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I’ve been a bit of a Japanophile\/Otaku. Wrote a high school thesis paper on the Japanese educational system. I took a Japanese culture class in college. Dropped out of a Japanese language class — too much on my plate at the time. Probably watch too much anime. So it’s no surprise that I’d like to go to Japan first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With that in mind, I’ve been listening to a podcast<\/a> about learning Japanese; I started with the 30 day challenge from 2 years ago… Each episode is about 4-5 minutes long, covering a variety of topics. After about the 4th or 5th episode, it reminded me of why I dropped out of the class; and reminded me of the horrors of taking 3 years of Spanish — with verb conjugation, vocabulary words, etc. It reminded me that some 20ish years ago, I meet with a tutor, a gentleman from Japan to learn Japanese for a brief time; and talks of making flash cards, and advice that I should get a Japanese girlfriend if I really wanted to learn Japanese… But this time, I ended up sticking with it with a new determination, continuing listening to the lessons, with a plan to go back over the 30 days once I learned hiragana<\/em>\/katakana<\/em> and some kanji<\/em>. I would try to soak in some of the context, with out stressing out over memorization… I think I’m up to episode 57, some 20ish episodes past the 30 day challenge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Given that I tried this before the advent of podcasts and smart phones, I feel like I’m a little further along than I expected. I haven’t started with vocabulary words, or sentence construction, I’m just focusing on learning hiragana<\/em>. I’ve found 3 apps that have been very useful, the first one teaches me how to draw the kana<\/a><\/em>\/symbol properly with the correct brush stroke order and say it, then it shows me a romanji<\/em> version of the kana<\/em>, and I have to pick out the correct kana<\/em> from a list of 4. Finally, it shows me a blank screen to draw on, with the romanji<\/em> version of the kana<\/em> (and sound), and I’m to draw it with the correct brush strokes. Multiple times a day, I review what I learned, until I get it right — it’s a little frustrating when (especially with ‘\u306d’) where my brush strokes are slightly off. The 2nd app is just a simple quiz\/flashcard app. It either shows me the romanji<\/em> version of the kana<\/em>, and I have to pick out the right now, or it says the kana<\/em> or a word in Japanese, and I have to pick it out from a list. The final app is more of a speed quiz, same as the second app, but I can choose what kana<\/em> I’ve learned and it will drill me on those only… the goal is to get 100% each time, in the 20ish seconds I get to pick the correct symbol… the 3rd app is a little more nerve-racking, but by not being able to adjust the guessing time, I’ve gotten quicker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n … I don’t know where this will take me. I’m hoping by a year or two of study, I might be able to read signs and maybe have a basic grasp of conversation — maybe end up being JLPT 4<\/a> with a stretch goal of JLPT 3.<\/p>\n