I recently came across a post about Japanese idioms. It gave what the English equivalent was and then explained the Japanese version of it. Id like to share these idioms on here and talk about each one.
1. mizu ni nagasu - 水に流す
This one means "Let flow in the water" which is similar to the English " water under the bridge". If someone does you wrong and you decide to forgive them then this is the phrase you can use.
2. koketsu ni irazunba koji eo ezu - 虎穴に入らずんば虎子を得ず
If you do not enter the tiger's cave, you will not catch its cub. The is similar to the English expression "nothing ventured, nothing gained." It is basically saying if you do not take the chance you will never get anywhere. Be crazy once in awhile.
3. nana korobi ya oki - 七転び八起き
"Fall down seven times, stand up eight". If you don't succeed try and try again. This is an interesting one. Considering back in the times of the Samurai if they lost they killed themselves.
Pt.2 with the final entries coming soon :).
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
The sorry state of gaming.
This post may be a bit short as I am writing it from a mobile device which is a bit if a pain if I am honest.
So gaming has been around since before I was born. ( I am a couple decades old and some) During that time gaming has evolved so much. From the single paddle controllers of the atari to the beautiful and powerful consoles that are present today.
The point of this post and one of my main complaints is how we as gamers have allowed the gaming companies to take advantage of us.
Since online gaming has become such an important part of our gaming experience, game devs have since began capitalizing on this. Before you would buy a game and apart from perhaps a mod here and there your game was final until next release. But now it is acceptable to give us games in episodes or missing chunks of content to come along at a later date as dlc. Then there are mmos which may be free to play but have premium stores which players can buy upgrades and boosts to give them an advantage. This has become acceptable because we as gamers have allowed it. Some companies can be considered guilty of this but do not take advantage, for example The Walking Dead game. This was an episodic release title but once you bought the game you would have all its content when it became available.
But this episodic release business model doesn't always work. Half life 2 took this approach and for awhile it was great. We got great minor story expansions as we all waited in anticipation for the next big release of Half life 3. But then the episodes stopped and Half life crawled to the back of the shelf to hide from the big outside world. I think the problem with episodic release is that you are never guaranteed to get the full product. The developer may stop at episode 1 or 2 or 3 or blah blah and then that's that.
Early access is another thing that has become popular lately. I to have bought games which were early access only to be greatly disappointed with things like slow updates on the game. The point of selling an early access is to help fund the future development. But if you take the sales then do not deliver on a better product down the line are you not just committing a sort of fraud?
Early access does work. The granddaddy of early alpha is Minecraft. When this was first released it was but a shadow of its current self. Mojang took this game, told us it is rough around the edges but delivered on the future content. Even today it is still being updated periodically.
Episodic releases, Early access, Steam Greenlight, Kick start campaigns..... there are many ways developers and indie developers are bringing us games. Some developers are great and deliver what they say but some lie and cheat us to make a quick buck.
Becareful out there gamers. Do not travel alone. If in doubt check for reviews. Good luck and Good day.
So gaming has been around since before I was born. ( I am a couple decades old and some) During that time gaming has evolved so much. From the single paddle controllers of the atari to the beautiful and powerful consoles that are present today.
The point of this post and one of my main complaints is how we as gamers have allowed the gaming companies to take advantage of us.
Since online gaming has become such an important part of our gaming experience, game devs have since began capitalizing on this. Before you would buy a game and apart from perhaps a mod here and there your game was final until next release. But now it is acceptable to give us games in episodes or missing chunks of content to come along at a later date as dlc. Then there are mmos which may be free to play but have premium stores which players can buy upgrades and boosts to give them an advantage. This has become acceptable because we as gamers have allowed it. Some companies can be considered guilty of this but do not take advantage, for example The Walking Dead game. This was an episodic release title but once you bought the game you would have all its content when it became available.
But this episodic release business model doesn't always work. Half life 2 took this approach and for awhile it was great. We got great minor story expansions as we all waited in anticipation for the next big release of Half life 3. But then the episodes stopped and Half life crawled to the back of the shelf to hide from the big outside world. I think the problem with episodic release is that you are never guaranteed to get the full product. The developer may stop at episode 1 or 2 or 3 or blah blah and then that's that.
Early access is another thing that has become popular lately. I to have bought games which were early access only to be greatly disappointed with things like slow updates on the game. The point of selling an early access is to help fund the future development. But if you take the sales then do not deliver on a better product down the line are you not just committing a sort of fraud?
Early access does work. The granddaddy of early alpha is Minecraft. When this was first released it was but a shadow of its current self. Mojang took this game, told us it is rough around the edges but delivered on the future content. Even today it is still being updated periodically.
Episodic releases, Early access, Steam Greenlight, Kick start campaigns..... there are many ways developers and indie developers are bringing us games. Some developers are great and deliver what they say but some lie and cheat us to make a quick buck.
Becareful out there gamers. Do not travel alone. If in doubt check for reviews. Good luck and Good day.
The English education of Japanese (My Opinion)
So my job is an English teacher in Japan. I work in a Private elementary school that teaches English to all grades of students. This is a bit out of the norm as in Japanese public schools, only elementary school grade 5 and 6 are mandatory to learn English.
This already creates a language gap between students. But I guess that is the same with any country and private and public education. The families pay to attend the school so the students get a different education.
Any who, last year I was a public school teacher. The books that they use (depending on the prefecture depends on the books that are used by schools) the level of English is of a very low level. Also, we do not teach reading and writing in public schools. To make matters worse, when they attend Junior High school the level of the textbooks takes a massive jump and then they are reading, writing and listening in English. Although the grammar points are taught in Japanese.
I am by no means an expert on language learning. I struggling to find methods that work for me to learn Japanese. But after teaching in public school for two years I do know an ineffective method of learning English.
A few years back the Japanese government changed the mandatory age of learning English down to 5th and 6th grade. Then, each prefecture had to design its English program. The one I taught felt like it was just done to say "Hey look we are teaching English" and that was that.
I do not really know where I am going with this so i'm going to finish this here. Have a good day all.
This already creates a language gap between students. But I guess that is the same with any country and private and public education. The families pay to attend the school so the students get a different education.
Any who, last year I was a public school teacher. The books that they use (depending on the prefecture depends on the books that are used by schools) the level of English is of a very low level. Also, we do not teach reading and writing in public schools. To make matters worse, when they attend Junior High school the level of the textbooks takes a massive jump and then they are reading, writing and listening in English. Although the grammar points are taught in Japanese.
I am by no means an expert on language learning. I struggling to find methods that work for me to learn Japanese. But after teaching in public school for two years I do know an ineffective method of learning English.
A few years back the Japanese government changed the mandatory age of learning English down to 5th and 6th grade. Then, each prefecture had to design its English program. The one I taught felt like it was just done to say "Hey look we are teaching English" and that was that.
I do not really know where I am going with this so i'm going to finish this here. Have a good day all.
Monday, June 23, 2014
The quiet and lonely Sakura tree
So I have been very quiet on the blogging front. But within my job I get time to sit and think so why not write?
Let's see this as a fresh start. Its nearly the end of June and my writing spirit has returned to me. So what does this mean for the blog?
Well I have started trying to create a new presence on the internet. I often come across people saying "Sorry for the potato quality" or "Sorry I only had my potato on hand to take this photo" and it got me thinking. Why are "Potato" or cell phone quality photos so bad? Today people think they can add a filter from instagram to a flower or by buying a super expensive camera and taking pictures of hills that they are photographers. But the majority of us don't have good equipment or photo editing skills.
So my new blog is about photography with cellphone cameras which are not played with in anyway. If its blurry that's fine. It there is a finger in the way that's fine too. If it is too dark that is also fine. I am going to embrace the potato culture and become its leader mwuahahah.
Please check out the facebook page of the Potato uprising.
https://www.facebook.com/zehpotatomasher?ref_type=bookmark
Let's see this as a fresh start. Its nearly the end of June and my writing spirit has returned to me. So what does this mean for the blog?
Well I have started trying to create a new presence on the internet. I often come across people saying "Sorry for the potato quality" or "Sorry I only had my potato on hand to take this photo" and it got me thinking. Why are "Potato" or cell phone quality photos so bad? Today people think they can add a filter from instagram to a flower or by buying a super expensive camera and taking pictures of hills that they are photographers. But the majority of us don't have good equipment or photo editing skills.
So my new blog is about photography with cellphone cameras which are not played with in anyway. If its blurry that's fine. It there is a finger in the way that's fine too. If it is too dark that is also fine. I am going to embrace the potato culture and become its leader mwuahahah.
Please check out the facebook page of the Potato uprising.
https://www.facebook.com/zehpotatomasher?ref_type=bookmark
Friday, January 4, 2013
I want to be a millionaire
A pretty cliche title right? But it is true so lets keep it basic.
I want to be a millionaire (before we start let me emphasize I want to be a millionaire in £££). This isn't something in which I want a million pounds for cars and houses and all that materialistic crap. Oh no no....although a new (and a car which I can use with my family) would be nice.
Lets take a step back and talk abit about myself. I am a mid twenties male. I have a loving wife and a beautiful baby daughter. To be with my wife I had to borrow money and live on borrowed money for awhile. All my life its been the same (I went to University but on loans etc) On that note I didn't finish University so I gained a crippling debt with nothing to show for it.
I am not overly intelligent and I am not useful with my hands. I am no Sir Alan Sugar who made new things from broken things and am most definitely no Sir Richard Branson.
I have huge dreams but no way to really see them through.
Anywho moving on from the sad back story (Ha). In the world (depending on how you define a millionaire) there are either 10 million Millionaires OR there are 24.2 millionaires. (Information from How many millionaires). Many of these millionaires are philanthropists who are people who give away the fortune they have saved up. The ideal situation for me would be someone who read this and went "Oh hey I feel sorry for this poor sap so im going to give him a million pounds to shut him up" But alas this will not happen. So using this blog im going to write crap whenever something comes to mind in the hope I can get enough content for adsense to allow me to use them. Then from there I will save my pennys until I get enough for a million. All the while I will keep a tab of money I saved on here for the internet to see just see where it leads me :).
Just incase someone did decide to give me a million pounds lets stipulate a few things.
1. Anonymity is guaranteed. You do not have to know my name, I do not have to know your name. Its like a blind date except instead I cost you a million bucks (heh)
2. If you did not want to remain anonymous we can discuss the details of revealing what you did.
So I am going to stop writing now and I hope I can generate enough content to keep people interested :).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)