Posted September 6th, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Japanese
I haven’t touched my Japanese lessons for the last three weeks. Two of those were spent on assignments (or avoiding those assignments) and the last recovering from those assignments and setting up Muse’s Success. Beginning Monday, I’m going to resume the lessons from JapanesePod101, retest myself on the 20 something Hiragana I had memorised when I had to leave it, begin on the remaining Hiragana and hopefully begin getting somewhere again. It’s a long road, but it will be worth it. 
Posted August 17th, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Japanese
First half of Hiragana memorised well enough. On to the second half now, I made the mistake of attempting them all at once though. Must try less at one time.
I learned some particles and about state of being which has increased my ability to create sentences. Not sure I have these ones completely memorised though.
I think I’m going through to fast. I need to slow down. I look at the amount of characters I’ll have to learn and well it seems kind of, hopeless. But I know thinking that way will only be harmful to progress.
Posted August 12th, 2008 by Chris Clarke
Filled under: Japanese
Yeah, I’ve attempted this before, but never made a serious attempt. I did take Japanese in my first two years of Secondary College but I didn’t learn anything beyond the basics and dropped it once I had the chance in Year 9. The second attempt occurred in Year 12, but I was swamped in work, and among other things, suffering from a lot of sleep deprivation which resulted in me falling asleep when I got home and was supposed to be studying. The teachers hated that.
Now, I’ve been talking about learning it properly for awhile now and yesterday I decided to actually make a serious attempt at it. I’ll admit to being caught in the moment a bit, but I actually have a chance to make this work this time. I think. I hope.
Ebi-kun seems encouraging and I’m sure I’ll annoy her way to much with pointless newbie questions.
I made 16 flash cards with adjectives yesterday, and last night I found some software called Human Japanese which seems pretty good. I promptly got a hold of a copy and have been going through it. The pronunciation is a hassle, as English speakers have thousands of possible sounds that changes according to a letters placement in a word. Japanese however, I only have to pronounce around 110 or so sounds which in a way makes it simpler because I don’t have to learn to make new sounds with my mouth, but then I have a lot of habits as an English speaker that will be hard to break but will be necessary, if I am not going to sound like a total fool.
Anyway, kind of skimming the pronunciation at the moment (I’m having difficulty although I have voice samples to imitate and a wealth of description!), and I’ve progressed to the next section which is about Writing Hiragana, so I’ve made like 16 flash cards with Hiragana on them and I’m attempting to memorise them and their respective sounds. So I guess a goal with be to be able to read Hiragana and Katakana by the end of the month, and write them within 3 months. Kanji can wait, I do not look forward to those. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to slowly commit to memory common adjectives, particles and verbs as I see them as a necessity. I’ll pick nouns up as needed and hopefully eventually build a vocabulary that will allow me to guess things based on context rather then having to look them up every single time.
The eventual goal is to be fluent, but for now I’m aiming to understand TV shows without subtitles and carry on a conversation whether in Romanji or Kana.
Does anyone have any advice or tips? words of encouragement? If so, I would be appreciative.