Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Author: Sensei

  • Learning Another Language as an Adult

    Learning Another Language as an Adult

    Since there are a few Glibs here trying to learn another language I thought I’d share my experience.  In my case I’m studying Japanese but will structure my experience here into what has worked well for me generally. If there is interest, in a follow-up post I’ll discuss what worked and didn’t work for me specifically learning Japanese.

    Get Motivated

    First and foremost, you are going to need something to keep you motivated. If you have no compelling interest in the language or a desire to use it, you are going to find it very difficult to study and retain much as an adult.  When you are younger, for example in high school and college, your ability to learn is much better than when you are older.

    My interest in Japanese was twofold, first I’d always been curious about the country and the culture and second, I’d been told it was a very difficult language for an English  speaker to learn.  I can confirm the second part, but I turned it into a source of motivation.  I wasn’t going to let its difficult nature beat me.  However, honestly, looking back I’m not sure I’d do it again. I’ve no intention of moving to Japan and no professional need for it. It was simply something I chose do as an intellectual stretch. I wanted to learn something that was in no way related to my career which is heavy on math, finance.  However, I have made some wonderful friends as a result of my studies which was truly unexpected.

    Find a Schedule

    I have the misfortune to spend over an hour a half every weekday commuting by train to Manhattan.  Rather than spend this time simply surfing on the phone, with the exception of glibertarians.com of course, I put this uninterrupted time into studying.  This equates to about seven hours or so each week of “found” study time.

    Find a Class or a Partner or Even Better Both

    There is plenty to be gained by self-study, but I’m astounded by the amount of people on the internet who want to learn a language only through self-study.  It’s a language – the whole point is communication.  For somebody learning Japanese he or she may only want to watch anime or read manga and feels self-study is perfectly appropriate. I think you’re setting yourself up for a huge case of disappointment.  An instructor, preferably with native fluency, is an invaluable resource to help you understand a language. While you can’t beat a physical class to fully understand nuance, thanks to the internet there are many, many live language classes that are available online through things like Skype.  Personally, I have a formal class for two hours once a week after work.

    I also do a language exchange with three partners in Japan.  One of my partners is email only while the other two are Skype calls of one hour each week.  We do roughly half the call in Japanese and the other half in English.  They help me with my Japanese and I help them learn English.  I won’t lie and say that as a relatively introverted person that this was particularly easy to do.  The first six months or so getting to know everyone was really a struggle, however they have become true friends.  They are also an invaluable resource.  I can email them to ask them questions and unlike my teacher at my formal class they are friends.  I can ask them about colloquial usage and impolite words and phrases that my instructor won’t or doesn’t want to discuss.

    YouTube, (Niconico), Movies and TV

    I can’t imagine what it was like trying to learn a language and find content before all the various video sites.   I’m very much of an auditory learner so watching YouTube is a terrific way for me to learn.  I’m fortunate that Japan is a karaoke culture so lots of music has the lyrics available.  The music itself also helps me remember vocabulary.  However, like English music, Japanese lyrics aren’t necessarily grammatical.  I also watch plenty of news and talk shows in Japanese simply to try to follow the conversations.

    Naturally I watch movies, TV and anime as well.  Here you must be careful.  Specific to Japanese there are various levels of politeness and the spoken language has gender differences.  So, unless you want to sound like a female samurai you need to understand the context of what you are watching and not simply repeat things you hear in videos.

    Be Wary of Shortcuts

    I can’t count the number of web site devoted to learning Japanese in short time periods or various “hacks” for learning Japanese.  If learning another language was really that easy don’t you think we’d all be learning another two or three?  I suppose if you are a fluent Spanish speaker learning Portuguese you have a shot a fluency in six months.  For the rest of us I’d suggest that it’s going to be a matter of putting in the time.  And, from my experience, if you’re over 40 be prepared for lots of it.  Younger students in my Japanese class kick my ass.  Yes, I’ve picked up many learning shortcuts over the years, but you can’t beat the younger brain for learning new things.

     

     

  • The Three Way Contour

    On the side… On the back… On the front…  No Glibs, it’s not that kind of three way we’re talking about.  This particular THREE WAY is a “Contour” watch made by Hamilton Watch Company of Lancaster Pennsylvania for only two years – 1938 and 1939.  It was a massive market failure and as a result is one the more highly desirable watches made by Hamilton because of its scarcity.  The watch sold so poorly that Hamilton bought back all remaining stock from its retailers, removed the movements to re-use them in more popular case styles and recycled the Contour cases.

    The New THREE-WAY “Contour”

    So called “driver’s watches” that could be worn on the side of the wrist became trendy in the late 1930s.  The Contour was Hamilton’s answer this trend.  Hamilton watches were arguably one of the best mass produced watches of the time.  Many would say they are better than anything almost anything of the period except for some limited production Swiss watches.  In terms of massed produced watches the American brands were generally superior to the mass produced Swiss watches of the same time.

    For whatever reason it’s also the watch that my maternal grandfather wore.  I’m not sure if he liked the style or simply got a deal on a watch that didn’t sell especially well.  Sadly, I never got the chance to ask him about this particular watch as I found it when cleaning out a closest in the basement after he died.  Fortunately, I was close to my grandfather and we did talk about many other things.

    Restored Hamilton Contour – Click for Full Size Image

    When I found the watch it was missing its band and buckle as well as its stem and crown.  It also had a cracked crystal.  Luckily as a Hamilton collector I had an original stem and crown in my parts collection.  For a band I used a period correct pigskin band with a period correct gold filled buckle.  I was able to order a replacement plastic crystal that you see in my photos from a parts house.  However, later a fellow collector sent me a new old stock original mineral glass crystal after he found out I was restoring a family piece.

    The movement in the watch is a Caliber 980 – a 14/0 size tonneau shaped movement that is about 19mm or 0.73 inches in length.  The 980 was commonly used in Hamilton’s gold filled cased watches.

    Hamilton 980 Movement

    This is the original and correct movement to my grandfather’s watch.  However, for Hamilton’s higher end and solid gold movements they also made a more highly finished version of this movement called the 982.  Functionally it’s identical to the 980, but has more jeweling and finishing.  It is one of my absolute favorite Hamilton movements.

    Hamilton 982 Movement

    In the old days watchmakers would inscribe the inside of the case every time the watch was brought in for service.  These cases are far from dust proof and the lubricants of the time also evaporated relatively quickly.  As a result watches of the period needed to be serviced every 2 to 4 years.  Here is the case back of the watch.

    Contour Case Back

    And here is a close up of the service marks:

    Service Marks – Click for Full Size Image

    It appears the watch was serviced from 1939 through 1955.  Each watchmaker had a different code and style for service marks so it is difficult to be 100% sure.  Today we don’t scar a watch like this. We use a Sharpie to note the date that we last serviced the watch and remove it with solvent when we clean the watch again.  With modern synthetic lubricants and gentle usage of the watch you can easily get a decade or more between services.

    The case is gold filled which means it is made of brass with thin sheets of gold applied to either side of the brass and bonded to it under high pressure.  The thicker the gold the longer it will last, but it almost always wears through on the high spots and the edges of the case.  After a decade or so of usage by my grandfather the corners on the top of the case have worn through.  There is no way to repair it.  Folks have tried to electroplate the cases, but it generally doesn’t work well.  It’s a problem with watches from this era as many case styles were only available in gold filled.  Here is how the case is constructed:

    Case Back
    Front of Case
    Underside of Case

    The dial of the watch is made with sterling silver and has solid gold applied numerals. I’ve never gotten a good answer as to what karat gold the numerals are.  The consensus is 18K.   The hands are gold plated.  The dial is one of the most fragile parts of the watch.  There are firms that specialize in restoring dials, but collectors prefer originality if at all possible.  Best I can tell this dial is original, but during routine service of the day it wasn’t uncommon for the dial to be sent out for repair as part of a general service.

    Contour Dial

    Values for Contours in good condition are anywhere between $500 and $1,000 US.  Needless to say for me, the watch is priceless and is basically the only watch in my collection that I wouldn’t sell.

  • When Timepieces Were Made to Last

    I’ve noticed that Glibs seem to enjoy the finer things in life and finely made things.  So I figured I’d combine the two here.  Now that SP has given us the ability to edit in WordPress it seemed an opportune time to share some pictures of an old hobby.  Before  work  responsibilities and old age in the form of poor eyesight and loss of dexterity caught up with me I used to collect and repair vintage watches.  I specialized in the Hamilton brand.  This allowed me to become familiar with their various movements and to acquire parts for repair.

    From our friends at Wiki:

    The Hamilton Watch Company had its genesis as an American watch design and manufacturing company, which incorporated in 1892 and produced its first watch in 1893.

    After its formation, the Hamilton Watch Company went on to manufacture and market pocket watches and wristwatches, ending American manufacture in 1969. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the Hamilton Watch Company became a diversified conglomerate itself and was subsequently integrated into the Swatch group.

    I don’t collect anything made after 1969 and their acquisition by the Swiss.  After that point their watches used Swiss movements.  Interestingly enough, variations of those Swiss movements are still in use today in many Swiss made mechanical watches.

    Assembled!
    Hamilton 12 size pocket-watch

    This is a Hamilton 12 size gentleman’s pocket watch.  For pretty much everyone who has no idea what that means it is 39.79 mm or 1.567 inches in diameter.  That’s the width of the movement inside the watch not including the case or the crown.

    This particular example is a Grade 922 movement made in 1927.  Approximate total production was 14,000 units and they were made from 1924 to 1936.

    Smaller pocket watches like this generally don’t have much appeal to American watch collectors.  They prefer “railroad watches” which is a whole topic into itself.  However, this watch is an exception.  It meets all of the criteria for a so called “railroad watch” with the exception of the size – it is too small to be classified as such.

    The case is 14K yellow gold, the dial is stirling silver and the hands are blued steel.  It’s a beautiful timepiece.  But what I find most interesting about it are the parts that very few people see.  The entire watch is is engine turned or what for American and some German watches is known as damascening.

    Here is a picture of the assembled movement in the watch:

    And now for the interesting bits!  This is the “plate” on which the watch is assembled.

    Top Plate

    Notice all the wonderful engine turning.

    Here is the other side known as the bottom plate which is actually the hands side of the watch:

    Bottom Plate

    The bridges go across the top plate:

    Bridges

    Those are “genuine synthetic” rubies set in gold that give watches their “number of jewels”.  In this case 23 jewels and the watch is manually adjusted to keep time in 5 positions.

    These are gears of the watch known in the trade as the “wheels”:

    Gold Wheels

    Watch wheels are almost exclusively made from brass, but in this case they are made from real gold.  The reason for the material choice was partly because of the metal’s softness, but mostly because of aesthetics.

    Here is the heart of the watch – the balance wheel:

    Balance Wheel

    This is an old fashioned, blue steel spring, split bi-metallic balance wheel.  The screws on the outside are there to balance the wheel.  Naturally they are gold as well!  Because the wheel is made from two different metals the diameter will change as the temperature changes.  This is how the watch keeps accurate time when the temperature changes.

    Modern mechanical watches are laser balanced and use a proprietary white metal alloy hairspring that compensates for temperature. The balance wheel in your modern Rolex is a solid piece.

    Here’s a beauty shot of the the assembled movement out of the case:

    Hamilton 922 Movement

    And here is the sterling silver dial which is interestingly stamped “Switzerland” on the back:

    Swiss Dial

    And finally the cased watch.  Notice this has essentially two “backs”.  It has a hinged dust cover for the just the movement itself and another cover for the back of the watch. And naturally they are both made out of 14K gold!

    Case and Dust Cover

    As I don’t often wear suits to work anymore I don’t carry this watch much anymore.  I guess I’ll have to find an excuse to wear it again.

  • Japanese Loanwords

    You’re 10% of the way to speaking Japanese with this one trick

    Now that we’ve got the click bait headline out of the way let’s get down to today’s lesson – basic Japanese pronunciation and how English is used and pronounced in everyday Japanese. One study suggests anywhere between 5% to 10% of modern Japanese is derived from English.

    For a refresher on the needlessly complex writing systems used in Japanese I refer you back to fellow Glib straffinrun’s 5 Minute Japanese Lesson and Another 5 Minute Japanese Lesson.

    We are just teaching Japanese pronunciation and loanwords so we are just going to use katakana and the western derived romaji. Romaji is the Japanese word for the roman characters that western language speakers already know. In the context of Japanese romaji is what is used to teach the gaijin and for signs and such within Japan to assist westerners.

    Naturally, the Japanese couldn’t be bothered to use the same version of romaji that is used to teach foreigners, Hepburn, and created their own version called Kunrei-shiki. For our purposes, the two are mostly the same.

    For those keeping count that means that are four “official” ways to write Japanese – kanji, hiragana, katakana, and romaji.

    It sounds like what?

    To an English speaker Japanese doesn’t share much vocabulary with English compared to Romance languages. It also has very different grammar and sentence construction. However, for an English speaker the pronunciation is very straightforward. Almost all the sounds in Japanese are already used in English. That means with a relatively short lesson we can have you able to read and pronounce Romanized Japanese words like names, places, movie titles, etc.

    Let’s review the following chart:

    The first row is katakana and the second row is romaji. We are only focusing on the reassuring roman characters at the bottom of each box. Focusing on just the “vowel” section the first row goes – a, i, u, e, o. The next row is ka, ki, ku, ke, ko. Are you beginning to see the pattern? It’s generally consonant (or consonant with a “y” sound) plus a, i, u, e, o.

    Japanese generally doesn’t have the same concept as consonants and vowels in English. Instead Japanese’s building blocks are mora, essentially syllables. The chart above contains essentially every basic sound in Japanese. If you can pronounce these syllables then you can say anything in Japanese.

    Don’t read Romanized Japanese as English!

    The biggest mistake English speaker make is reading Romanized Japanese as English. There are no “long vowels” and “short vowels”. The vowels sounds for Japanese are:

    A – sounds like the “a” in father
    I – sounds like “ea” in “seat”
    U – sounds like “oo” in “boo” as in what you say when you want to startle somebody
    E – sounds like the “e” in “set”
    O – sounds like “o” in “so”

    English:

    • Ban – prohibit (short “a”)
    • Bane – a cause of great distress or annoyance (long a because of the “e” at the end)

    Japanese:

    • Bane (ばね)- spring (e.g. coil, leaf). It’s pronounced “bah neigh”. Notice unlike ban and bane that the Japanese is TWO syllables.

    That’s really the biggest obstacle to reading Romanized Japanese – remember to only pronounce the vowels one way and to make the consonant and vowel pairs form syllables.

    All the other stuff…

    Naturally, it’s not quite that simple there are few other quirks and things to keep in mind.

    • The “R” sound. Surprising few people, Japanese speakers have trouble distinguishing between “R” and “L”. Part of that reason is that depending on the word the sound fluctuates between what an English speaker hears as an “R” and “L”. In Japanese, the ra, ri, ru, re, ro row isn’t pronounced like an English “R”. The tongue starts at the top of the palate. I’m not a Spanish speaker, but have read it’s very similar to a Spanish “R”.
    • Intonation and stress in Japanese is very different from English. It most certainly DOES exist, but for an English speaker trying to not sound ridiculously wrong in Japanese you are better off pronouncing everything “flat” and give equal weight to all the syllables. You’ll pretty much be wrong 100% of the time, but you will sound much more natural and mostly be understood. Much more so than using English stress.
    • The “tsu” sound. This one just doesn’t exist in English. You are probably familiar with the word “tsunami”. It sounds a bit like clicking your tongue and saying the name “Sue”. Touching your tongue to the roof of your mouth is the key here and it is important as that is how you distinguish from the Japanese “su” sound. This distinction can be quite difficult to hear initially.
    • The one “consonant” in Japanese ン or ん “N”. It’s a bit of an oddball, but the sound is the same as English. You are probably familiar with it from “hello” or “good day”, こんにちは or koN ni chi wa. Notice how this word doesn’t read or sound the way you are used to hearing it. That “N” attaches to the first syllable and phrase is FOUR syllables long.
    • The small “tsu” or ッ. The small “tsu” in romaji is written as doubled consonant. I honestly have no idea how this crazy double consonant convention came to be. It’s used to signify a pause and has no effect on pronunciation. For example, ブック or bukku which can be used for “book”. In this you say “bu” briefly pause and say “ku”.
    • I’ve saved the trickiest one for last. You will read doubled vowel sounds in romaji. Like the small “tsu” above this has nothing to with how the vowel sounds, instead it means you prolong the vowel sound. For example, ビル or “biru” means “building”. But ビール or “biiru” means “beer”. To say the word imagine it taking THREE syllables worth of time, but said as only TWO syllables – BII RU with an extension of the first sound.
      • Tokyo – English spelling for the capital of Japan
      • 東京- kanji for Tokyo and normally what you see in public signs
      • But Tokyo can be properly written as とうきょう – in hiragana. Note the う character here. That’s telling you the Tokyo is pronounced “toukyou” (Hepburn) or Tōkyō (Kunrei-shiki). The marks over the “o” here tell you to extend the length of the vowel, but NOT to change the pronunciation. You’ll note here the doubled vowel is two different vowels o and u, but the sound is still “o”.

    OK, let’s put our knowledge to work

    Surprisingly, Wikipedia has lengthy page on gairaigo and wasei-eigo which mean “foreign words” and “Japanese-English words” respectively. I’ll pull some highlights here that you might find interesting. Naturally there are many, many more than what I’ve highlighted here and on the Wiki page.

    For extra credit

    I’ve selected an especially “useful” YouTube video for you to practice your newfound Japanese language skills. Like lots of J-Pop it contains actual English choruses to be “trendy” plus the English that has become part everyday usage in Japanese. Both English and Japanese subtitles are available if you click on the CC symbol.

    I’d recommend watching it with English subtitles first so you can hear how Japanese people pronounce English. Big issues for Japanese speakers are the “th” sound and the final “t” sound in English. So for example. “thank you” becomes サンキュー or “san kyuu” and “heart” becomes ハート or “haato”.

    If your stomach can take it I’d suggest watching it a second time with the Japanese subtitles. In the Japanese subtitles where you see English sentences and characters that’s an intentional insertion of English to be cool. Where you see English written in katakana that’s English that is in everyday use in Japanese language.

    MV full】 ヘビーローテーション / AKB48 [公式]