Just a bit about me

No review this time, just me rambling.

I'm currently in the process of teaching myself Katakana. A little harder than Hiragana, but easy enough. I really wish my community college had Japanese language courses, but unfortunately it doesn't. I'm the kinda girl that needs to have regular scheduled things to improve in anything. For instance, tennis in high school was awesome, because I had to be at practice 5 days a week without fail. I improved greatly. But now that I am out of high school, I play once a week at best. Not much way to improve playing so little. I feel like I'm like that with Japanese. I get spurts of teaching myself, but it's hard for me to sit down and make a daily schedule, mostly because I have classes to worry about already.

I know it's one excuse after another, but I know I'd advance in my learnings much quicker with a class stamping a grade on my progress. Regardless, I'm doing what I can before I transfer. I don't graduate with my Associates till December of this year... that means many more months to go! It's taking me a lot of self control not letting myself transfer before I get my Associates, because I know I'll be saving a lot of money and headaches if I do it this way. Oh to be reckless...

I recently signed up for Lang-8.com. The website seems really great, but I'm definitely not as far along as I need to be to actually start practicing the language. Regardless, I think this website it very fun! Native speakers can correct your posts on the website (you post in the language you are trying to learn) and you can do the same. It feels all community like :). I also signed up for mixi.com, which is pretty much the Japanese equivalent of Facebook. I'm definitely not ready to practice on that, but I wanted to make one before the loophole vanished :D. The website tries really hard to only let Japan residing inhabitants to sign up, but thankfully Koichi at Tofugu.com found a loophole for all of us foreigners!

I'm so anxious to get my life rolling! I have a path all planned out for me, which is so comforting to have really. When I was a freshman in college I had no idea what I wanted to do. But an interpretor sounds just about right for me. I'm excited for the future even though it's so far away. I'm even nervous about whether I will get accepted as a JET ALT and that's years away! I might just be jumping the gun here...

I just learned what a weeabo was the other day 0_o. I never thought there were such people, and I hope I'm not mistaken for one!

Hiragana Book Review

Title: Remembering the Kana (Part one: Hiragana)
Author: James W. Heisig
Rating: ***** 5/5 stars














This book is amazing. I cannot stress how much Heisig helped me learn hiragana. And you know what? It only took 2-3 hours! Maybe more with a few extra notes I looked over, regardless Heisig promises you will learn the hiragana within 3 hours in the beginning.

It's interesting the methods he uses to help you memorize that kana, but by far the most useful. Instead of mindlessly copying down the hiragana over and over. He gives you both key words and components connected with imagery to remember the kana and strokes. What makes this help is he continues to use the same image components when the shapes reoccur. Interesting things like puppy dog tails and daggers. It is much better than simply associating the individual hiragana with individual images such as I have seen in other author's works. It is easy to mix up the shape later on that way.

Another interesting approach Heisig conducts is the idea the hiragana should be memorized in a different order rather than the standard dictionary way. The pages and hiragana are all in order of a Japanese dictionary, but as you progress you jump pages in what he thinks is an easier and better way to learn. And that it is. Heisig also asks you to keep track of how long it takes to complete each lesson, and at the end you add up all the minutes. That's how I found I that I memorized the hiragana within 3 hours like he promised.

I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone. For I know officially can read and write the hiragana, and it only took 3 hours spread out within 3 days.