Post-RTK1 Era

It's been a while since I finished Remembering The Kanji I, and I have moved on to the other 2 writing systems, the Hiragana and Katakana. I am tackling the Hiragana first, just because its the order the book I'm using goes in(Remembering the Kana, also by James Heisig), and the Hiragana are also a little more important. I've only done about 23 of the 46 characters, but I should be done by the end of the week and on to the Katakana if I can find some 30 minute pockets of time to fit Japanese in during the week. I've also made significant improvement in my Portuguese listening skills, much due to playing some type of Brazilian music everyday or listening to the radio(I download UOL podcasts everyday on iTunes). Now it's only about a month and a half before I get the whole summer to have fun with all the books around the house and resources online. Até Próximo.

I FINISHED REMEMBERING THE KANJI!!

Today marks the happiest I have been with my language learning in a while. I unbelievably finished RTK last night. It was hardest thing I have had to consistently do for a long period of time ever(even though I'm sure I'll find something else to complain about later in life). I have gone through 2042 Japanese Kanji characters. I started in late July, and finished March 23, so that spans about 7 months. I believe I could have finished sooner if the burden of school and junior year hadn't come and complicated things. But regardless, I worked and worked and worked, and I am sure some of the few readers of this article may think I am really bragging and pumping myself up right now, but I feel like if there was ever an excuse, it would be this. Kanji was a HUGE stepping stone for me, and now that I've finished, I can finally move on to actually reading, writing, and listening to Japanese and work on language skills, with a the other 2 writing systems(Katakana and Hiragana) a very small stepping stone to get over(each writing system is only 50 characters or so). This will also free up time to work on my Portuguese and maybe start with another language I have been dying to work on.

SPRING BREAK!

It is now spring break, which means a few things:

1. A week of rest and relaxation without having to worry about the ton of work I've been getting.

2. Plenty of time to work on my languages.

I've been slacking on the kanji, I should have finished by now, but at least I've got less than 200 now, and I expect to finish by the end of Spring Break(I hope I'm not jynxing myself like last time). I am glad because I can finally move on to the other 2 writing systems(which should only take a few hours to learn), and then I will move on to Japanese In Mangaland as well as Assimil(Did not like Assimil first go around, but I am hoping this time will be better). As with Portuguese, I'm planning on spending a lot more time working on my listening, because it is really slacking in my opinion. Also, I am going to try and work on Afrikaans. I've only gotten through the pronunciation, and I am really ready to move on to reading and writing. From what I've seen, the language looks a little bit like English, and there are some words that the 2 languages share. The site I am using is GREAT, it is a good place to go if you want to start learning Afrikaans. I will post the link on the side. Anywyas, as for Spring Break? I am looking forward to it, and hopefully will enjoy it. Até Mais!

It's been a long time...

I haven't posted on here in over a month, due to me entering the hardest semester of school I have ever had in my life. After bombing basically every exam I took in January, I decided I really need to step it up and start doing some work, even if it includes me slowing down with my language learning or lifting weights after school. The workload has been tremendous, and everything is moving so fast it's crazy. But I decided I could still make a little time to make another post since it doesn't really take too long.

I am disappointed in myself because I never got to finish my kanji. I am still doing it everyday, but I should be done with it and starting to work on the actual language(writing, reading, speaking) and I am really tired of just doing kanji, even though I know it is essential for me to do them. But there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to do that. I am about 300 kanji away from finishing the book, so I guess I will just finish it no matter what some time soon. As for my other languages, my Portuguese has really improved, and I feel like I am almost as good at it as I am in French(which I have been taking at school for over 3 years now). My Chinese is going nowhere, but I am going to try and finish the year out strong because my grades aren't so good. The funny thing is, even though I have all this stuff, I really want to start learning Afrikaans. I think I will try to make time for it on the weekends, since I plan on being in the house more from now until Spring Break, which should give me a whole lot of time to work on my languages. I am going to post some more useful links and hopefully get some more readers!

AND IT HAS BEGUN!

Today marks the first day of Christmas break!... Please, all 0 of my readers, keep the applause down. Not only is this important in the fact that:
1. I get sleep
2. I get sleep
3. I get sleep
but also in the fact that I have no homework, which means a lot of free time to engulf myself into the language books sitting around the house and actually use them instead of making myself feel good by staring at the covers. I actually just got 5 books for Christmas and my mom is willing to let me start reading one or two early so I think I might get a little head start on them. Out of the 5 books, 3 are Portuguese and 2 are Japanese, and I'll just list them:

Random House Portuguese Pocket Dictionary
Dom Casmurro(Brazilian)
O Cortiço(Brazilian)
Japanese in Mangaland 1(Sort of a starter book, will explain further down)
Japanese in Mangaland Workbook

I am going to be at 1225 kanji by the time this night is over in Remembering the Kanji, leaving me with 812 to go. For all of you who want to study Japanese, I am sorry, but, Kanji are hell. There just is no other way to sugarcoat it. They are just hell. I hate them. I want to just get through these 815 and be done. Of course, once I get through, I will still be reviewing them with Mnemosyne, so I don't plan to forget them, but I don't feel like writing the confusing kanji for admonish or looking up the definition for what a decameron is, or trying to find out what a monme is(which isn't even on dictionary.com by the way). I really want to just blow past these kanji in the next couple of days and move on to the other resources sitting in my house. The kanji have forced me to put Assimil, Japanese in Mangaland, The Hirigana and Katakana writing systems, learning another language, and school all on hold, so I am just ready to get them past me and start enjoying languages again.

So, on to what Japanese in Mangaland is. Japanese in Mangaland is basically a 300 pg. semi-textbook that self-teaches you basic grammar, sentences, vocabulary, and kanji, all through manga cartoons. It was not very expensive, $17, you can probably but it cheaper if you really tried hard, I had to get it quickly while my mom was in a good mood, so money wasn't really the issue for me I guess, but if you think that is still too much money, well, you can contact me and I can discuss other ways you can go about finding materials. I am actually in the mood to do a bunch of kanji so I think I might go do like 100 or something and be angry tommorow when I open Mnemosyne and have to review about 300, but I guess I'll have time. I'm going to try and post for Christmas Eve, but if not, Merry Christmas everybody and Happy Kwanzaa!

What a week

This is now officially my 6th post, but it's coming a little later than I planned on it being. It has been a hectic week due to a lot of work being due, plus having a couple health problems hinder me so I haven't been able to keep up with by blog this week. But I did make a little progress, especially in my Japanese. I was unable to do much work, but when I was fine I put in a lot of work into memorizing more kanji and I am currently up to 751 characters, and I have been counting down everyday to the final character in the book, so I now have 1291 characters left, which actually surprises me and motivates me to get them done. I've been trying to do about 50 a day which would get me to 1300 in 26 days, just in time for Christmas! Now realizing that my goal would be reached right around my day, I have proposed to finish this book and my 2042 kanji by Christmas Day, a hefty proposal but definitely a possible one. I know it won't be easy, but I'm fine with that and I am ready to do it. Memorizing the kanji usually takes me about an hour, which is a long time, but I usually have a lot of time on me, especially on the weekend, so I will probably step up the input on the weekend to maybe 80 and maybe drop the load down to 40 during the week, but always try and do 50 if I can. Now, coming into what I am about to say, I understand I am dealing with enough languages as is and adding yet another could really be too much, but at this point in my language learning "career," I find it quite easy to handle multiple languages, I never get confused except for the occasional pause when I am talking to people in different languages at once, or, I must admit, I have some situations where I am not sure how to say something in English! I am kind of worried, my brain is starting to think moreso in Portuguese or French than English and I have to say things aloud to myself a couple times before I am sure it is right. But, I don't really care, I'm not planning on being an English major. Now, what I was going to say was, I think I might try to pick up Russian or German, or maybe both. I might have mentioned it in one of my earlier posts, or on my blog before I changed it around and lost it, but I did do a little bit of German study but I didn't keep it up just because of loss of interest and tutor :). As with Russian, I've ran by PLENTY of materials I could use to teach myself Russian and I think I am pretty good at putting together a curriculum for myself. As with Portuguese, I have been talking much more in Portuguese and I think once I go back over my conjugations I will be at an intermediate level of Portuguese, I think at this point it's basically just a matter of learning vocabulary and working on my speaking/listening. My speaking is decent, I sort of developed a strange brazilian accent, I was talking to someone and I forget which region of Brazil, but I am kind of happy that I don't sound like an English speaker completely. But the thing I have to work on is just putting together sentences and sounding smooth when I talk. Listening is just really hard because Brazilians talk SOOOO fast. I can understand a little bit because I just take keywords and put them together and figure it out, but I want to be able to understand everything. Due to lack of time as always, I have to end it here but I will try to post again later, 1~

Japanese

This is the continuation of my last post on how I am going about learning languages. This is probably going to be very short. So, what I do with Japanese. What I did was I read up on what Japanese consisted of, which is this: 3 writing systems, a complex sentence structure, and the fact that I would have learn a bunch of vocab. This obviously wasn't a very nice thing to hear for anyone who wants to learn anything, it means it's going to be a lot of work. But I saw it as a chance for me to prove to myself that I could do anything I set my mind to. So I decided to learn it. I first decided to use Assimil, which is sort of like Pimsleur(if anyone knows what that is), it basically gives you some materials(a book and CD's) and takes you through each lesson, and you try to memorize the sentences pretty much, or at least listen to the tapes while going through them in the book until you understand what each sentence means orally. I didn't just do a good job of explaining it, but if you want to find more just Google it and you will find all the information you need. In conjunction with Assimil, I stopped by the UVA library and checked out a book titled Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig. Basically it is a book that helps you develop a method of memorizing all 2,200 kanji(the hardest of all the writing systems and the most necessary) that I high school student would need to know to graduate in Japan. I knew it was going to be hard but I didn't care so I went right into it, and hit a huge bump. I realized once school started I would never have any time to do all this stuff as well as work on my other languages each night, so I decided to just use Remembering the Kanji and finish it then move on to other things. If you are wondering how well I am doing, I am currently at 641, so I have about 1,559 remaining, which actually is surprising since I have to be honest, I haven't been doing the 25 I planned on doing each night or I would have been done by now. But I have fount a some of my old determination in me so I have been working on it hard and if I can suck it up and get at it I will be done by New Year's, which would be nice. And to all the readers, leave me comments on how my blog has been so far please!