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!