Short update - Masaru San if you see this, I emailed you back :)

Quick Note: Masaru San, I got your email this evening. I emailed you a couple of weeks ago but I don't think you received it. If you haven't maybe my email is in your spam box? I sent back a short email this evening to confirm this. I will write you a full reply once you receive my emails properly :)

Quick Update: I have not updated in over a month now, very sorry. Due to a lot of life issues, I have been too busy to study Japanese and now I have actually forgotten a lot of grammar and will have to go back and review. I finished my two week study course, then did two weeks of work experience which was very tiring. I've started a gluten free diet because I have also been very ill with sinus problems and other problems relating to my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome :( I am feeling quite a bit better now and I've actually managed to land myself a part time job. This September I want to start an Open University course and I'm really preparing to save some money so I can travel to Japan next year, I'm so excited!!!!!!!! :D This makes it more important for me to start studying again. I have around 300 cards to review on my Anki deck >.< also I need to complete practice questions and brush up on speaking. I should start doing that by the middle of next week. My schedule is still pretty busy and I'm really going to try and find some time to fit study in with work and socialising.

Taking a break from learning Japanese

I realise that I have not updated my blog in a long time. Over the past few weeks I have been busy trying to look for work and I am currently on an employability training course which requires me to travel. On top of that, the weather has also been scorching hot all week and the heat completely drains my energy. When I get home in the evening I am always extremely tired and I can not concentrate on learning. I am really hoping that I can get a job soon and then start learning again. I feel very bad that I have stopped and I am fearful that I will lose my ability to recall anything I have learnt. An update should come within the next few weeks when I am feeling better.

Almost finished Chapter 8

I have finished all the learning points for Chapter 8 now. I am getting there slowly but surely, and now all I need to do is make yet more flashcards and complete some question exercises. I have just finished practicing the Kanji for this Chapter and my head hurts. For some odd reason, whenever I finish a particularly challenging piece of work my brain seems to swim with information, its like I can feel the hiragana readings just spinning around :S Since it is the end of Chapter 8, you can expect another Japanese writing piece in the next few days. *hooray* The picture to the left demonstrates how I usually practice Kanji, some people prefer to use the Heisig method and learn the meaning, the readings and the way the Kanji is written separately, but I am happy enough just learning all of them in one go. Total number of Kanji learned: 86. How many more to learn: 2414!!

Chapter 8 !!!!

Today I started on the grammar for Chapter 8 - a lot later than I expected, but I have been enjoying time with friends :) Chapter 8 of Genki focuses on the short (informal) forms of verbs, い adjectives and な adjectives, and nouns + です. I am so happy that I am learning the short forms because it is commonly used in speech and so I can now understand more of what certain characters are saying to friends in Japanese drama and anime, it also means that the Japanese I write from now on will sound less overly formal. I received my first passport and I am looking forward to getting a job so I can save for my first trip to Japan. I was jealous of all the people who went to the Tokyo Hanami where many of my favourite J - Vloggers from Youtube met up and had a great time. I have been enjoying the cherry blossom in my garden though, even if it is no where near as beautiful.

Less frequent updates

My updates have been less frequent because I have reached a point in my learning where I am really trying to practice all the grammar and vocabulary I have learned all together. I have around 800 flashcards on the go on Anki and some practice has involved me just writing pages and pages of sentences in Japanese. I am a slow learner but Im getting there. Tomorrow I will begin learning the vocabulary needed for Chapter 8. Chapter 8 looks very scary; there are many very long grammar points for that lesson that all look confusing to me. As the chapters have progressed they are adding more and more information so its taking a long time to complete this.

Short Self Introduction In Japanese

Almost finished Chapter 7 now. I wrote a small piece about my family and introducing myself. It is really bad (I use です so often I look like I'm really stupid). Well, anyway...here it is (mind I have not checked it yet, so I don't know if it is correct). If you know Japanese, please help me correct this.

初めまして。エリです。二十歳です。イギリスのロンドンのそばに住んでいます。父は日本の会社に勤めています。母はイギリス人で、五十八歳です。母は高校に勤めています。父は背が高くて、怖いです。父はちょっと太っています。よく食べますから。家族は犬がいます。なまえはTheoです。Theoが大好き。お姉さんが二人います。妹が一人います。

What is should say: Nice to meet you, I am Ellie. I am 20 years old. I live near London in England. My father works for a Japanese company (Olympus). My mother is English and is 58 years old. My mother works for a high school. My father is tall and scary. My dad is a little overweight, because he eats a lot. My family owns a dog. His name is Theo. I love Theo. I have two older sisters. I have one younger sister.

Sorry that my Japanese is awful and is written in a strange sounding way. I wanted to fit in as many different grammar points from Chapter 7 as I could so it doesn't flow exactly right. Haha and I hope I havent offended my dad. >.<

Quick update

Yes, I know I have almost spent an entire month on Chapter 7. Lately, my health and motivation has deteriorated. I have not given up on learning, its just going to take much longer than I predicted. I am now almost at the end of Chapter 7, a lot of grammar is piling up and I'm trying to find ways to remember it all so I keep referring back which is taking a lot of time. I am going to post in a couple of days after the chapter is finished and write something in Japanese. Hopefully it makes some sense. 

It's not going very well

So I haven't been studying, at all...I'm disappointed in myself. I don't even have a good enough excuse other than my health problems slightly getting worse lately. I have lost some of the motivation that I had right at the beginning of the year and its getter harder and harder to study when the list of words is endless and I have to spend a long time reviewing them. I have only just begun studying Chapter 7 and I am supposed to have finished it by now :S I have learned the vocabulary and I am going to begin the grammar tomorrow. It seems like I'm forgetting so much of the grammar though, and I keep excusing myself for not doing anything. I can only hope that I get motivated soon so that I don't give up.

Chapter 6 finished!

Completed Chapter 6 last night just in time for March 1st :) I think Im going to spend the next few days reviewing what I have learnt and then start Chapter 7 on Monday :) Things are difficult lately because I have M.E. and it is bad at the moment, so hard to focus when all you want to do is sleep.

600 words!

I currently know around 600 words of Japanese, although the official figure is probably higher since this is only the official score according to the Anki decks and does not take into account all the words I picked up from dramas over the years. This total does include 50 Kanji. Just to give you an idea of where I am with my progress, I can tell you that the JLPT 1 which is the highest level of proficiency test requires someone to know around 20,000 words and 2000 kanji. That means I am 3.5% of the way in terms of word knowledge and 2.5% in Kanji. So roughly, according to my calculations, at the speed I am learning at I need to do 30 more times what I have already done to get to that level which would take me approximately 5 years. I really wanted to learn a bit faster than that. Hmm maybe I should work out the number of words I learn per day and then add more.

Slow Progress

So last week I was really bad and did not study for three days, and it is surprising how much you can forget in such a short space of time. The reasons why I did not study was tiredness, and also feeling a little disheartened because my grammar was becoming really awful. However, I must have spent over 3 hours the other day creating an Anki deck focusing entirely on grammar and practicing sentence structures. I am pretty annoyed at the lack of examples of how to use certain phrases in the textbook. For example まで and how to use it in a sentence...there was only one example but it has three different meanings :S My friend Joe says that once we both get a job that it would be a good idea to get Japanese lessons from a teacher and I think that it would help me if I have someone to correct me. I am now back into the swing of studying again, Chapter 6 is taking a hell of a long time but it should be completed by the end of this week. The picture is of a wood carving I found in the woods near where I live. I think it is is a badger or a mole? The red scarf really reminded me of the kitsune statues you find at shrines with red bibs.

Correcting my work

Starting chapter 6 tonight! Just went over the correction for my journal entry style piece and I made some really stupid mistakes! How did I manage to forget the ンin チキン!? Note to self: Always proof read things. I think I have learned a bit about when to use Kanji and Kanna. I always assumed if there was a Kanji for a word then I should use it but it seems that some Kanji are just not used, like in the case of the word おいしい. I'm still a little unsure about some of the corrections, but I have just discovered the Lang 8 website where native Japanese will translate and correct pieces for free so hopefully I can get some more clarification on some parts. Sorry everyone who had to read my Japanese, I know its really terrible but I have only been learning for a month and a half.

Chapter 5 is completed!

Completed chapter 5 today, Im going to start Chapter 6 tomorrow. Im now exactly halfway through the book! HOORAY!!! To celebrate, here is a short piece in Japanese, practicing some of the grammar and vocabulary I have learned.

昨日は午前十一時に起きました。寒い朝でした、だから、出かけませんでした。私は姉と朝ご飯を食べました。其れから、怖い映画を見ました。よかったです。私の好きな映画は千と千尋の神隠しです。午後七時半に晩御飯を食べました。チキスープは美味しかったです。今は木曜日です、午前一時です。寝ましょうか。　

What this should say is something along the lines of - Yesterday, I got up at 11am. It was a cold morning so that is why I did not go out. I ate breakfast with my sister. After that, I watched a scary film. It was good. My favourite film is spirited away. At 7:30pm I ate dinner. The chicken soup was delicious. Right now, it is Thursday. It is 1am. Let's go to sleep! 

UPDATE: My friend Taishi checked over this and has corrected it to this - 

昨日は午前11時におきました。と言いますのは、寒い朝でし たので、外出しなかったんです。姉と朝食を食べた後、怖い映画を見ました。その映画は良かったです。私のお気に入りの映画は「千と千尋の神隠し」です。午 後7時30分に夕食を食べました。チキンスープはおいしかったです。今木曜日の午前1時です。さあ、寝ましょう

Forgetting Japanese D:

Started doing some worksheets this evening only to find that I have forgotten most of the grammar points from lesson 4 and 5 :( I don't have many opportunities to practice using Japanese, and for some reason, I can not recall how to form sentences properly when I want to speak them aloud. Then I decided to see how far along I am in my progress to see if I am near fluent enough to do the JLPT 5 and I got most of the questions correct but there is still a way to go. I think starting from tomorrow I am going to do what I said I would do in my first post and practice my grammar by writing a short paragraph about my day in Japanese.

Chapter 5!!!

I started Chapter 5 yesterday! I'm almost halfway through the textbook now, so by my estimations...I should finish Genki 1 by the end of March. This is a bit slower than I would have liked; I set myself a really unrealistic goal of being proficient enough for the JLPT 5 by the end of April >_< I think the first 2 chapters of the book flew by in a few days because I already knew most of the grammar and vocabulary beforehand. As the book has progressed, I have found the content has increased each time and I have to add I adjectives and Na adjectives to the list of verbs, general grammar etc. So that means each chapter is going to take me a little longer than a week. I finished learning chapter 5 vocabulary today, so tomorrow I am going to start on the grammar. My "official" number of words learned now is: 449! :) I was also very happy to receive a postcard from my friend Yuki, who visited the Studio Ghibli museum! I want to go there so bad!

Happy Setsubun!

It is now the 2nd of February and I have not started Chapter 5! D: I have spent the past day stuck on a particular question. I found another reason why Genki is not so great for people who want to teach themselves: they seem to purposefully omit certain information so some questions can't be completed correctly, so that you are forced to buy the answer key. The Genki textbooks NEED to have more examples and more explanations. Luckily for me, there are plenty of people on the internet who are happy to help, and as it turned out, I actually had guessed the correct translation! I was also correct about not being able to remember all of the Kanji and vocabulary I learnt the other day! I know most of them now but I am still making silly mistakes. I took a sneak peek at Chapter 5 and saw that I am going to be learning complicated adjectives :( Also it is Setsubun in Japan! I drew a picture! Happy Setsubun!!

Just discovered obsolete kana!

I was in the middle of finding the translation for the word いた when the Microsoft IME offered an alternative kana translation that looks like this： ゐ. This was my face (O_o) What is that!? So I hurriedly typed it into google to find out more and Wikipedia tells me this is one of a few obsolete kana and it is pronounced "wi". Then I discovered 'we' : ゑ. I especially like this one, it looks kind of like an Egyptian hieroglyph. I had always wondered why there were only 2 kana beginning with the 'w' sound. It makes me wonder where 'wu' is now...I need to do more investigating.

Quick update

Spent 83 minutes on Anki today learning 60 new vocabulary words and about 10 kanji. I'm not sure I am going to remember them all but I'm all set for a review day tomorrow. I definitely made up for the day where I did no studying.

Animal Crossing > Studying

Still not finished Chapter 4...*shakes head in shame* I have 2 days left before the end of the month and I plan to start Chapter 5 on February 1st. The Genki textbook was a little evil to me; I got to the end of the grammar section, finished off writing the cultural note and then noticed that right at the end of the practice section there is a huge long list of vocabulary that the workbook also requires you to study D: So I need to learn a whole bunch of vocabulary now on dates and time. I shall try and do that today and then review everything again tomorrow. I missed one day of studying yesterday because of illness so my streak has been broken, and I have been playing a lot of animal crossing. These photos of my village really remind me of My Neighbour Totoro and other Studio Ghibli films \(^_^)/

Chapter 4! finally (¬ ¬)

Finished Chapter 3! *pops open the champagne bottle* I thought I wasn't going to finish :/ Lately I've been particularly tired and achy; this could be down to several factors including: being on a diet, having an awful sleeping routine, not getting enough exercise, having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or pushing myself too hard mentally. It has been a real struggle to make sure that I study everyday. My studying time has severely dropped and I am doing less than an hour a day. I think I need to sort out my sleeping routine and start going for walks! As for worrying about Kanji and verb conjugation, it seems there was nothing to worry about, Genki explained each topic fairly well. Maybe more examples of how to use each grammar point and a built in answer key would have been great too *shakes fist at Genki*. I've just created the Anki deck for Chapter 4 vocabulary and I already know 75% of the words already! hehe yay!

My daily routine - In Japanese

Just finished going over approximately 8 new particles, I'm confused to say the least. So many particles!!! Going over Chapter 3, I have realised that book is going at a pace that is a little too fast for my liking and some of the lesson points lack examples and description but that could also be because the books are supposed to be used in conjunction with a teacher, so that is a downside to being self taught. Perhaps I should consider doing a short Japanese course with a teacher...

Anyway, today I learned how to create some proper sentences, and so now I have short passage about my daily routine. (Not entirely sure it is all correct!)

私は毎日午后一時に起きます。たいてい朝ご飯を食べます。私はあまり喫茶店に行きません。毎晩九時頃に日本語を勉強します。私は午前四時に寝ます。

UPDATE: I have just been informed by my great friend Taishi that I was using the old form of ごご and that I should use 午後 instead. I must write this down to remember.

If this is correct, it should say:
I wake up at 1pm everyday. I usually eat breakfast. I don't often go to the coffee shop. Every evening, around 9pm, I study Japanese. I go to sleep at 4am.

This sentences look so simple, and are so simple to write in other languages, but this was difficult! I do not know all the Kanji I have included here yet. Thank you Japanese IME for doing the conversion for me!

Benefit to being a self taught learner

My learning over the past few days has been very slow; I think that the reason was fear of starting verb conjugation. Today I finally put my foot down and forced myself to open the textbook and make notes on verb conjugation and, to my happy surprise, it is not as hard as it looks. Admittedly, I did have to refer back to the book on several occasions while doing a worksheet, but now I think that I'm fairly confident at forming Dictionary, Present Affirmative and Present Negative verbs. The most difficult thing with verbs is learning which ones are ~u verbs, ~ru verbs, or irregular verbs (darn you irregular verbs with your awkwardness!!!). I am a slow learner but once I understand something completely I tend to pick it up well and remember the information, this is one of the benefits to being a self taught learner of Japanese. At school everyone is expected to follow the same pace, but since I am teaching myself, I can take as long as I need to fully understand what the book is trying to convey to me. Today, in total, I did around 1 hour and 30 minutes of active study and around 4-5 hours passive by having a bit of Japanese horror movie + Ghibli marathon (The Grudge, The Grudge 2 and Spirited Away). I am going to try and increase my active studying now, perhaps do an extra hour tomorrow learning Kanji and 5 new particles.

I'm so impatient!

So I have finally made it to the end of Chapter 2 in the Genki textbook, which means that tomorrow I will be starting the dreaded Chapter 3. I have already covered most of the vocabulary for Chapter 3 so I guess that is one weight off the load.

Yesterday night I decided to watch My Neighbour Totoro in Japanese. It is one of my favourite films and I usually watch it with English dubs. I began to panic as soon as the film had started because I found that often, I did not recognise a lot of what was being said. After that, I began watching a short segment of a Japanese TV show about foreigners on their life in Japan and I was amazed and jealous of how good they were speaking Japanese. I began to feel pretty depressed about these things and I had to take a step back to put my feelings into perspective.

Then it hit me! It has been a week exactly since I picked up my Genki Textbook and began studying seriously! 7 days and I was already feeling insufficient (>_<). I have realised now, that not only am I a perfectionist, I am also extremely impatient. My biggest hurdle that I need to overcome is my impatience, because if I feel like I am not succeeding fast enough, I am likely to give up studying all together. 

Best Study Materials for Japanese

I am currently coming to the end of Chapter 2 in the Genki textbook. I took a sneak peek at Chapter 3 and was a little horrified to discover that not only I shall be learning Kanji, but I will also be starting verb conjugation! I should be starting Chapter 3 tomorrow or the day after, depending on how much study I do this evening. Once I learn some of the verbs and Kanji I should be close to being able to write a short passage in Japanese.

I have decided to compile a short list of my most helpful study materials so far.

1. Genki Textbook
2. Berlitz Japanese Concise Dictionary
3. Anki
4. Japanese DVDs (The ones shown above are some of my favourite films and have helped with pronunciation and listening)
5. Genki Workbook

Chapter 2

Finally completely finished chapter 1 of the 11 chapters and I have just spent 2 hours learning about 35 new vocabulary words. Luckily for me, most of the vocabulary words for chapter 2 were already covered in section one. I am having a little trouble at the moment knowing when to use これ、それ、あれ、どれ、この、その、あの and どの, so I have made a chart to help me remember when to use them.

The Genki Textbooks - My progress with them and a short review

I bought the second edition Genki textbook about a year ago from Amazon for around £50. Though it is expensive for a textbook, and there are definitely cheaper alternatives to be found, I think the splurge was worth it. The Genki 1 textbook teaches absolute beginner Japanese and is helpfully divided into 12 lessons, and then subdivided in each lesson to cover vocabulary, grammar, practice, cultural notes, and finally writing Kana and Kanji. I also purchased the accompanying workbook which just provides further questions and practice and helpful grids to practice drawing kanji. My only problem with the textbook and workbook is that the answer key for both books has to be purchased separately for an additional £13 (-＿-). The book is definitely more geared towards Japanese language students spending their first year abroad, with the first vocabulary lists introducing words such as Anthropology (じんるいがく）and International relations (こくさいかんけい）before basic colours, days of the week etc, that you would find in a traditional textbook. That aside, the textbook is so far doing a great job of keeping me motivated and the layout and language of the book is so clear and easy to understand. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to start learning Japanese.


So far, I am still working through chapter one (the chapters are pretty long) and I have been learning around 30 words a day on average. I am supplementing my learning using the free internet downloadable program "Anki". I had already learned Katakana and Hiragana prior to working through the textbook and I would suggest to anyone else who is buying the book to do the same. Right now I can not form any sentences other than things like "hello", "my name is", "that is a cat" and so on so I think it may be a week and a bit before I start writing a short passage in Japanese. I have just learnt about the counters for hours, minutes and years old. Today I think I shall finish off chapter one of the textbook by reviewing what I have learnt and so hopefully, I will be ready to start chapter 2 tomorrow.

I will learn Japanese this time around!

Hello anyone who may happen to read this! My name is Ellie ＼（○＾ω＾○）／ and welcome to my blog. The reason I have set up this blog is for me to personally keep a track of my progress in learning Japanese, and secondly to practice my Japanese writing and grammar in the hope that I improve. Why am I learning Japanese? For the past 4 years I have been fascinated with Japanese culture, tradition, language and media. I have always wanted to learn the language but never managed to keep study going but I've set myself a goal this time around and plan to study everyday. I will be completely self-taught so it's going to be tough!! Perhaps someone may even read my blog and help me correct my grammar. I am currently working through the genki textbooks and using online resources as well as writing to Japanese friends to help my studies. From now on I shall attempt to write a short passage every day in Japanese and discuss what I have learnt. Wish me luck!