humble/polite Japanese, but I can speak casually very well If you have any questions, just lemme know. 質問あれば聞いてごらんね；）
Maybe she plans on becoming a Pit mod.
Y’know, like fluiddruid
Oops, almost forgot: Welcome to the Dope, nikonikosuru! Don’t step on the goat, post plenty of cute squid pictures, et cetera ad nauseum.
That crazy Moon language looks pretty and all, but remember the rules against using languages other than English without translating them.
I have an uncle that lives in Kyoto. He loves it, and is applying for permanent resident status.
He’s also a rather large gaijin who sings jazz and records other jazz musicians.
His LJ name is stochasticjack, if you care to look it up.
Yes and Yes to both your Questions.
Oops. Sorry about that. 
Jim {I will never get these welcoming protocols sorted out, darn [sub] [/sub] }
…and don’t forget the beer…also the pie
I think Japanese is difficult to learn, but definitely not impossible. I think that the biggest difficulty is that it’s so different from English and the Romantic languages, it’s harder to draw/find associations between the two. Whereas Spanish was pretty easy to me because so many of the words and structures are similar, there isn’t that luxury in Japanese; it’s kind of like starting from scratch and learning how to talk and read all over again.
I knew the basics of Japanese before going into college, but hadn’t had any intensive courses until college. I’ve been studying it since I was a freshman, this would technically be my third year, I think.
It’s a really fun language to learn, most of it seems mathematical. The hardest part for me is learning all of the kanji (Chinese characters) and the different sounds and word combinations they make.
This is all true, especially the weather. Luckily the campus is so small (it takes just 5 minutes to walk from one end to the other) that you don’t have to be exposed to the subzero temperatures for long, just long enough to regret your decision to stay in Michigan.
It stays cold and gray for a good 6 months, it seems. Kalamazoo gets a lot of lake effect weather, which means extra snow and the fun weeks where it goes from 80 degrees on Monday to a snowstorm on Friday. I myself can’t stand the cold (I don’t know how I was able to live in Michigan all my life without going crazy) and I look forward to going someplace warm.
Our college has a lot of hills, so people like to take the dining hall trays and go sledding. And there’s nothing more fun than watching the winter streakers run down that hill and try to avoid getting caught by security.
We’re probably known as the snobbier, stuck up branch, eh? I do hate that about Kalamazoo…there’s too many people who act like they’re better than everyone else because they got into K :rolleyes: . I’ve only wandered over to Western once. There’s kind of a “K Bubble”, we call it, where it’s just damn near impossible to break out of our college because we’re always holed up in our college, too busy studying or working or drinking to forget everything we learn .
And thanks for the welcome, Nava! There’s a study abroad student here from Switzerland! He’s almost 30 (which was a big surprise because he looks so young!) It seems that he’s having a hard time with Japanese but is still giving it his best, I’m impressed by his willingness to stick it out.
And thank you for telling me about your uncle, Merry. I would like to check out lj to see his experiences.
My lj username is the same as my name here, for anyone who would like to read my journal (I keep it clean since I have family members that read it ).
:::waves to nikonikosuru::: !!
Welcome to the Dope!
Welcome from down here as well!
…,
:eek:
Lots of pretty Kanji.
Anyway, welcome! I’m sure you’ll eventually pay up. They all do, eventually. The pull of the Dope is strong.
Welcome, nikonikosuru! We’re glad you’re here.
I was in Kalamazoo briefly during the '88 presidential campaign. Seemed like a nice place.
I’m now reading Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha. Have you read it? What did you think, if so? Do you see many geisha around nowadays?
A good college friend of mine has long worked for a lumber company in Hamamatsu, traveled widely in Japan and really made a place for herself as a gaijin woman. If you’d like to chat with her, let me know. I’m sure she’d be glad to pass along a few pearls of wisdom.