{"id":805,"date":"2014-12-24T00:56:50","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T16:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/?p=805"},"modified":"2015-01-05T15:02:53","modified_gmt":"2015-01-05T07:02:53","slug":"learning-nihongo-through-j-pop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/learning-nihongo-through-j-pop\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Nihongo Semi-Passively Through J-Pop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a previous post I mentioned that I&#8217;ve been self-studying\u00a0Nihongo for the past four\u00a0years. No reason in particular, I just wanted to exercise a part\u00a0my\u00a0brain\u00a0that&#8217;s been dormant since, er,\u00a0graduating from school?\u00a0And I thought\u00a0learning the language\u00a0would be perfect\u00a0since\u00a0I grew up loving Japanese culture anyway.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t want to stress over it though so I&#8217;ve been trying out a &#8220;semi-passive&#8221; approach. The only &#8220;active&#8221; part was purposely memorizing the alphabets &#8212; hiragana, katakana, and levels 4 and 3 of kanji, some important nouns, verbs, participles&#8230;\u00a0and that was it. The rest I am learning through immersion. Since 2010 my senses have\u00a0been surrounded\u00a0by\u00a0TV shows, movies and music, all in Japanese. It&#8217;s working&#8230; I think.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of whether my method is effective or not, I was able to discover some wonderful J-pop music\u00a0and artists and today I&#8217;ll be talking about them. Esquire Philippines actually invited me to share what I&#8217;m listening to in this month&#8217;s issue&#8230;<br \/>\n<code><br \/>\n<\/code><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" style=\"background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 658px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);\" data-instgrm-captioned=\"\" data-instgrm-version=\"4\">\n<div style=\"padding: 8px;\">\n<div style=\"background: #F8F8F8; line-height: 0; margin-top: 40px; padding: 50% 0; text-align: center; width: 100%;\"><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 8px 0 0 0; padding: 0 4px;\"><a style=\"color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;\" href=\"https:\/\/instagram.com\/p\/w3HmbxtrqD\/\" target=\"_top\">And if you&#8217;d like to know what I like listening to when either cooking or carving lol, @esquireph also invited me to share my favorites ???? #naks #walalang<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;\">A photo posted by Cynthia Bauzon-Arre (@arncyn) on <time style=\"font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;\" datetime=\"2014-12-21T07:58:35+00:00\">Dec 12, 2014 at 11:58pm PST<\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\" async=\"\" defer=\"defer\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><code><\/code><br \/>\nbut because magazines can&#8217;t play music, I&#8217;m listing them down along with videos so you can listen to the songs too. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p><strong>Moumoon \u2013 \u201cNo Night Land\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Moumoon is a Japanese indie music duo and they play the cutest synth pop which I would describe as \u201cbubblegum with an edge\u201d. I love all their albums so far but judging from the number of ratings stars in my iTunes, \u201cNo Night Land\u201d contains the most tracks that I like. If I were to pick one song for you to listen to first, it would be \u201cBon Appetit.\u201d (( This is my current ringtone! ))<\/p>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EzO3GPTj_Gg?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/code><\/p>\n<p><strong>Suemitsu &amp; the Suemith \u2013 \u201cMan Here Plays Mean Piano\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think of Suemitsu-san as Japan\u2019s Ben Folds. I would describe his music as melodic piano\/synth-backed power pop and like the title says, he really does play mean piano. All his albums are worth listening to but this one has \u201cBasketball Game Crush\u201d which is mine (and Arnold\u2019s) absolute fave.<\/p>\n<p>Edit: Ok, I can&#8217;t find a video of BGC huhu so please listen to &#8220;Allegro Cantabile (( from &#8220;Nodame Cantabile&#8221; &#8212; I love both the TV show and the anime! )),&#8221; another of my favorites, instead.<\/p>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Iffj0Wn-PXI?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/code><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sakamoto Shintaro \u2013 \u201c\u201dMatomo Ga Wakaranai\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The title track, \u201cMatomo Ga Wakaranai (\u201cI Don\u2019t Know What is Normal\u201d) was in the soundtrack of one of my favorite Japanese dramas last year called \u201cMahoro Ekimae Bangaichi\u201d (starring Eita and Matsuda Ryuhei) and after hearing it the first time, I just had to get the whole album. It\u2019s got a laid-back funky vibe that makes me think of summer afternoons spent mindlessly browsing through secondhand records in Cubao X (or some such place). The rest of the album has a similar lazy, melancholic mood.<\/p>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/N-_Spoh94AE?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/code><\/p>\n<p><strong>Shiina Ringo &#8212; &#8220;Ariamaru Tomi&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I love Shiina Ringo, her distinct voice, and her music&#8217;s unpredictable (but always beautiful) melodies. I don&#8217;t know what album this song, &#8220;Ariamaru Tomi: is from but I first heard it in the J-drama &#8220;Smile&#8221; (which, incidentally is about a half-Filipino &#8212; played by MatsuJun &#8212; trying to survive in the midst of prejudice in Japan).<\/p>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GvHmMv2JHDk?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/code><\/p>\n<p><strong>Arashi &#8212; The Digitalian<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Okay, confession. I listen to Johnny&#8217;s Entertainment idols too. Before you dismiss these boybands as merely eye candy, trust me when I say that there are some quality music to be found from the 30-year-old (and older) guy groups like Kanjani8, Tokio, Smap, and Arashi. On our recent Japan trip I happened upon Arashi&#8217;s latest album so I gave it a listen and loved this song immediately &#8212; &#8220;Wonderful.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DlcsYFa3Gkc?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/code><\/p>\n<p>?More next time!<\/p>\n<p>Do you listen to J-pop too? What or who are your favorites?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a previous post I mentioned that I&#8217;ve been self-studying\u00a0Nihongo for the past four\u00a0years. No reason in particular, I just wanted to exercise a part\u00a0my\u00a0brain\u00a0that&#8217;s been dormant since, er,\u00a0graduating from school?\u00a0And I thought\u00a0learning the language\u00a0would be perfect\u00a0since\u00a0I grew up loving Japanese culture anyway. I didn&#8217;t want to stress over it though so I&#8217;ve been trying [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[50,49,48],"class_list":["post-805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ear-candy","tag-j-indie","tag-j-pop","tag-music"],"views":2933,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":821,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions\/821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}