Am I really up for that?ĭespite my complaining, I enjoy studying Japanese. This might be the point at which the new and shiny has worn off the “learn Japanese” project, and the size of the undertaking is starting to become apparent. Love me some kanji! But then they skip the kanji on a bunch of stuff and I’m lost again in kana soup. Plus there are, like, fifty words that sound the same for every sound (shyo, I’m looking at you, and ryu, don’t get me started) so just because you’ve gotten the beginning and end of a word figured out, good luck knowing what it means. I think I have No figured out, and possibly Mo, but that’s it.īut see? A kanji is a freaking relief in all this mess, because hey, at least you know you’re at the beginning of a word. To, Yo, Bai, Ne, Na, just sprinkled in helter skelter (for emphasis!), not to mention the whole Wa/Ga disaster. And why can’t they separate the words with spaces, what is up with that? No, they have to let all the words run together into one big pile of tofu and I can’t figure out what’s a word and what’s not, or what’s just been tacked on for emphasis. It’s the pile of of extra little hiragana bits (particles! how I am confused by thee!) that seem randomly shoveled into every sentence. Surprisingly, it isn’t the kanji that messes me up. (The little numbers go to notes at the end of this post, isn’t that fun?) I kind of thought I’d be further along by now, but there you go. I’ve been studying ye ole Nihongo for about thirteen months now and with a kid manga like Yotsuba (3) (LOVE) I find that I can read about 33%, I can look up and quickly figure out about 33%, and with the remaining 33%, I have no fucking clue. A bout with Wani Kani (2) for kanji and vocab finishes out my breakfast. My typical morning coffee lately: boat-sized mug, spoon (it stirs AND is a great bookmark), manga in both English and Japanese, ipod with Japanese dictionary app-I like Midori (1)-plus the notes I make. learning japanese: that sinking feeling when you begin to understand the scope of the problem by maya in mayalife 5 Comments on FebruFebruary 24, 2014 If you’re studying Japanese and can’t read manga yet, maybe get over the fear of all that Japanese by jumping in to picture books. Simple stories, cute pictures, funny jokes. It’s surprisingly delightful to get back to it, even (especially?) in Japanese. Plus, I used to read so many children’s books when the kids were little, and loved it, but I haven’t read picture books in years. I can get lost in the slog sometimes and forget why I’m doing it. It’s been a shot in the arm of my Japanese, studies, really. Thanks so much for putting that together, Liana! I have been enjoying this so much. Liana has a walkthrough on how to register, and some clues about how to use the site if you can’t read Japanese well enough to navigate it. It’s a win-win-win-win, really, with some win on top. Bonuses: gorgeous, funny art and charming stories. Ehon Navi gives someone who wants to try some Extensive Reading in Japanese, but has a low reading level (raises hand), a chance to level up through access to so many easy books. It’s how I learned English so well, so it makes sense to me. Extensive Reading is the language learning strategy of, basically, reading a ton in your target language, at or below your fluency level, just gobs and gobs of stuff, casting aside anything you don’t enjoy (and don’t use a dictionary!). I found Ehon Navi via Liana’s Extensive Reading blog. How cool is that? And wow, Japanese artists KNOW THEIR CUTE. It’s basically having a Japanese children’s library on your laptop. You have to register but it isn’t hard, and the reader-app they have is quite usable. Basically the site has over a thousand Japanese pictures books scanned in that you can read for free-one time each (no going back!). Yes! A good picture book definitely is a happiness-inducer, isn’t it? Second, Ehon is Japanese for children’s picture book and Navi I think is connected to navigation. First, if you click that link, you’re going to get a page full of Japanese except for one little English phrase, “Picture books for happiness!” which I love. (Not all at once! WaniKani is daily, the rest is in a complex rotation system that not even I fully comprehend.) Wani Kani, iKnow, Genki, Imabi, Tae Kim, Textfugu, and Japanese the Manga Way are my Japanese drugs of choice. I think its like people who do the daily cross-word puzzle in the morning, or play a few round of solitaire to help them get to sleep. I love it, this interesting puzzle-solving hobby that has zero stress because it has zero connection to anything else in my life. I am simultaneously impressed that I stayed with it this long, dismayed at how much time I have put into this essentially useless-to-me hobby, and shocked that I’m not further along by now because wow, Japanese is really hard.īut yeah, I’m still at it. I started studying Japanese almost two years ago (January).
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