自己紹介 （じこしょうかい）

はじめまして！どうぞよろしくおねがいします。　二ールです。　
わたしはコロンビアのだいがくのだいがくいんせいです。　

ニューヨークからきました。　わたしのせんこうは神経生物学（しんけいせいぶつがく-neurobiology）です。　よねんせいです。　ここでhippocampal networksのべんきょうをします。　
とうきょうと日本りょうりがだいすきです。　

おせわになります。

Learning a language is often difficult...

... but always funny! このまんががおもしろいですね。 えいごのせんせいからです： He had his English students write the captions to blanked out comics, and the results are fantastic. I'd like to see (or create!) the reverse -- Japanese students taking a shot at manga captions.

Incidentally, I appreciate the specificity of Japanese on this point -- "Japanese student" is ambiguous, but にほんごのがくせい and にほんじんのがくせい are quite clear (or should the second one be にほんがくせい？）.

rock!

わたしは日本のCDをかいました。　「サンボマスター」です。　この　おんがくが　すきです。　ことばを　わかりません。 Anyway, I thought it would be a fun little project, for the next few weeks, to try to translate one of this awesome rock band's songs, a little bit at a time. And this way, I can maybe get some correction from my teachers and classmates:)


So, to get started, here's the title:
ふたり　ぼっち　の　せかい
二人ぼっちの世界
"World of just two people"


　　　　　　　　はな　　　　　　　　　　　　　　りょうて　　あ
どこまでも　離れないように　ふたり両手を合わせて
いと　　　　　よわ　ひかり　　ぼく　　　　　　　て　　て
愛しさは　弱い光　　　僕らは　この手で照らそう

This is getting hard! Something like:
"no matter what, in order not to part, we are united
darling, delicate light, let's shine on these hands"

It's difficult to put the pieces together - I think the particles and the verb forms are what are presenting the most difficulty?

節分 （せつぶん）

I asked the researcher that I will be working for about Setsu-bun, and he told me they did the bean-throwing （まめまき） in the lab! Very interesting. I hope it leads to good data!

nuance

I think my favorite parts about learning a language, are those moments when you hear, read, think, or say something that you couldn't quite do in your native tongue. When some subtlety or cultural reference is perfectly clear in the 2nd language, but you wouldn't know how to translate it. I remember that happening sometimes when I was studying German, and I get little hints of it now in Japanese. It's sort of like learning music; you drill the notes and scales, but the reward is in the expression, in capturing something subtle.

Score!

It looks like I'm going to Japan this summer (この　なつ？)! I have "preliminary" acceptance to do research at 東京大学　（とうきょうだいがく）. So, god-willing, I'll be living near Ueno from June until August!

The particle の　confuses me a little bit, as far as the order of the nouns. it seems to correspond to both possesives, adjectives, and prepositional phrases. Like, 'above the desk' is 'tsukue no ue', 'berlin, germany' is 'doitsu no barin', and 'my cat' is 'watashi no neko'. So, a med student is "isha no gakusei" or "gakusei no isha" (or none of the above)?

the pictures are mine - I managed not to be in most of them (what with holding the camera and all). Anyway, this is one a fellow visitor to Tofukuji (near Kyoto) took for me.