Japanese Society

Ah, 務める. Right, didn't know that! Haha.

Does anyone have an idea about screenager's post 懐疑的に成らざるを えない being used to like something? I've asked some Japanese people but they have no idea....

Audiobooks with their corresponding books (pdf)? Anyone know where can I get them? Also, is anyone at Birkbeck doing japanese? :P

You mean 詰める? That means to pack/cram. I've never heard since it being used as 'work'. Check out some examples; http://jisho.org/sentences?jap=%E8%A9%B0%E3%82%81%E3%82%8B&eng=

Yup, that's fine although most people say バイトをする instead. =] Hope that helps!

務める→working as (job position)
勤める→learning

both つとめる but not つめる

I assume you mean 勤める （つとめる） rather than つめる?

働く is literally like 'to work' in English, whereas 勤める is more like to be employed somewhere.

So,
私は 銀行で 働いて います = 'I work at a bank'. = You're doing bank work at the bank, and yes you're probably an employee there but you don't necessarily have to be (like you could be a worker from another company brought in temporarily or something).

私は 銀行に 勤めて います = like I am employed at a bank.

Note that in this case 働く uses で, and 勤める uses に and that might help you understand the different nuances as well.

And yeah, アルバイトをする would be fine for to work part-time ^_^

Hope I helped >_< I always write stupidly long explanations T_T

Of the expats I have met, it does seem like quite a lot of them are weirdos. I got quite bored of learning the language grammar and vocab so recently I have just been studying kanji (can write ~100 now!) the last few weeks. Most of my study is done in my free time between classes so I can't use any 'fun' methods to study and my brain got a bit frazzled from too many vocab lists.

It's suprising how easy it is to stay inside the English bubble even in Japan. Plus how difficult it can be to break out. Finding Japanese people who are both willing and able to talk to you can be challenging. I am lucky in that I am in a Japanese work environment so I have the opportunity to speak to my colleagues at any time but even then, they only have a certain amount of patience for someone who can barely communicate!

How are you finding the weather? It's so damn cold in my apartment! Kinda puts you off wandering around outside away from the heater!

This thread has died a little! Thought I'd try to get a little conversation going, a few people here have been in Japan for a few months now, how is it going for you guys?
Weather is awful today, I've never seen such heavy rain in my life! I was going to go to the History Museum, got the bus to the train station then realised I'd left my hair straighteners on and ran back and I don't have the willpower to try and go out in that rain again...

I've been here for nearly 10 weeks now. But it seems recently that the only time I get the chance to speak Japanese for any extended amount of time is in Japanese lessons (just like the UK!). The rest of the time I'm in English language courses (required by the study abroad programme) or surrounded by international students, who use English as a lingua franca. The other alternative is trying to talk to random total strangers for 5 minutes' small-talk in the cafeteria... that always ends up being unbearably awkward. Also had a few nasty experiences of being shouted at or mocked by the locals recently and starting to get a bit homesick.

Has anyone got suggestions for good places to go Christmas shopping? (I want to send something home to my mum for christmas)

I've met two British expats now, and both times it was such a horrible experience, I'd have preferred to have not met them. Don't understand expats anymore!

Have you ever been to Toudai's 'chabashira' conversation event thing?

I've been invited to it, but it seemed like a "lets all speak English!" thing.

When I went there it was 90% Japanese people, and nobody was speaking English. At 'international exchange' events in Japan I find that if you can speak Japanese most people just give up and speak that rather than actually try to use their English. Which is great, for us. :3

This thread has died a little! Thought I'd try to get a little conversation going, a few people here have been in Japan for a few months now, how is it going for you guys?
Weather is awful today, I've never seen such heavy rain in my life! I was going to go to the History Museum, got the bus to the train station then realised I'd left my hair straighteners on and ran back and I don't have the willpower to try and go out in that rain again...

I've been here for nearly 10 weeks now. But it seems recently that the only time I get the chance to speak Japanese for any extended amount of time is in Japanese lessons (just like the UK!). The rest of the time I'm in English language courses (required by the study abroad programme) or surrounded by international students, who use English as a lingua franca. The other alternative is trying to talk to random total strangers for 5 minutes' small-talk in the cafeteria... that always ends up being unbearably awkward. Also had a few nasty experiences of being shouted at or mocked by the locals recently and starting to get a bit homesick.

Has anyone got suggestions for good places to go Christmas shopping? (I want to send something home to my mum for christmas)

I've met two British expats now, and both times it was such a horrible experience, I'd have preferred to have not met them. Don't understand expats anymore!

It's so cold!!! In my room, there's a single-glazed window on one side (the windowsill is essentially an extra fridge space), and on my other side I have this large, metal door that seems to radiate all the coldness from the corridors! I usually cycle to my nearest train station but it's starting to get unbearably cold and wet now that I'm tempted to take the bus.... that would be 400 yen a day though!!!!

Yeah the ex-pats I have met have been a bit weird.

Obviously this is just a generalisation from my own experiences, and it won't apply to everybody.

I think it takes a certain type of person to emigrate permanently. I love living abroad, it's loads of fun and a new experience, but I am so homesick, I left family behind, I left pets behind, I left hobbies behind, I left all of my friends behind. I don't know how someone could intend to permanently move away from all their family and friends.

I was talking about this to one of the international students on my course and he said "I dunno, I think it's a good opportunity to reinvent myself" - but obviously if you want to reinvent yourself, you can't be happy with who you are to start with. You have to be really unhappy with who you are to want to completely reinvent yourself. Maybe that links to the thing about leaving people behind - I can't help but feel maybe they didn't 'fit in' back home.

The two Brits I met were only brits by name really, they were really weird to talk to, there was nothing familiar about them at all (one of them even went to the same university as me, he only graduated three years ago and couldn't remember anything about the university like which halls he had stayed in). His accent was completely neutralised. Not British or Japanese. I thought he was European at first. He'd tried to adopt all these Japanese mannerisms but was so not a Japanese person. Kept saying really weird things to us like, we were laughing at a joke and he said "you guys are such foreigners haha" and we looked at him like "... have you looked in a mirror lately?". He didn't 'fit in' in Japan, I've met non-Japanese people born in Japan/raised in Japan from a young age and they seemed completely Japanese (despite their appearance). But these guys didn't fit in as completely Japanese. But Japan had changed him to the point where he wouldn't 'fit in' as authentically British anymore either. It was like meeting a person who was grown in a test tube.


Culture shock is a strange thing!

Also had a few nasty experiences of being shouted at or mocked by the locals recently and starting to get a bit homesick.

What happened?

I appreciate there are douches in every country though, they don't reflect the opinions of the entire country, everyone else has been lovely.

A group of us had a nice meal at a restaurant, afterwards we stood outside waiting for the rest of the group to come out. One of the girls bumped quietly asked to move past someone and said "gomen" as she passed them. (Okay, probably the wrong phrase to use just to get past someone where a 'sumimasen' would have done, but she was just being polite). So the guy starts laughing and saying "gomen" back at her in her accent because she wasn't Japanese. Then the same guy and his friends started shouting titles of animes/mangas at us in English, "yeaahh WAN PEICE! NARUTO!" as if we're just weeaboo westerners who only come here for manga.

Then another day I was walking back from campus another guy started screaming "god save the queen!" at me.

The one that really sticks out is being on a rush hour train back from campus. Train was full of school children in their uniforms talking and other uni students chatting. (let me make this clear, I could barely hear my friends over everyone else) and we were all talking. This woman stands up and shouts (in English) "you, stop talking". The whole carriage suddenly falls silent and stares at us. I looked confused and said, "what, just us?", as were were in NO WAY the only people talking, nor the loudest. She said "yes you, I feel sick". I said "but everyone else was talking too" but I don't think she was going to argue with me in another language. Because she had shouted the whole train was silent now and staring at us, so we couldn't keep talking and just went home in silence. It was so awkward.

Then the same guy and his friends started shouting titles of animes/mangas at us in English, "yeaahh WAN PEICE! NARUTO!" as if we're just weeaboo westerners who only come here for manga.