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.