Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Progress is a slow beast

Ran into my first brain block with studying. Learning actual grammar has been difficult for me every time. Mastered hiragana, but that's such a small step that it should barely be mentioned. I'm going to have to buckle down for the next part, because it's important. I van't loaf.
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Monday, January 17, 2011

30 and counting

Hit the 3rd set today.  I think I’m doing pretty good with progress, at least on this part.  I’ll be awhile before I can see just how well I’m doing.  But it’s kinda fun getting into the whole Japanese learning thing.  Gotta make sure to keep up the effort though… Have to remind myself what this is for.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Hiragana, then I’m gonna…

First 10 hiragana down today.  I don’t want to push my luck and do more than that for today.  I’ll keep reviewing them until I have them down 100% before I move onto the next set of 10 I think.  I want to make sure I have this right.  There’s no sense in rushing this, since I do actually want to get fluent.  Being in Japan will help greatly, but in the meantime, I’m just taking my time to move along slowly with this.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Ryu, Ryo, Ken, Zangief, Chun Li…

Learning pronunciation today… it’s one thing to learn how to sing a song without understanding what the heck you’re saying.  I’ve done that now with three different Gackt songs, but to actually sit and learn and memorize the hiragana sounds leads to some interesting realizations about my ability to learn sounds.  I’m fortunate to have “prepped” myself for this part of the lesson by listening to a TON of Japanese music for the better part of the last several years.  It makes the transition easier, but the easy part is going to end right about now, since I will soon be moving on to the memorization of the actual writing of the kana next.  At least this helps me build some confidence for the next part… Here’s to further progress!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Starting up is hard to do

Here’s the thing.  I’m a horrible self starter.  I hem and I haw for a while, until I’m pretty much dragged kicking and screaming to do something.  I know I have to do it, I know it’s important, but I find every excuse not to.  This is a bad habit, and something I have to break myself of.  However, it is severely rearing its ugly head at the moment right on the verge of learning Hiragana.  I’m always dipping my toe in to test the water, and then walking away, never actually diving in.  However, once I do start, I know I can get pretty obsessive about things, so I’ll have to time this just right…  I don’t want to go in with a full head of steam and burnout too fast, too soon.

Monday, January 10, 2011

First Season

Learning about the Japanese alphabet (hell, just the concept of it) was more difficult than I initially figured. I knew about all of them (in passing) but to know the exact right times to use them tripped me up a bit. I'm glad textfugu is taking the time to dispel some preconceived notions. It should really help in the long run. Whelp... hiragana, here I come.
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It all begins here

This is where I start my journey into language learning, as recommended by textfugu.com. It seems like a pretty good idea to keep track of your progress with a blog, since I tend to use it as an outlet for so many of my oher endeavors. This will be primarily for me, as I want to see how it progresses first, but eventually I may open it up to public viewing. Plus, I plan to do the majority of my learning on my nookcolor. Keeping it all contained on one device might make it easier to stick to it. Guess we'll see. Experiment away!!!
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