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Wishing you the best for 2009

Posted on 30 Dec 2008 by Chris
10 Comments
Life In Japan
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I decided to merge this weeks learning methods review and japan-related links into one new year celebration post. I wish you all the best for 2009 and hope it’s a good one!

I’m currently busy working over at JPop Japan trying to get the word out and promote it. So far the response has been very positive! Soon I will be back behind a desk so I’m trying to make the most of my spare time to promote and develop the site.

Japanese Learning Methods for 2009

My “Remembering the Kanji” sessions stopped and then never started again… damn! I did this before and I really thought that this time I was going to keep going but real life gets in the way too much.

So I am going to aim to do 5 kanji a day, and if I miss a day it doesn’t matter, but I’ll aim for at least 25 kanji a week. If I feel motivated to do more I will. I think this will be good because trying to do 10 or more a day was getting to be a burden and unmotivating.

I focused too much on the kanji before, so I am going to start working my way through the JapanesePod101 courses as well as continue my study with iKnow. I’m also going to write fun articles rather than go on and on about methods. I found I focused so much on the method and the kanji that I hadn’t yet learnt to order a meal by myself… So the first few articles I will write will be about food in Japan!

I’m also going to pick an anime series to watch, rather than the latest English language show. I’ll still watch Heroes though ;)

Japan on the Web

That’s all for now. See you in the new year!

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Comments
  • Good plan! I also need to do something similar. My new year's resolution is to get my Japanese up to at least JLPT4 proper and do it at the end of the year. There, I wrote it down publicly, so now it has to happen or I'll be laughing matter! What a great way to motivate myself :)
  • k
    i don't think you have to "aim" to do a few kanji a day. You have japaneseflip right? i think it's much more practical to aim to spend 5-10 minutes on it everyday. ^^. reckon you'll pick up recognizing more kanji that way. ^^
  • Good idea ken, I'm going to give it a try!
  • Hmmm. Japaneseflip? Will have to Google that. I took up a Japanese course back in college, but most of what I learned, I forgot. I do love the language though. :)
  • To be honest, I think you're aiming way too low. You feel bad because you don't do that much Japanese, so instead of doing more you're actually lowering you standard! Isn't that weird?

    If I were you, I'd just go for more Kanji to be done with it sooner rather than later. From then on you can simply concentrate on more nice things.
  • I really need to communicate in Japanese first, rather than reading it, since I'm living here and finding it difficult to do basic things. So I'm focusing on the speaking and listening first and reading/writing comes second.

    However, the idea of getting this phase out of the way is tempting. RTK is really only a small step in learning the kanji but a massive hurdle... and I don't want to still be doing RTK in a year.

    I'm tempted to try and push through it. Thanks for the advice Ramses :)
  • Chris, you're definitely right in that you should focus on the conversational part first. I mean, just think, there are actually Japanese people who can't read enough kanji to understand a newspaper 100 percent (visit some small farming towns in Tohoku if you don't believe that), but of course speak it perfectly.

    Anyway, just a thought. Not trying to justify my own lack of Kanji skills or anything like that.
  • You're right Billy. Had an interview today and the only major issue that came up was my lack of Japanese speaking/listening ability. So going to push forward with speaking/listening. I can learn kanji slowly over 10 years but I need to know how to speak/listen NOW!

    I wish I hadn't spent so much time trying different methods of learning the kanji, but you live and learn. At least it's not wasted time, I can apply it when I do want to learn the kanji.
  • From a few years living here and many efforts at learning the different areas of Japanese i see the following being the order of most importance.

    - Listening, being able to understand. If you can understand what they say then even a basic reply from you can be understood from the other party.

    - Speaking, once you can understand what's spoken to you, developing better speaking skills will make for a good conversation, understood clearly by both parties.

    - Reading, the more you can read the better, but if you can speak Japanese and you find words, be they hiragana meanings or kanji you don't know, then at least you can verbalise. The other way around isn't so handy.

    Writing, seriously, i barely write in English let alone Japanese so that should be the least of your concerns.

    Of course. being able to do all at once is a benefit, being able to write may help you remember to so i'm not saying all are done 1 after the other, they should be done in parallel and weighted accordingly.

    Still, 2 yrs on and my Japanese is shite to say the least, getting better though and i'll get there.

    Anyway, my 2 cents, no right way, no wrong way, the way that works for you is the best way.
  • Good points Neil, thanks. Right now my self-study is focusing on the same things you've suggested. Importance on listening then speaking and finally reading. I write as well but I do it randomly throughout my study to help me try and remember a difficult kanji or vocab.

    I'm slowly finding my own way of learning by trying out different things. I'm also returning to old methods occasionally as they might not have worked at the start but could be good for when I've progressed a little further.
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