I put off studying Japanese today, which was stupid because I had the whole day off work.
Oh well. Even though no one is reading this, apparently keeping a blog really is good for me. It makes me want to get on so I'll have something to blog about just in case anyone ever does.
Got on smart.fm, which ps is an amazing site and anyone reading this should go and look at it because it's amazing - ANYWAY. Got on that site, spent a little while doing hiragana, decided I was tired of that (as I frequently do) after two lessons and so decided to play brainspeed instead. I do this frequently, as hopefully it helps me learn as well as being faster and rather more entertaining (read: nerve-wrecking) than just sitting there going 'Yes I know ぬ now quiz me already.' I got up to a speed of 53 questions per minute, which is around the point when making reasoned decisions starts to break down and I begin clicking frantically on anything that's available in the wild hopes that it will be right. I mean that is fast to try and recognize a character, move to the correct choice, and then click on it.
Well, I'm getting faster. And I'm down to (I think) 64 hiragana that I haven't 'officially started' yet, that being actually done the stuff online rather than just reciting all the hiragana to myself as I draw them on the floor at work with the aid of a squeejee and some water from watering the plants.
Anyway, I AM IMPROVING!
I think I'm going to go back to playing brainspeed for a little while now, and see if I can improve my score any. :|d
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
So here we go
It's funny; whenever I start writing something I usually sit around for the first who knows how long, paralyzed by indecision on how to make that first post meaningful and profound and glorious etc. It is possible, I think to myself, that one day this will become wildly successful and millions of people will read it -- or at the very least everyone I know. Or perhaps I'm being overly dramatic. I'm still writing for that now, I suppose, despite the very high likelihood that I'll be lucky if I get a few members of my friends and family to read.
Still, off I go, writing something to have written it and to get it over with, because once that first post (or sentence, or paragraph) is out of the way, things don't seem half so intimidating.
On to the purpose of this blog.
As many of the people who will read this probably already know, I am attempting to learn Japanese. I have been attempting to learn Japanese since eighth grade, when I was I think 13, and still have not managed it. This is mostly just because I had absolutely no idea where I should begin, and even if I managed to figure that out, I didn't know where to go from there.
Maybe a month or two ago, a friend of mine sort of solved that problem. She linked me TextFugu, a do-it-yourself online Japanese textbook geared towards self-study. Work and (I will admit this now) an inherent laziness on my part mean that I haven't made all that much progress yet. I am still in the middle of mastering the hiragana, though I'm mostly done and have just been reviewing and more reviewing for a VERY LONG TIME now. I've got most of them pretty good. But prior to the hiragana being introduced -- in the introduction "Hi, so you're here to learn Japanese" 'lesson', actually -- the guy who runs the site suggested that prospective students keep a blog on their progress. The prospect of public humiliation as you have to account to everyone you know as to why you haven't updated said blog in the past month and a half can be a powerful motivator to keep on learning the language. So here we are. Finally. (Remember that inherent laziness thing I was talking about?) I gave up after a few minutes on thinking up a clever URL (after all, this is supposed to be a working blog, not just another place for witty remarks -- though I shall TRY to keep things reasonably entertaining) and just sat down and created it. I chose some hiragana for the title because I wanted to and because I can sound it out at this point.
Hi ho Silver, AWAY!
Current Progress
Boy have I got work to do. But, it's a beginning.
Still, off I go, writing something to have written it and to get it over with, because once that first post (or sentence, or paragraph) is out of the way, things don't seem half so intimidating.
On to the purpose of this blog.
As many of the people who will read this probably already know, I am attempting to learn Japanese. I have been attempting to learn Japanese since eighth grade, when I was I think 13, and still have not managed it. This is mostly just because I had absolutely no idea where I should begin, and even if I managed to figure that out, I didn't know where to go from there.
Maybe a month or two ago, a friend of mine sort of solved that problem. She linked me TextFugu, a do-it-yourself online Japanese textbook geared towards self-study. Work and (I will admit this now) an inherent laziness on my part mean that I haven't made all that much progress yet. I am still in the middle of mastering the hiragana, though I'm mostly done and have just been reviewing and more reviewing for a VERY LONG TIME now. I've got most of them pretty good. But prior to the hiragana being introduced -- in the introduction "Hi, so you're here to learn Japanese" 'lesson', actually -- the guy who runs the site suggested that prospective students keep a blog on their progress. The prospect of public humiliation as you have to account to everyone you know as to why you haven't updated said blog in the past month and a half can be a powerful motivator to keep on learning the language. So here we are. Finally. (Remember that inherent laziness thing I was talking about?) I gave up after a few minutes on thinking up a clever URL (after all, this is supposed to be a working blog, not just another place for witty remarks -- though I shall TRY to keep things reasonably entertaining) and just sat down and created it. I chose some hiragana for the title because I wanted to and because I can sound it out at this point.
Hi ho Silver, AWAY!
Current Progress
Season 1; Lesson 4: Reading and Writing Hiragana.
Smart.fm progress: 34 items studied, 70 to go
Boy have I got work to do. But, it's a beginning.
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