Japanese calligraphy

Hello!

This week, we tried Japanese calligraphy (衝動) at college.
It's a form of artistic writing and it looks really pretty (when you're good at it).
The teachers showed us a video were they explained how to do this. After that video, one of our teachers showed us how she wrote her own name and then we got to task to write our own name in katakana.
My name in katakana is quite boring, so after practising writing it three times I switched to some more fun stuff. Kanji!

For privacy reasons, I turned us into a Plusle and Minun

The one on the left is me~ As you can see, I'm not really good at doing this. The girl next to me however, is really good at it in my opinion. She wrote 'genki' which is hard to translate into another language, but I guess 'energetic' and 'healthy' would be close enough. I wrote 'ongaku' which means 'music'.

'Genki' is probably my favorite Japanese word. I really love writing it too.

During the Japanese workshops at school we always do such fun things. A few weeks ago we tried origami folding. I failed at doing that, but still, I really love doing it. Here are some old pictures from that time (I made two hats for my dogs, so cute)

Aren't they adoreable! Okay, I must admit that the one on the left (named Sientje) didn't really like it. She gets scared when we put things on her head. But the other one (which is named Ira) didn't really mind it.

For next week's Japanese workshop, we will have to explain 'Sinterklaas' and the way we celebrate it here in the Netherlands, to our Japanese teachers. Hopefully it will be as much fun as the other workshops!

Chibi Sachiko-chan

Konnichipon!

Did everyone have a nice week? Here it's getting colder and yesterday I saw the first snowflakes falling down! I don't really like the cold, but the snow looks really pretty and gives such a cozy feeling.

Todays lesson will be:

Tsuki

Moon

The kanji for moon (月) has a lot of different meanings, but I won't bother you with all of them. This kanji is also used in the Japanese word for Monday (which you can read about here) 月曜日, but it's pronounced like 'getsu' instead of 'tsuki'.

Don't you think the kanji kinda looks like a moon? I think it does! It's really easy to write too!

From now on, I will start taking requests for words. So if there's a word you would like to know, leave a comment down below and maybe I will talk about it next week!

また来週

The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow

Hello!

Before I start with the real post, I want to apologize for the lack of updates/post this week. The WiFi at home isn't working properly, so I don't have internet access most of the time. Sigh.
I'm using my parents computer at the moment, that's why I'm able to post something new now! 

Last weekend (not this one, but the previous one), I had an amaaaazing party with my best friends! I'll start from the beginning~

November 16, 2012
At 8:45 pm, me and one of my friends went by train to the place where the party would be held. It was quite a long travel, but we had lots of fun together, so the time went by really fast! When we arrived, two of our friends came to pick us up and after we dumped our luggage, we went outside for some stargazing. It was around 12:00 pm I think, and the stars were really bright. One of my friends thought it would be fun to go to the observatory and so we did. I'm still amazed by the fact that the person who was working there let us in without wondering why we where there at midnight. He showed and told us many things about planets and stars and we also looked through a HUGE telescope! We saw Jupiter and its four moons. It was really pretty! When we returned home, we went to sleep.

November 17, 2012

Party day! Around 4:00 pm all 9 of us were together and so the party started! No, this wasn't just an ordinary party with alcoholic drinks, loud music and sweaty people dancing. Hahaha, no no no! It was waaaaay better. We played The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow all night long. It's a really fun game and you have to be smart and cunning to win. We laughed a lot and it was soooo much fun. Everyone played their parts so well! We barely slept that night. I think I slept 1 hour? Maybe a little bit longer, but it wasn't really long. We tried watching The Matrix, but the movie crashed after one and a half hours.

November 18, 2012

For privacy reasons, I turned everyone into a Pikachu!

The last day... All of use were a little bit sleep deprived. After playing The Werewolves game three times, we cleand up the house and went outside. We took a bunch of grouppictures and then everyone had to return home. I really had one of the best times of my life and I feel so happy that I can call these people my friends. Everyone, thank you so much!

Chibi Sachiko-chan

Konnichipon!

I'm really sorry about last week's lesson. Therefore this lesson is bigger! Yay!

This week, I'm going to teach you the days of the week. It might look a little bit hard, but it's really easy! Try to remember them well ;)

Monday is 月曜日 (Getsuyoubi)

Tuesday is 火曜日 (Kayoubi)

Wednesday is 水曜日 (Suiyoubi)

Thursday is 木曜日 (Mokuyoubi)

Friday is 金曜日 (Kinyoubi)

Saturday is 土曜日 (Doyoubi)

Sunday is 日曜日 (Nichiyoubi)

Personally, I think the Kanji for 'you' is really hard. You probably saw that already. 

Hopefully everyone liked this lesson! By practising them really well, it should be easy to remember them. Good luck!

Please look forward to next week's new word!

また来週

DIY: Holding Hands Calendar

Hello!

Do you know those "Tomorrow I'm going to do this and that!"-thoughts before you're going to sleep? And at the end of the next day, you realize that you didn't do anything? Well, I have these quite a lot. It's really annoying. Fortunately I found out about the following idea.

DO IT YOURSELF: Holding Hands Calendar

I'm told this idea is childish, but if it works, I don't care. The point from the calendar we're going to make is: Everyday, you write down what you are going to do. If you complete everything, you draw a stickman on that day of the calendar. Make sure it's hand can reach the other day! If you completed what you wanted to do everyday, you should have a long chain of stickman holding each others' hand. You don't want the stickman to be lonely without a friend to hold hands with right? So you better finish your stuff everyday! (You can also do this with a giant X on everyday, it's really annoying when there's a day without the stickman or X on it, because it will break the chain!)

Step 1

Find some stuff to work with! 

- Paper

- A Glue Stick

- Ribbons

- Stickers

- Markers, Pencils, Ballpoints

- Scissors

Step 2

Make a timetable. I used Word to make one, but ofcourse you can also make on by hand. It's just that I prefer something with proper lines. Don't forget to print it out!

Step 3

Cut off the edges and glue it on another paper with a nice color.

I used pink, because the color of my room is pink.

Step 4

This step is the most fun! Decorating!

Write down the days of the month (I made this one for this month only. So it goes from November 12 till November 30). Write down your appointments and the things you really want to do. After that's done, you can decorate it however you want. For example, I wrote the days of the week in Japanese, for practise.

Now you've finished your own 'Holding Hands'-calendar. It's super easy and fun to do!

I also added a little thing to this idea. After finishing your tasks from a certain day, you can reward yourself with sweets or your favorite cookie. For me, it works, hopefully it will also work for everybody with planning-problems. 

Special Step

Ofcourse you can also put the sweets in a random cup or bowl. 

But I thought it would be cute to fold one by myself!

Chibi Sachiko-chan

Konnichipon! *

I'm Chibi Sachiko-chan! Nice to meet you!

I'm here to support everyone and to teach you a little bit of Japanese. Please always try your best with everything you do. Be strong and be proud! Give it your all and don't forget to smile. It's okay to make mistakes sometimes, you're just human after all. 

Like I said: Every week, I'll teach you a Japanese word. This week I'll start with a really easy one. As I love cute things, I decided that this week the word will be: 

Kawaii

Cute

   

I tried my very best with the animation but I still have to learn a lot!

I'm pretty sure everyone knows when to use this word, but for those who don't, here are some examples:

When you're looking in the mirror while you're wearing a new cute skirt, you can say 'Kawaii!'

When a really cute dog is playing with a really cute cat, you can say 'Kawaii!'

Please look forward to next week's new word!

また来週！**

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*Konnichipon is Chibi Sachiko-chan's way of saying hello. In Japan, people say 'Konnichiwa!' when they're saying hi to each other. Instead of the 'wa', Chibi Sachiko-chan uses 'pon' to make it more cute.

**It says 'until next week!' in Japanese.