Elly Otoguro

Haha gorgeous rollerblades ^^ That's why you always look taller =p

Speaking regularly is sure the best way to learn and assimilates a new language. Managed to find a Japanese native in my neck of the woods, and have weekly exchange sessions. Really enjoyable and profitable, for both of us =)

Speaking with native speakers and actually *thinking* in your new language were most helpful to me.
Regarding pure memorisation learning words helped me more than grammar. Grammar as well gets easier when you are not lacking the words to actually say something.

Wow, Danny. What a horrible job you have.

I saw like the first 20 mins of that movie. Then went to bed ._.
Didn't realise it was Elli ^^; Wow, she looks prettier in these photo's ^^

That coffee looks really nice, I like the floral pattern ^o^

Learning a new Lingo (Not Director Lingo language), It's harder than grasping PHP and MySQL. (In my case, I find it hard to learn new languages). I pick up easy remembering words in Japanese. I can't even string together words but simple short single sentences. Then there's the particles and end words that I need to grasp (ga, wo, ni, imasu, masu, shite, etc).

I would be nice to have a conversation with others I suppose.
Danny gave us this website to learn from: http://smart.fm/ (iKnow.co.jp)
And I recomemd trying out Livemocha ^^

Ken seems to be everywhere these days. ^^;

A second language is compulsory to learn together with our first. Well at least in Singapore. Though most Singaporean Chinese are able to converse rather fluently, they can't really write or read too well unless they read all their manga in chinese haha.

...she's so cute! i'm in love..

Her pics here look very different from Danny's other post. Oh well photoshop magic I guess.

Hmm... wonder what kinda wardrobe DC imagegirl will have.

and why is Danny rollerblading in the rain??

completely agree! i have really learned spanish when i finally started to live in Valencia. Before i had studied spanish on grammar books...great to learn something, but in someway, useless to learn how to speak normally with other people!( i want to learn japaneeeeese!)

Learning without using is hard indeed. I learned Mandarin (second) and English (third lingo) about 10-ish years ago, but rarely get the chance to use the Mandarin.. I almost forgot what I learned around 3-ish years ago, and now (thankfully) quiet fluent in written and spoke English.. Took a little more than 5 years to do so, with lots of practice..

amazing!!!

Dude you ROCK! anyway I've been exposed and around the Italian language since I was in the cradle and that gave me the ability to understand when Italian was spoken to me or around me. But, I had no idea how to speak or right. I eventually decided to learn and it took me about a year to speak like a normal Italian (for the most part). Unfortunately other languages I try and learn are not so easy but I'll get it eventually.

Photogenic indeed.
Been learning Mandarin for majority of my life and still haven't got to a comfortable level, just not motivated enough to store everything I learn away and is soon forgotten.

Nice caramel (or not) coffee cream..^Y^

Please tell me you showed up to the meeting in those :D

I hope NHK provide some Danny sleeping footage.
Elly is looking so beautiful ^^

As for learning languages, I haven't quite gotten up to a fluency level yet. I do endeavour to practice it, although I have to juggle language learning in between other school subjects.

the face of a happy man~~

this might be lame but i often end up listening to drama CDs, then picking them to bits to grab whatever grammar i can - sadly not up to speed with written material yet

although i do have some native japanese speaking friends to practice on, it becomes quite awkward asking them ^^;

Have begun taking lesson where we focus mainly on speaking japanese rather than reading it. Man it's hard. As soon as our teacher speeds up a bit I'm at a complete loss, and I really suck at pulling words and grammar from bare memory....

blading in the rain?

Danny, you are an inspiration to us all!

a second after this phot was taken, the zombie hoard overwhelmed danny - the results werent pretty....

Looks like you had a LOT of fun! Nice rollerblades too, I wish I could stand nonchalantly on them like you though...

You are one very lucky man, Mr. Danny!

"Will talk more in depth of how I learned the lingo."
Interesting...
(x3 I read the post about learning Japanese like 20 times already =D, and even bought some stuff that was recommended.)
I'm pretty excited about that more in depth =o.

Nice sweater!

Quote - " NHK continues to follow me for the rest of the day and will be filming you and I for the Tokyo Tour Package later this month. "

Wait, WHAT?!?!?!?!?!!

絶望。。。ORZ U|||

They still have the messageboard at Japan Centre ^^ Well, they did until they had another makeover a few months back, now I can't find it any more ^^;

Epic faraway look, Danny.

Elly Otoguro is really cute. Nice pictures!! ^^

*imagines im in the place of danny at that point of time* =w="

So we shall fart for you Danny. -lets out gas and accidently makes Canada inhabitable except with people with no sense of smell-

You had a cool meeting indeed!
Btw: you went to the meeting using rollerblades?

Nice pics ;)

Kirei~!

Cute Smle.

So, Danny, When are you interviewing Nozomi Sasaki?

Learning a new language. I haven't really officially put forth my efforts to learn just yet. But once I leave my small town community college and transfer to the big uni (UCD) I will be majoring linguistics. And probably end up teaching at that when done.

As such I have been thinking about a number of ways that would make learning much easier. A lot of it relates a bit to what you are talking about.

For example, say your going to learn Japanese. A fun little thing you could do to really help, is learn to write and read Japanese first and foremost. Then use that knowledge and work on translating a manga. When you are able to read the words put in front of you, it is easy to look them up, and with a visual representation, such as a manga, it can reinforce understanding the meaning of the words. (apparently I wasn't the one who has thought of this too, as apparently a friend at Uni has to translate a manga for part of their final)

One thing I know I have picked up, and I am sure most everyone has as well, is that after many years of watching subbed anime, I have picked up on quite a bit of Japanese. I can't truthfully say that I KNOW exactly what some words/phrases are, but there is that pattern recognition. I imagine it's the same as a baby or animal learning. They don't speak the language, but after hearing certain things so many times, they understand what it is they are trying to communicate. I think this boils down to something one of my teachers have said, "Words don't mean, people mean" (meaning we understand the person conveying the message, not the actual message itself)

danny's ninja suit never fails to make appearances xD

Seems like you had fun Danny :) I came to USA when I was in 6th grade and was able to pick up English pretty quickly, took me about a year or so to speak English. I think it took short time since I was pretty young and my brain was able to process it pretty fast. My brother who was 2 years older had much harder time I believe.

I speak Korean as well and Japanese have similar grammar as Korean does, so as long as I know the Japanese words, I can pretty much can say the sentence but unfortunately I don't know many words in Japanese yet ^^; I've been thinking that in order to say you are good at this particular language is when you can speak the language naturally without thinking what it means inside your head, it just comes out. Like if I have to think what something means inside my head in English or Korean before I say it in Japanese, then I'm not fluent in Japanese so to speak. I hope I can attain that level of Japanese one day, despite the fact that I'm not trying hard to study for it >_<

Gotta love the pattern. Its awesome!

Lucky ken. Danny is becoming the guy to know if you wanna meet cute women in Tokyo. lol

docking the dolphin . . .

BIG sweater . . . 8O

you wore roller-blades to keep you feet dry, right? :P

she is amazingly beautiful...

probably one of the most beautiful japanese girls i've seen so far...

Elly as a live-action Mirai? and in her sailor suit ( or female stormtrooper outfit) Epic!!

bet the tv crews had more fun following you around than any other celebrities lol

Quite a day out...and Ken seems to be the happiest...

Hei?? ...I think so...

Looks like a tree stump XD

Love her outfit! ><

Elly's pretty indeed, interesting that the NHK was following you in the rain. Journalism really does not have any barriers.

Kono sukebe! (To the other two admirers of "eyes")

Watch this hand VERY closely!

3D docking successful!

Kawaii ...
Admiration ^^

Nice boat!

fyi, chocolate sauce on top of a froth of milk

Cute :D!

Cute shirt~

So.. how exactly do they make this very awesome design on the coffee/whatever this is? It's so pretty that I don't even wanna drink it..

Freckles FTW.

They draw circles in chocolate syrup on top of the froth and use a toothpick to drag lines inward.

She's very beautiful!

Taking up new language is always a big challenge, and unless you actually want, no, crave for being able to speak it, you'll never get far.
My first foreign language was English. Started learning it in 3rd grade at elementary, but only since 9th grade have I made a significant progress.
Japanese is a different story. Being in love with anime and other Japanese stuff, watching anime regularly and listening to Japanese music, the beginnings were much easier for me than with English. That's because I really wanted to understand the language. I mean, when I was about 10 or so I didn't have any special motivation to learn English. I liked the language, had good marks at school, and was able to hold standard conversations after some 5 years of learning, but that was all. There was no drive that would push me forward. I had to wait for the drive to crawl up into my mind, which happened after some 6 years of learning the language.
Having studied Japanese for about 3 years, I'm definitely far better at it than I was at English after 3 years of studying.

First thought was "Danny is tall"
Then as I scroll down more I burst out laughing.
Well its all about comfort right?

That coffee reminds me of the the shamrocks they carve onto the top of pints of guiness over here ^^

Languages I've always found hard, sucked at Spanish and French in school (chalk that upto a complete lack of motivation when I was younger), but asian ones I don't have so much issues learning to speak, the writing really gets me though; characters are incredibly difficult to learn coming from being used to a 25 letter alphabet. Been studying Chinese for a little over a year and a half now, my speakings pretty passable, reading I could just about get by, but if I have to write anything down, I'm screwed.

danny san?

OMG ken is a lucky man! I'm sure he had sweet dreams that night.

Good advice, I should use the Japanese we see in class more as I find my level is not increasing much due to lack of practice.

I like

BBs the contact phone

I really like :)

RL yuri? lol~~

very good barister who did that pattern on the coffee ;)

Toothpick froth & chocolate haha. I can make icky patterns :/

shes sooo cute!

What kind of fashion is this ?

Elly-chan is too darn cute!! So, the pair of roller blades you were wearing make sense now since you look much more taller than both of them.

Why ARE you wearing rollerblades? When you mentioned that she was in Ryukendo, I was thinking 'huh, really?' Through the whole article, I was trying to remember which character she was, until the middle of the end, when I remembered.

super kawaii!

mitsubishi montero sport???

gun holster? jk

Hey Danny, this is a very nice coat your're wearing. Know if there's someplace online where I can get one like it?

She looks a bit like Endo Mai from Idoling ;p

True friends Im thinking! Nice to see!

To me, her family name reads as "Strange Blackness" ^^;

A second language is compulsory to learn together with our first. Well at least in Singapore. Though most Singaporean Chinese are able to converse rather fluently, they can't really write or read too well unless they read all their manga in chinese haha.

wow... strange vocab word for Elly...

"Little Porcupine"

lucky bro...

not the coffee!! i can't swim!!

I want a japanese handphone...=[

This means glass. ^^

i love her dimples

beauty smile