I recently ordered some korean manhua (7 volumes) straight from South Korea, in korean. I bought them mainly because I loved the artwork. But now that I got them and saw that there were 4 books I have yet to read, I realized that I can't just look at these books, I have to read them! And they aren't available online in english yet, who knows when they will be since this isn't a very well known series.
So I started trying read this manga by using google translate and other korean dicitinaries and such. I could already read hangul (it's super easy, which is awesome) so reading it wasn't a problem really. The problem was understanding it, which turned out to be a lot harder than I thought.
I thought I could put some words into google translate and understand a sentence, but NO! 90% of the time that does not work at all.
There is probably only one sentence so far that I have been able to translate into a flawless and fully understandable English sentence. Most other times I can pick out the words in a sentence if I am lucky, but still not be able to make any sense of the sentence.
This makes me realize how much Japanese I actually know. The fact that I can read Japanese manga and understand everything now seems quite awesome.
One thing I realized pretty quickly when translating sentences from korean to english was that it was hard to know where a word ended. For example "Pirul" translated as "blood", but I later learned that blood is just "Pi", and rul is a particle (like the Japanese particle GA if I remember correctly). Still it got translated as only "blood". This happened all the time, so to actually know where words end and particles etc start, I had to go on to learn grammar instead of just words.
It would seem like grammar is king, if you don't know the grammar you wont understand the sentence even if you might know the nouns or verbs etc in it.
So I started looking up grammar when I had the feeling I had encountered it. For example, i, ka, rul, nun, e ke, etc would pop up all the time and I began to get suspicious. Turns out they are all particles!
Like I said it has been a lot harder to try to read this korean manhua than I thought, and it will take forever for me to make sense of it. BUT! Atleast I know Japanese and that has truly been very helpful.
Korean sentences are pretty much structured like Japanese ones (Subject, Object, Verb-style) and they use particles in pretty much the same way. I just have to remember that "un/nun" is "HA(or wa if you please)" in Japanese and then I know how to use it.
It's easier to translate from Korean to Japanese and vice versa than from/to English.
Also the two languages share many common words, and those are always nice to come by.
So, how many years will pass before I understand what's written in this korean manhua? Not sure, but one day I hope to get there!
Jul 21, 2017
Going to university
Hello again!
Turns out I got into my first choice of university and program. So in about a month I will be moving to Swedens second largest (?) city - Gothenburg, to attend the university of Gothenburg. It's been something I have been looking forward to for so long now and now that it's almost time to start I am starting to feel nervous.
When I came to Japan was the time I did a lot of things for the first time, and I was probably nervous. But at that time atleast I was in a secure position. Everything was taken care of for me, I didn't have to worry! Thanks to the scholarship the plane ticket was taken care of and I had already been guaranteed a dorm room. Also we didn't even have to make our own bank accounts. The school really did everything for us and it was very chill!
But now I am on my own, no one is gonna help me out, give me money, or guarantee that I find an apartment.
The apartment thing I was actually very worried about. In big cities and in cities with popular universities it's very hard to find a place to live. Even where I live, in this shitty little town, the house prices have skyrocketed in the recent years, and if you wanna rent an apartment you most likely have to wait for years before you can find one.
So unlike in Japan where free apartments exist everywhere in abundance, Sweden has a severe lack of them. Even though I had signed up for a waiting list for student apartments almost a year ago, I quickly realised that I should have done it a lot sooner.
I had to give up on finding a student apartment to rent and started looking at private apartments. Most people I found didn't let out the whole apartment, but just a room, and often these rooms were quite pricy. Many were around 4000 sek (54000 yen) for a room in someone elses apartment.
I actually saw "the worst one" today: Someone letting out a part of their livingroom - separated from the livingroom by curtains! Meaning you don't even get your own private space. The monthly rent for this was set to 5000 sek (67.500 yen)! And people were still interested in it... wow.
After sending messages to around 5 people saying I was interested in their rooms I got a bit worried since none of them got back to me. Not until a few days later did one of them call me, and said that he thought I would fit in perfectly in his "student house". It's kinda like a guest house for students, and a total of around 9 students live there. You get your own room and share the rest of the house. The rent is about as cheap as you can get it.
The best part about it is that it is not an apartment but a real house. It has a garden and is close to the beach. It's a bit separated from the city life and a bit far from my school, but other than that it seems perfect and I have high hopes!
So in the end it seems like I did find an "apartment" pretty easily. Though if this person hadn't read my profile and liked it I would probably still be looking for a place, since the other people I sent messages to have yet to respond.
Now I have gotten into uni, and I have a place to live. The only thing left to worry about seems to be the actual studying. And I am worried. We are going to be starting with math and I haven't studied math for like 4 years now!
I am also worried that I wont have time for anything else but school work. When will I get to write, draw, learn languages, play music, if I got all this school work? It's a bit sad to think I might not have time to do all of these things, but I can't let that get me down. I like learning new things and that's why I applied for uni.
This program I applied for seems really interesting, and I want to do a good job. I don't want to fail.
So right now all my browser history is about "how to study effectively in university", haha.
Wish me luck, eh?
Turns out I got into my first choice of university and program. So in about a month I will be moving to Swedens second largest (?) city - Gothenburg, to attend the university of Gothenburg. It's been something I have been looking forward to for so long now and now that it's almost time to start I am starting to feel nervous.
When I came to Japan was the time I did a lot of things for the first time, and I was probably nervous. But at that time atleast I was in a secure position. Everything was taken care of for me, I didn't have to worry! Thanks to the scholarship the plane ticket was taken care of and I had already been guaranteed a dorm room. Also we didn't even have to make our own bank accounts. The school really did everything for us and it was very chill!
But now I am on my own, no one is gonna help me out, give me money, or guarantee that I find an apartment.
The apartment thing I was actually very worried about. In big cities and in cities with popular universities it's very hard to find a place to live. Even where I live, in this shitty little town, the house prices have skyrocketed in the recent years, and if you wanna rent an apartment you most likely have to wait for years before you can find one.
So unlike in Japan where free apartments exist everywhere in abundance, Sweden has a severe lack of them. Even though I had signed up for a waiting list for student apartments almost a year ago, I quickly realised that I should have done it a lot sooner.
I had to give up on finding a student apartment to rent and started looking at private apartments. Most people I found didn't let out the whole apartment, but just a room, and often these rooms were quite pricy. Many were around 4000 sek (54000 yen) for a room in someone elses apartment.
I actually saw "the worst one" today: Someone letting out a part of their livingroom - separated from the livingroom by curtains! Meaning you don't even get your own private space. The monthly rent for this was set to 5000 sek (67.500 yen)! And people were still interested in it... wow.
After sending messages to around 5 people saying I was interested in their rooms I got a bit worried since none of them got back to me. Not until a few days later did one of them call me, and said that he thought I would fit in perfectly in his "student house". It's kinda like a guest house for students, and a total of around 9 students live there. You get your own room and share the rest of the house. The rent is about as cheap as you can get it.
The best part about it is that it is not an apartment but a real house. It has a garden and is close to the beach. It's a bit separated from the city life and a bit far from my school, but other than that it seems perfect and I have high hopes!
So in the end it seems like I did find an "apartment" pretty easily. Though if this person hadn't read my profile and liked it I would probably still be looking for a place, since the other people I sent messages to have yet to respond.
Now I have gotten into uni, and I have a place to live. The only thing left to worry about seems to be the actual studying. And I am worried. We are going to be starting with math and I haven't studied math for like 4 years now!
I am also worried that I wont have time for anything else but school work. When will I get to write, draw, learn languages, play music, if I got all this school work? It's a bit sad to think I might not have time to do all of these things, but I can't let that get me down. I like learning new things and that's why I applied for uni.
This program I applied for seems really interesting, and I want to do a good job. I don't want to fail.
So right now all my browser history is about "how to study effectively in university", haha.
Wish me luck, eh?
Jul 7, 2017
Getting better at drawing by not drawing
I always feel like I get better at drawing after a long break from it.
When I finished manga-school in Japan I didn't draw for probably 2 months and that's not the first time I've gone for months without drawing.
The feeling that "I wanna draw!" isn't always present for me. It comes and goes and sometimes it goes away for a looong time.
But eventually after coming back to Sweden I found myself bored again and started drawing, first just random scribbles as usual but then I picked up some coloring pencils and realized I could actually use them to make since colored drawings.
I used to color with color pencils a lot in upper secondary high school, but I sucked at using them (but back then I sucked at all kinds of drawing) and I thought that since I basically hadn't practiced using them for over 4 years I'd still suck.
But lo and behold I had improved a lot since then! Without any training what so ever!
This was quite a suprise to me and got me thinking that maybe I had improved in other areas too without knowing it. So I started coloring some with water colors (toumeisuisai), which I have only worked with once or twice in Japan and then totally discarded for acrylic colors and "color-inks" which I like better.
I have never liked coloring with water colors and thought my drawings would turn out shitty like they often do when I use water colors, but instead they turned out very nicely. After coloring these drawings I no longer hate water colors!
Like I said, I have barely used these coloring methods recently and to have improved this much by doing what feels like nothing feels great! I think it's not just me, but it's like this for everyone. Sometimes the mind just needs a break to be able to rewire itself and let you see things differently. It's like how maybe you're trying to solve a difficult task and you just don't know what to do, and then after you sleep on it the answer suddenly comes to you.
And it's not just coloring, my lineart and the way I draw my characters has also improved. It's like during those 2 years at manga-school I never drew stuff as well as I can. I never drew characters with very intricate details in the hair, for example. This one teacher always used to tell my that the hairstyles I drew looked bad and stiff, well, now they don't anymore! I wish I could show that teacher my new drawings, cause I know she'd be suprised.
I still have A LOT more to learn about drawing, but atleast I am happy for now with the improvements I've made. I finally feel like I have a handfull of drawings that are of "portfolio-worthy-quality" and I've never felt that before about any of my drawings.
So, I guess the lesson is, even if you like drawing don't be afraid to take breaks some times ^o^
Water Color drawings:
Color pencils drawings:
Digital:
When I finished manga-school in Japan I didn't draw for probably 2 months and that's not the first time I've gone for months without drawing.
The feeling that "I wanna draw!" isn't always present for me. It comes and goes and sometimes it goes away for a looong time.
But eventually after coming back to Sweden I found myself bored again and started drawing, first just random scribbles as usual but then I picked up some coloring pencils and realized I could actually use them to make since colored drawings.
I used to color with color pencils a lot in upper secondary high school, but I sucked at using them (but back then I sucked at all kinds of drawing) and I thought that since I basically hadn't practiced using them for over 4 years I'd still suck.
But lo and behold I had improved a lot since then! Without any training what so ever!
This was quite a suprise to me and got me thinking that maybe I had improved in other areas too without knowing it. So I started coloring some with water colors (toumeisuisai), which I have only worked with once or twice in Japan and then totally discarded for acrylic colors and "color-inks" which I like better.
I have never liked coloring with water colors and thought my drawings would turn out shitty like they often do when I use water colors, but instead they turned out very nicely. After coloring these drawings I no longer hate water colors!
Like I said, I have barely used these coloring methods recently and to have improved this much by doing what feels like nothing feels great! I think it's not just me, but it's like this for everyone. Sometimes the mind just needs a break to be able to rewire itself and let you see things differently. It's like how maybe you're trying to solve a difficult task and you just don't know what to do, and then after you sleep on it the answer suddenly comes to you.
And it's not just coloring, my lineart and the way I draw my characters has also improved. It's like during those 2 years at manga-school I never drew stuff as well as I can. I never drew characters with very intricate details in the hair, for example. This one teacher always used to tell my that the hairstyles I drew looked bad and stiff, well, now they don't anymore! I wish I could show that teacher my new drawings, cause I know she'd be suprised.
I still have A LOT more to learn about drawing, but atleast I am happy for now with the improvements I've made. I finally feel like I have a handfull of drawings that are of "portfolio-worthy-quality" and I've never felt that before about any of my drawings.
So, I guess the lesson is, even if you like drawing don't be afraid to take breaks some times ^o^
Water Color drawings:
Color pencils drawings:
Digital:
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