I AM SUPER PUMPED RIGHT NOW!

In my last video which was way too long ago

I shared a secret file folder where I used to keep all of my audio diaries, where I would practice Japanese.

"Konban wa. Kyou wa ichigatsu juunana-nichi..."

So as promised, today is Part 2 of Embarassing Myself...for the Sake of Learning :P.

You guys ready for the cringe?

Konban wa! Kyou wa ichigatsu juunana-nichi. (Good evening! Today is January 17th.)

Kyou kara wa, maa, kyou mo, yukkuri (Starting today, today, we.., I'm going to take my time)

atarashiku benkyou shita kotoba wo tsukatte (and use the new Japanese words I just learned)

benkyou shitai to omotteimasu. (I want to study those today).

Good! This already sounds a lot smoother. These are probably phrases I use all the time in the audio diaries.

I'm probably use to saying these things.

The only thing is that there's a lot of 'EETOO' (umm...)

People think that if you talk fast in a 2nd language

then you must be good, and that's not neccessarily the case.

Instead of just saying "um" all the time, I could've just taken a breath

to slow down a bit, and that would've been totally fine.

Ja, ikimasu. Here we go.

Seiji toka, seifu ni kanren aru kotoba toka (So politics, and government related words)

muzukashii to iu yori mo (they're difficult yes, but more importantly,)

sugoi tokuteiteki na kotoba wo benkyou shimashita. (I learned some real specific words.)

"SUGOI TOKUTEI janakute, sugoku". or "hijouni". Not "REAL specific, but really". Also, "extremely" works too.

"sugoi" when it should be "sugoku", that's a casual way of speaking that I still do today.

"Sugoku" is an adverb and we use ADVERBS to modify verbs!

tatoeba, kyou no nyuusu houkoku. (Let's take today's news report as an example.)

kyou no nyuusu dewa, seiji no kaikaku no houkoku ga arimashita. (In today's news there was a story about government reform.)

HAHA! matta houkoku to kaikaku wo tsukaimashita! (Haha! I used the words for REPORT and REFORM in a sentence!)

Hontou ni wasuretakunai kotoba wa, sono, maa, kaikaku (So, I really don't want to forget these words. Well, you know, "reform")

kaikaku to kaishi desu ne. "reform" and to "begin".

"Shiai wa kuji-kaishi desu." So iu kotoba to (The game will begin at 9. Words like that and)

kaihatsu mo. ato, hyouka mo wasuretakunai desu. ("develop", and also to "rate/evaluate" are words I don't want to forget.)

I was really into using iKnow.jp , which would slam you with N3 N2 is words.

I knowww kaikaku. I used that so much in YouTube videos.

Like "kyouiku no kaikaku wo suru hitsuyou ga aru to omoimasu." (Saying like, I think we need to reform our education!)

So what's happening now is that I'm just TRYING to use these words in Japanese

because I have no chance to use them otherwise.

tatoeba, ookii kaisha...ookii kigyou ga (For example, a big company...er, a big corporation)

atarashikute chiisai kaisha ni toushi suru. (Makes a new investment in a little company.)

There's a cat outside...

The point is, I wanted to use these verbs that I had learned.

I wanted to talk about "invest" because that's a cool, fun word.

You can tell I don't know what I'm talking about because

you don't say "ookii kaisha" or "ookii kigyou", you say "daikigyou" in Japanese.

"chuushoukigyou", a small or medium-sized business

bencha-kigyou (venture), sutaato appu kigyou (start-up)

You don't even say a big company invests into a little company

there's a better word than "toushi suru"

it would be "baishuu", to actually buy-up the company.

The point is that, I didn't know how to use these words in a sentence

but I would be DARNED if I didn't try!

So this is just me tryin to use the word "toushi suru".

Watashi ha yotsu no kaisha ni toushi shiteimasu. (I've invested in 4 companies.)

Yep. Just like a I thought. so "Toushi suru" is a verb more commonly used with individual investments.

When a company invests in another company, this can be a "buyout" or an "acquisition"

and there are words for that in Japanese. "Baishuu" (buy-out), "baikyaku" (to sell a company).

but in this case I actually had an example that I wanted to use.

So when I found the word "toushi suru", I clearly had made a note of an example sentence to learn with it.

sekkyokuteki ni ganbatteiru ne! I'm really giving it my all, though!

watashi wa nihongo kyouiku no kanren aru kaisha wo tsukuritai. (I want to make a Japanese-learning related company).

desu kedo, sou dekiru tame (However, for me to do that)

nihongo kyouiku ni kanren aru kaisha ga watashi no kaisha ni toushi suru hitsuyou ga aru. (A bigger Japanese-learning company would need to invest into my company for that to happen.)

toiu iikata de tsukaitai to omotteimasu. (I want to be able to talk about it like that.)

Wow, I had some big dreams back in the day!

Nihongo kyouiku - kei no kaisha. A company for learning Japanese.

sou dekiru tame... (For that to be...)

Not, "sou dekiru tame" it's, "sou dekiru you ni"

[Trying to rephrase it better] Nihongo kyouiku-kei no kaisha wo tsukuritai n desukedo I want to make a company for Japanese learning

sono hitotsu no houhou toshite so as one way to do this,

nihon no kaisha ni baikyaku suru koto wo mezashiteimasu. (I'm working towards selling my company to a bigger Japanese company.)

Ato wa nan desho... (Was that about it then???)

sono gurai desu ne. Ja, bai bai. (That's about it then. Ok, bye.)

This is only about a year after the file that we first watched.

The way that I'm speaking at this point, this is 2011, about 7 years ago.

In terms of fluidity and the ability to glue words together

That's here, with "mochiron", "yappari", "maa", "eetou".

Those filler words are there, gluing sentences together like I still do today.

And what was missing was a lot of collocations.

For example, knowing that a company does not invest into another company, it acquires it.

Just known what words are usually paired with what other words.

In English, we have words that sound unnatural or a bit weird

these are often dictated by collocations.

For example, you can say "turn off the lights"

and you can say "shut off the lights", but you don't say "close the lights".

"Shut" and "close" basically mean the same thing but why can you only use one with the words "lights" ?

The best way to get familiar with collocations is to listen to more natural speech.

For example, if I want to be able to speak about business and companies

in a more fluid, native-sounding way

then what I should do is start listening to podcasts that talk more about business news

start listening to actual news clips every morning

honestly, just listening to the news, just brief news

would've probably been the best thing to do at that point.

So you find your topic, find the way to say that word in Japanese

So business for me is "keiei", "gappe" for mergers, "baikyaku" for corporate sales

if those are the words I wanted to study then I should just google those

find clips that talk about it, maybe even on YouTube.

and just listen to those, you know, keep clips of those!

I have a whole folder of audio clips from Bilingirl Chika so that I could imitate her

because she speaks very clearly and it's very good to listen to

but for more senmon yougo (technical terms)

just looking up the name of that field and then finding clips on YouTube.

Maybe the best way to really brush up your collocations.

Your sense of knowing what words always go with what words.

Words always come in pairs, and to be able to learn them in a top-down method

you're seeing the whole picture, and just learning to imitate that.

What I was doing was a bottom-up method

I was learning each word 1 by 1 and trying to use them in my daily life.

That shows a lot of initiative but in order to sound more natural

in addition to try as much as I could on my own

I should've also had more native samples of Japanese to imitate as well.

Oh! I recorded my OPI exam!

What did I sound like when I was actually being tested...

Mazu, kono denwa no onshitsu chotto warui no de (Before we start, this phone connection is bad)

ookii koe de hanashite itadakemasu ka? (so could I ask you speak more loudly, please?)

Woooow, ok! I'm just BuStiNnn InnN~!

denwa no onshitsu ga warui no de (the phone call quality is bad so)

ookii koe de hanashite itadakemasuka? (could I ask you to speak up please?)

I'm suprised! I was even using Keigo!

Before the OPI I had told my professor that I was nervous about speaking politely.

There's a polite section that you have to do.

I can't memorize all those verbs! I already know "taberu", why do I need "meshiagaru"?!

She was like, don't worry about all that, you can just use the words you know

and use 　て + いただけますか？ "can you do this for me?"

and if someone DID do something for you て　＋　くださいました

I probably memorized that so that I could start with something and tell them 'I can speak well!'

I probably wanted to make a good first impression.

By telLiNg Them WhAt To DoOO?!

ima wa new york-shi no manhattan no tokoro desu ne (I'm at a place in Manhattan, New York, yes.)

Ima shigoto wo shiteimasu. (I work here).

setsumei-teki ni chotto fukuzatsu nanndesu kedo... (to kinda describe it, my job's kinda complicated, ya know?)

I do that a lot, use "teki ni" to make words, like a crutch.

You could just say "setsumei shinikui" (hard to explain).

When they ask you a question, buy yourself some time, deep breath, prepare yourself

to answer those questions by saying 'sou desune'.

if anyone asks you something, just say SOU DESU NE

I think they're asking about a scary scene with my dog.

kore wa, jibun no sei kamoshirenai n desukedo (This is probably my fault but...)

sengetsu datta kamoshirenai (this was around last month)

Lily to iu n desu kedo, lily to issho ni sanpo shiteiru toki ni (My dog's name is Lily, but we were out for a walk)

de, mou kaerou to omotte, de (and, I figured we should back and, ...and...)

sono roopu wo hazushitara (so when I let her off the leash)

koko de matteite, iiko da ne, to yattara (I was like, good girl, wait here!)

sugu dasshu de, nigechatte, (she immediately took off in a sprint)

to michi no naka de wan wan wan to nigetari shite (and just ran down the street barking.)

sugoi, taihen, mou, nan to iu kana (Wow, like, it was crazy, omg, like how do I say it....)

kowakatta kedo, saigo no, oyatsu wo mottara (I was so scared but eventually I got a treat)

sugu kaette kureta no de (and she came right back).

daijoubu datta kedo, sore ga taihen deshita. (nothing happened but it was pretty crazy.)

The issue I'm having here is a lot of issues with the subject and the predicate

who's doing what, "wo" vs "ga"

I said "rope" but I took off my dog's leash and she ran away through the streets.

Rope wo hazushitara, kou yatte, wan wan wan to nigetari shite (I took off the rope, and like, ran away barking)

That sounds like I took off the rope and then I started running through the streets barking.

Obviously my dog is the one who ran away barking

But that's not a succinct and clear as it could've been.

watashi wa Lily to issho ni sanpo shiteitandesukedo... (I was out for a walk with Lily)

When you start a story, the opening sentence often ends with " n desu kedo"

watashi wa Lily to issho ni sanpo shiteitandesukedo... (I was out for a walk with Lily)

Lead wo hazushitara, Lily ga, wan wan wan to iinagara (When I removed her leash then LILY barked)

nigete shimashita. (while she ran away.)

Adding in "Lily ga", I forgot to do that,

I already knew I was the subject so I was like "should it be Lily... wa...?"

"I can't have two "wa"s in a sentence, what should I do?

If I had just added "Lily ga", then suddenly we have a clause in there

that let's you know that the verb (nigeru), it wasn't me who was running and barking, it was Lily.

And that was missing.

Because I was afraid of "wa" and "ga" and "wo".

tanoshii desu ne. dakara mou, (It's so fun, like really!)

minna wa isogashikute, (everyone's so busy)

tomodachi to issho ni asoberu kikai amari nai n desukedo (so there aren't many chances to hang out with you friends)

asoBeru kikai ga amari NAIn desu keDOOoo. (nOt so many CHANces to HANG out.)

I don't know why I emphasized the "be" like that.

The issue is that when you put random emphasis on there

it's hard to actually tell where the phrases are ending

when you emphasis the middle of the word, it's hard to tell what you're saying.

It's distracting!

mae itta you ni zangyou ga takusan aru kara (Like I said before, I got lots of overtime)

amari, maa, hima wa nai n desu kedo (I really don't, well, I'm short on free time but)

kaettekitara, matteiru Lily no wan-chan ga ireba (but when I come home, to Lily waiting for me)

sore ga shiawase da na to itsumo omotteimasu. (I always think how that truly makes me happy.)

Nice. What a nice note to end on.

My speech definitely got better, I feel like this is my second OPI.

Wow storytelling, and business calls, I have over 40 files here

old files of me speaking Japanese.

Do you want to hear more or is this too cringy for you?

That one presentation was a hot mess.

And that was specifically because I did not practice.

Not so much 10 years ago, but now there are so many people

who upload videos of themselves speaking.

Here I have clips of Bilingirl Chika talking about specific phrases

but that's very bottom-up in terms of how to fit phrases into your sentences.