Leap Year - Progress Update - Day 162

皆さんこんばんは。

Here I am on day 162 of learning Japanese! I thought that Leap Day would be a good day for a post. In less than a month I will be at my six month mark. Time has gone so quickly. I've been working really hard using Anki to learn new words and I do my best to use and remember them even though it's difficult for me. I figure as long as I'm moving forward and learning, growing, and understanding more that's all that matters. I also still make sure to use JapanesePod101 and learn a little new grammar everyday.

Lately when I'm out driving around I try to stay in Japanese the whole time. If I'm by myself when driving I talk out loud to myself, and when I'm grocery shopping, etc. I think in Japanese as much as possible. It's kind of fun to think in Japanese enough to feel a little weird switching back to English. Keep in mind my level of speaking/thinking in Japanese pretty much goes like this: これは車です。このペンは黒です。その車は黄色です。あの木は多きです。その店は高いです。その食べ物は安いです。For those that can't read this, what I wrote says "This is a car. This pen is black. That car is yellow. That tree over there is big. That store is tall. That food is cheap."

Another thing I tried the other day was while watching tv I had to identify in Japanese one thing on each frame of the show I was watching. Or I had to describe what was going on. So for example on the particular show there were a lot of nature scenes and families doing activities together so I would think 草 "grass" when the scene showed a field of grass, 家族 "family" when the scene showed a family together, or 女の子は走っています "girl is running" when a girl was running.

I feel both awesome and super juvenile at the same time when I do this. Gotta practice the basics though. I figure it's good for me to stay in Japanese even if I feel like a two year old. I'm having a hard time doing better sentences than this. I want to be able to think in Japanese and say things that are about what I think and feel about things, not just describing things. I'm really trying but I also feel like I'm struggling. I just need more practice in the right ways. I guess after learning for 162 days I feel like that is long enough that I should be able to do more with my vocabulary than how I feel I'm doing. I have done lang-8 to try and help me with this but I need to do more than that, or just do it a lot more often. We'll see. This is what I feel is my biggest hurdle at the moment. Part of the problem is that all the things I struggle with are things that are hurdles for me in my native language of English as well. Most of my English language encounters are about simple boring things and not generally concerning my thoughts or feelings.

In fun news, I have been practicing my writing more. I ordered a brush pen and got it in the mail today and was excited to try it out. Here's some writing I did today first using the thick end and next trying the thin end of the pen:

In the second photo I wrote all the first year 一年生 kanji. In the first photo I just wrote a few of the first year kanji and also accidentally wrote on the left side of the paper. Oops! I was so excited to try out my new pen I guess. 

Can't wait to see how I've progressed by my next post! 

じゃまたね。

Day 150!

皆さんこんばんは。

Here I am on day 150 of learning Japanese! I've been continuing to practice everyday using mostly Anki and my various grammar resources. I also listen to at least one audio and/or video lesson per day on JapanesePod101. Since starting this phase of studying on January 21, I've only missed a couple days of studying due to extenuating circumstances on those days. Life happens! :)

I've been focusing a lot on being able to read. Being able to read real Japanese without furigana over the kanji is a big goal of mine. So far it's going really well. I try to read articles on NHK World News and some other books I have. I've even been trying to read ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石 aka Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I haven't gotten very far reading it yet but I've been mostly working on my 35+ new words per day in Anki. 

I finally got around to doing another post on Lang-8 the other day. I need to do more of that so I can get better at making more complex sentences. I do ok with basic sentences about simple topics. It's when it gets into more important stuff or thoughts/feelings that I need a lot of practice. I also need more practice on conjugating verbs into terms other than present so I can improve on them even though I know some.

It's been interesting to see how I'm able to retain new words pretty well despite the high amount of words I'm trying to learn each day. There are some that are harder for me than others that take quite a while but some come a little easier. Sometimes I dream about the new words I'm learning or I often get a specific challenging word stuck in my mind until I seem to have it down.

I don't have an exact on how many words I know at this point, and I'm still working on many of them. I also just have an estimate since I can't be completely exact since I have to eliminate all the overlapping words that are the same. My best estimate is that I know around 3000 words right now. That is pretty exciting! That averages out to be about 20 words per day since I started, which sounds about right. That has been my usual pace most of the time in learning new vocabulary words.

I have also been working on learning to write kanji. It really doesn't seem as hard as many people make it out to be. I write in kana constantly everyday when I study, and it sure can be a space saver and more helpful to know how to write the kanji and not have to do everything long-hand in kana. 

Here is some writing practice I did yesterday:

Most of the kanji are pretty logical in stroke order, and of course many components/radicals follow the same stroke order each time. I'm excited to see how I'll progress as I learn how to properly write more characters.

Can't wait to see where I'm at next time I update!

じゃまたね。

Progress Update - Day 135

皆さんこんばんは。

Here I am on day 135 of learning Japanese! I've been working hard doing all the cards in my Anki decks each day and it's been awesome to see myself progress. Words that seem hard one day aren't so hard the next. The human brain is amazing. In addition to using Anki to do a lot of my studying, I've been faithful about listening to JapanesePod101 everyday. Sometimes I just listen to one lesson, other times a couple. It just depends on how much time I have or how I'm feeling that day. I also have been making a bigger effort to speak Japanese daily. Even if I'm just thinking in Japanese or talking to myself as I drive I've found everything getting easier little bits at a time as each day passes.

I have also been continuing to study grammar in little bits each day. Doing just a little each day really takes off the pressure but really adds up. I alternate using A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, English Grammar for Students of Japanese, and Tae Kim's guide. I've been going by whatever question I have each day to guide my grammar studies. It been much better than just reading things straight through. That's painful and boring.

I've been doing well in increasing my vocabulary. I've been learning around 35ish words per day. When I average the approximate number of words I know at this point over the 135 days I've been learning it averages out to be about 20 words learned per day since I first started. It's exciting to see my reading comprehension increase as well. The Anki deck I'm using doesn't baby me too much so I've made a lot of progress knowing the various readings associated with each kanji as I add to my vocabulary without having to rely on furigana too much. It's a great feeling when I know the correct reading for a kanji. This goes for newer words I'm learning as well as also getting better at recognizing the correct kanji/readings for words I've learned previously. I'm really trying hard. 

I really do love the Japanese writing system. I loved it as a kid, and love it still. I hope to find the best way to learn to actually write the characters by hand at some point, but I'm not going to get too worked up over it. I've been writing in hiragana a lot the last couple weeks and it would be so much better if I could write the kanji without having to look up the proper order each time on every character. I know a lot of people don't need to or want to learn how to write the characters, but it just goes to show that we all have different interests and needs when learning a new language. I know of some people that have never even learned the kana and just focusing on spoken word only. I like to take notes - it helps me remember what I learn. It's kind of annoying me to have to write everything in hiragana for speed's sake. I definitely have a desire to do it all even though it will take a lot of practice. 

Well, that's all for this update! Can't wait to see where I'm at the next time I check in!

じゃまたね。