Day One (9/6/17)
Today is technically my second day of actually studying Japanese but I didn't make a post for yesterday so I'll do a quick summary of that on here.
So I reviewed all my hiragana and katakana! It took me about three hours to go over both of these while writing them down. I practiced writing the symbols and made sure I understood both of them! I used Tofugu's mnemonics for both hiragana and katakana. To further make sure I retained the information I also did these "games" called hiragana/katakana drag-n-drop which is like a matching game. It was a great study session and I had a very successful review.
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| My Hiragana and Katakana Practice! |
Today I studied so much. I think it's all I did, which isn't a bad thing. Clearly if I studied like this in high school I would have passed Calculus. Anyway, lets get to the meat of the matter. To my nonexistent audience, for those of you who have seen my calligraphy blog, you know that I like to structure my blog posts in a specific way by using questions that help me break down that specific day's practice into more understandable pieces. If I didn't, everything would just be a giant blob of tangents. So, I am going to be using the same format! It really works for me and I realized that recording my learning process like this is really beneficial for me.
So I didn't do this for the previous day (unfortunately) but that was because I didn't know that I could make another blog! Also yesterday's session wasn't incredibly full like today's was. I think I need to do a post because I feel like I'm going to forget everything I did if I don't write it down. Hopefully this doesn't go on for too long but I feel like I might end up typing a ridiculous amount. Actually since no one reads this, it should be okay.
What did I do today?
I did so much. Let's see if I can remember everything I did. I began by doing a little review of my hiragana and katakana.
Then I used Textfugu which is an online Japanese textbook for self learners! I had originally used this way back in the year when I first became interested in learning Japanese. The textbook is meant for self learners and gives you the first "season" free. It's broken up into seasons and I really enjoy using this website! So much so that I actually decided to invest in myself and pay $20.00 for the rest of the seasons. This is a monthly thing, so I'm using this as a personal challenge to finish all the seasons before October 7 which is when I would have to pay another $20. I am not interesting in paying an additional $20 so this is definitely a huge motivator to work HARD.
So using Textfugu, I reviewed my Hiragana and my Katakana. I also downloaded Anki which is a spaced repetition flashcards app that really helps with memorization. Then I moved onto learning my first verb which is desu and learned how to ask a question. Finally Textfugu talked a bit about kanji so I took some notes on that and started learning parts of Kanji which are called radicals.
How do I feel?
I feel extremely motivated and I know I'm in the honeymoon stage of my learning. I said it with my calligraphy blog but I know soon I'm going to hit a rough patch. But it is the first time I'm putting money down for something like Textfugu and I will NOT let myself waste that money. The site said that it took people about 1-2 months per season. I finished the first season within a day so I know if I work hard, I can get through this. The thing that I love so much about Textfugu is how interesting and engaging it is as a learning tool. It always talks about the whys and the reasons behind presenting certain information in a specific way. I can absorb the information in a much easier way and enjoy myself while doing it. It teaches you how to not only learn Japanese but to also be a better learner in general. I just feel so excited for tomorrow.
What am I struggling with?
There's a lot of information and I am definitely struggling to recall certain things. I know these take type and with continuous review, eventually this information will go into my long term memory. It definitely gets frustrating when I can't recall a certain kana. I also sometimes forget the stroke order for hiragana and katakana which can be annoying since I do want to correctly write it. I know I just need to practice way more. Tomorrow is definitely going to be filled with not only learning new stuff but with tons of review.
What did I learn today?
Like I mentioned before, I learned the verb desu and how adding ka can make it a question. I learned Hai! which is yes and how I can add that to the beginning of the sentence to answer the question. I learned that Kanji are made up of radicals and the best trick to learn the dreaded kanji easily and much more quickly is to learn the radicals first. Many people simply learn through stroke order but in all honestly that really difficult. It's like learning English words by the way we write lines and dots. Instead it makes much more sense to learn letters in order to build words, right? Much like that, learning radicals, which are like the "letters" of kanji, to learn kanji (vocabulary) is a better system. I also learned about the 80-20 rule. So to sum it up, 20% of what I learn will make up about 80% (or more) of commonly used Japanese kanji. So instead of trying to learn every single kanji, it is way more beneficial to focus on the kanji that will actually be used in life. Besides reviewing hiragana and katakana, I also reviewed/learned dakuten which are hiragana and katakana with diacritics that change the sounds. I also went over combination hiragana which use ya, yu, and yo in conjunction with other kana to produce different sounds. Small tsu was also learned which is used for double consonants. (ex: ipon vs ippon) I learned some new vocabulary but those were all simple words, maybe like 6 in total.
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