O.O

I hate fansubbed anime. It always makes me so terribly depressed, because whenever I try to tear my eyes from the words on the bottom of the screen, I find that I can no longer follow most of the dialogue. I was especially aware of this this afternoon while rewatching some of the earlier eps of The Ishida Uryuu Show Bleach in order to chat metal_dog5 up about them without inadvertently spoiling her. I tried positioning the viewer window so that I cut off the bottom of the screen, but I just wasn't able to follow any of it, and so finally gave up and read the subtitles.

I then proceeded to watch a raw ep of The Ishida Uryuu and Abarai Renji Show the second season of Bleach. I was about 20 minutes into the episode before I realised that I had understood every single word, phrase, and sentence as if I had been watching an English language program. It was unreal; I actually experienced a few moments of disorientation while I tried to figure out what I was listening to. It's hard to put into words, but it was just amazingly fluid and unconscious. There were sounds, and I understood them, and all the intentions and emotions that were being conveyed by them as well. I of course have no problems comprehending most colloquial spoken Japanese (which is basically about the only language you'll ever hear in anime), but up to this point I was very conscious of the fact that I was listening to a foreign language. This time, things were said, and I comprehended them. Not only that, but I hadn't even really been paying much attention to the show itself - I was off cleaning, eating dinner, and texting on my keitai - but everything was being taken down by my brain as if I'd had say, South Park on in the background instead. It was as natural as if I'd been listening to English. Very very cool indeed, and I will now allow myself to feel a small measure of satisfaction in my progress, and to hope that I will one day be able to speak this language as if I'd grown up doing it.

英文 Composition Gem #137

Hurrah for my new phone; texting is about 100x easier than on the one I just got rid of (and ironically enough, closer in function to the DoCoMoFo keitai I had way back in 2001 than to my most recently retired phone). Now if I could just figure out how to work the camera.

In other news, here is a short 'n sweet gem of a composition from one of my ( third year students. )

I love it.

That will be all.