Thursday 30 May 2013

New Tumblr blogs

Hey guys!
I shall be doing more visual based posts on tumblr from now on, but I shall try to keep this blog going too.
Empty atm, but this shall be my sewing and cosplay tumblr http://laanotetofollowsew.tumblr.com/ I am hoping to sew a lot over the summer so hopefully it'll be very active!
And this shall be my travel/photography blog. http://captainnaru.tumblr.com/ atm I am just blogging photosets from the millions of photos I have of travels and art shoots I have done in the past. This shall also be my general daily Japan blog when I move to Yokohama in September. However I shall try to write bits here too!
ナル姫

Wednesday 15 May 2013

Picnics, books and run up to revision.

Hey all!
Last Bank Holiday Monday I went to Bath to meet some of the local lolis. Had a lovely picnic in front of the Royal Crescent. I enjoyed Bath immensely, its such a beautiful city.
 It was so hot I was dying to wear a hat most of the day, then struck lucky in a charity shop!
I took some pictures of Cardiff whilst it was still pretty! Its now just reverted back to rain.

As part of my Japanese revision motivation recently I've been finding my favourite book quotes and stuff in Japanese. You can do this in a variety of ways including the internet or if you can just get your hands on the translated book then do that! I have a small collection of Japanese books including Alice in Wonderland/Alice Through the Looking Glass, Harry Potter and some Beatrix Potter too.
(Photo is my own)

Looking at Japanese wiki pages can also be insightful into how your favourite literature is translated. For example I hadn't realised till recently that the way movie titles and book titles are translated are very different. e.g. The Lord of the Rings books are known as 指輪物語(ゆびわものがたり)whereas the movie titles are ロード・オブ・ザ・リング. Literally 'Lord of the Rings' in katakana. This is part of the reason why I find culture and linguistics so interesting. Why do they differentiate in its use like this? I can understand the logic behind both because one is a translation for literature and the other a translation for a movie franchise, but I still don't get 100% why they can't use the book title for the movie too. Its definitely something for me to investigate further.

I highly recommend getting copies of your favourite books translated even if you don't think you'll be able to read them yet. It gives you something to compare and you can try to glean information and grammar out and try to push yourself further with your reading. I also find it interesting to try and glean what I feel has been lost in translation, but also that because the languages express things in different ways it gives you a new perspective on something that you maybe already familiar with.

Now I have exams for the next month or so and providing I pass everything I shall be off to Japan in September. And that is sort of terrifying. If you have exams too, good luck!
ナル姫