Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Welcome. Computers were certainly good for me and allowed me to earn a good living and have a great teaching job for many years. My very best computer students were the ones that were self taught and forged ahead of any classes they had.
Hope your Japanese skills impress your friends. Mine think I’m a bit of an idiot but they thought that before I learned a handful of Japanese. O_o
Anyway get through the hiragana and things start to be a lot more fun.Welcome…wow, you certainly have the jump on me! No formal classes locally for me in Japanese so I have no choice but self study.
Freezing here this weekend isocracy but thanks! And you’re so right ooh_a_robot, the コーヒー thing drove me crazy too! O_o Annoying!
Ok…where’s my cards………. °~°Yeah, she’s like me, a C- student! =_= She’s actually worse in the Advanced course. I put them on my MP3 and play/replay a lesson or two while on the way to the gym. I recently went thru all 8 disks again before starting on the Advanced course.
What I really like about it is the vocab being used in meaningful sentences not just random words to learn.I made myself some old school flash cards on index cards (cut in half) for the more difficult stuff (*coff* kun readings *coff*). I take them everywhere and keep them near me at home. Watching a TV show? When the ads come on the cards come out.
Also when learning new vocab I make index cards and first look at the hiragana side, pronounce and then try to remember the English meaning. The mnemonics idea is helpful. Afterwards I then reverse the cards and tackle the English to Japanese trying to visualize the hiragana in my mind. I also take them 5 at a time rather than 10. Later the Anki is useful in developing long term memory.
Before I started here I used the Michel Thomas Method (not too expensive at Amazon, great for speaking) and found that the repeated use of new words in sentences rather than just solo vocab words really helped in the memorization. Right now I’m starting on the Michel Thomas Method Advanced course. It’s a good supplement.I used “Kana Pict-O-Graphix” by Michael Rawley, $6 on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Kana-Pict—Graphix-Mnemonics-Japanese/dp/1880656183/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326061644&sr=1-1
About 3″ by 5″, easy to carry around.Liberdade sounds like a fascinating place!
Cool!
And hey, used English all my life and people still tell me it’s not so good! ^_~
Good luck with your studies!Hello! I have a similar story except it has been only a year for me of piddling around.
I’m in the middle of season 2 also and my first big challenge since my brain does not want to wrap itself around the kun readings of the kanji. I’m creating some low tech index cards to carry and study all the time.
Good luck!Ya know, I can relate to many of your stated reasons for studying Japanese. Good luck to us all!
I may never get to Japan even as a tourist so kind of jealous here. Good luck with the course!
Welcome Aaron. Good luck with your learning. I’m going thru Season 1 now and like you still slow at the reading part.
Well I loomed 30 over 36 years ago but have NEVER let age stop me from doing anything I wanted to do. At age 57 I took up karate and 5Ks and now I’m tackling Japanese. I always told my G’Kids to take of your mind and body and everything else will follow. Let’s all try our best to still be here next December!
BTW check out a little gem called “Kana Pict-o-Graphix” (used on Amazon for like $2) and you’ll learn hiragana in no time.Thanks Dennis,
I’ve taught many compSci majors over the years and it certainly takes a dedicated person to slog through lines of code debugging. My dropout rate from the first to second class was over 50%. Many that stuck it out have great jobs now.
Hope to see you here often! ^_^Thanks for the encouragement. I’ve learned the kana to some degree having gone through the workbooks “Let’s Learn Hiragana” and “Let’s Learn Katakana” but unfortunately many language texts overuse romaji so my kana reading skills are not as sharp as they should be. I’m glad we’re sticking to kana in future lessons. When watching anime I always pause it when any kana is on the screen and try to read it.
I have a shirt pocket sized book I carry with me (“Kana Pict-o-Graphix” by Michael Rowley) that I always use for review. You’d be surprised how many times you’re in a situation where it’s good to have some little thing to fall back on to entertain the mind…like a party I have to go to this Sunday with my wife. O_o
