Greetings and happy post-Thanksgiving! If you’re in the USA and celebrated Thanksgiving then I hope it was great just like mine. I had a fun, morning 10 mile run, studied Japanese, vacuumed the house, prepared a turkey dinner for my brother and sister-in-law and played Super Mario Wonder. I also took a nap with my cat Callie. Oh and I also started a fire in my fireplace. I really like doing that on cold days. It is progressively getting colder here. さむいよ！
I made it to level 10 on WaniKani last week and I’m now working my way through all of the new vocabulary. No new radicals in sight yet. I’m pretty excited about reaching level 11 since I’ll be leaving the paradise zone. Ready to get to the painful part haha. I’m one chapter away from the last in my 2nd Japanese From Zero text book. I’m having a good time working through those books. I have three, four and five ready to go! I also have the Kanji series as well which I’ll work through. Getting to practice writing Kanji will be awesome since I never do that. Daily, I just write かな.
I keep thinking about New Year’s even though it’s over a month away still. It’s probably due to my New Year’s Resolution I’m excited about making which is… taking the JLPT N5! With everything I’m doing to study Japanese I hope I can pass it when it comes time. Will probably book a first-class flight to Houston since first-class is awesome I recently found out haha. It would be cool if I could pass the JLPT N5-N2. Do one every year but that might be unrealistic. I just need to focus on getting one passed. As the test draws nearer I probably purchase one of those N5 study guides to make sure I’m prepared as possible.
I purchased a new OLED Switch and have been playing Yokai Watch 1 on it in Japanese. It’s been pretty brutal but I occasionally can read a word or two to know a little about what’s going on. Mostly, I’ve been playing Super Mario Wonder in English with my family haha. Need to get back to Yokai but it’s challenging to find time to play. I’m quite occupied with my existing Japanese learning routine and don’t have much time in my day to squeeze in some gaming. Oh well, it might just take me a while to finish that game. No rush really.
Well my water is done boiling so time to make a matcha tea. I’ve been drinking that daily and glad to have a new, healthy habit!
またね！
Oh, there’s this cool sentence I saw recently and I liked the look of it. Here it is:
この町には古い茶屋があります。
It says “In this town there is an old tea shop.” I hope I actually wrote that correctly. 😆
Good morning! I was attempting to write an opening paragraph in Japanese but it really sucked so I quit that idea. Still need to do a lot more studying. I’m about half way through my Japanese From Zero! book 2. It’s pretty neat to be able to read longer sentences the book contains but it’s tricky trying to remember all of the information provided. So much new vocabulary and verbs. It will be a lot of fun when I can express myself a bit more and not just be limited to saying things like よくコーヒーをのみます。
In the next couple of days I should reach level 10 on WaniKani. I feel like I’ve been at level 9 much longer than the others. Excited to get to level 11 and out of the paradise zone!
Besides studying Japanese as usual, I feel like I’ve been tempted so much lately with wanting to buy new things. Like a FPGA board (for hardware emulation), a Nintendo Switch (for the new Mario) or an Apple watch. Not sure why I’ve been wanting so many new things lately. I’m trying my best to avoid dwelling on these new items since I just don’t think I really need them. I find it hard when I haven’t bought some cool new thing in weeks or months. I’m trying to live more minimally and not acquire so much.
Well that’s it for now. I need to go get lunch ready and make nutty pudding for later. I feel like I need a matcha tea so I’ll go prepare one now. Hope your day is going great and I’ll be back.
Oh, there was a fun thing that happened this morning while driving to the grocery store. I just learned the word あんまりand then heard Teppei say it today. You usually put it before a negative verb to say you don’t often do something. For example “にほんにあんまりいきません” which means “I don’t go to Japan often.” Always fun to hear a word you’ve learned recently!
またね！
Thought it was time for another post since I haven’t done one in a while since my birthday (たんじょうび). I’m back in Texas now and all set back into my normal routine. Got all of the grocery shopping done this weekend (しゅうまつ) and did some cleaning (そうじ) around the house (うち). Still working hard on my Japanese studying and happy to be in the 2nd Japanese From Zero book. I actually ordered the rest of the series yesterday once I found out there were special editions available. Might as well complete all of the books.
I decided to drop another piece of software I’ve been studying lately and decided to put that extra time gained into Japanese. I’ve situated Japanese to be a really important part of my life and consider it a large project. I’ll be working on this for many years but I’ve done that before on other things. I’d hate to stop now and then regret later when many years have passed. For a very long time I’ve wanted to really learn another language so why not Japanese! Who knows what doors it will open.
I’m still at level 9 on WaniKani and just got to the new level 10 Kanji today. Feel like I might be going a bit slow. I’m nervous to push it and crank through the system since I feel like I’ll just forget quickly. I never want to make it just about the leveling up and start cheating or something just to finish. No sense it that. I’ll continue at my normal pace and not give it too much thought. I am trying hard to prepare for the JLPT N5 next year. I really hope I can pass that!
Okay that’s all for now. I need to go eat more and then do some programming on our video game.
またね！
こんにちは！昨日は僕の誕生日でした。僕はさんじゅうはっさいです。家族のとぼくはColumbia、CAに行きました。本当に楽しかった。僕はロウソクとあめ買いました。誕生日はすごかったです！
Well, that’s probably the longest Japanese sentence I’ve ever written. My birthday was yesterday and I’m out visiting my parents on their farm. It’s been great being here and nice to spend time with them. I got some great presents, bought some gifts for brother and sister-in-law and tomorrow I’m going to visit my sister by the coast. I know I haven’t written anything for a while but not too much has been going on with my Japanese learning besides the usual. I’m level 9 on WaniKani and I’m on the last chapter of my Japanese From Zero! 1 grammar book. Happy to begin the 2nd book soon. So much good info in that book that my brain can’t contain it all. I’m sure I’ll occasionally look back through the chapters in that book to try and pick up words I’ve forgotten or some cool cultural tip I forgot.
I think I’m doing well continuing my normal routine at my parents’ house and after I’m done writing this, I’m going to go work on the last chapter of my grammar book. I actually have the second one with me as well so I can start that next!
頑張りましょう！またね！
Wow it’s already been a week since my last post. Not too much exciting news to be writing about recently. I’m still cranking through WaniKani, working through my Japanese From Zero 1 grammar book and watching Japanese YouTube videos. Oh I guess there is a cool thing I started this week or I guess I should say last week since today is Sunday. I got these awesome graded readers called Nihongo Tadoku. I bought all of the volumes 0 – 4 and have so far read the first book. They start out very simple and you can listen along with the included audio CD. I actually had to buy a portable CD player to listen lol. Most graded readers are all digital which is kind of meh so I was really happy to know I could obtain some physical readers. After I get done posting this I’m going to go read a couple of the books. I’m pretty bad still but I kind of can pick up what the story is about even though I may not know all of the words yet. One day these beginning stories will embarrassingly easy but for right now they’re great.
By the way I did learn an important word for this time of the year:
かぼちゃ
It means pumpkin! 🎃🎃🎃
またね！
おはようございます！Happy 十月1日！Enjoying my 甘いコーヒー after having a nice 6.8 mile run this fine 朝の日曜日. I’m listening to the ゼルダの伝説 時のオカリナ sound track currently which is one of my favorites. The N64 has lots of wonderful OSTs!
I don’t have much of an update today on my Japanese progress. I’m doing the same routine as always and learning new words daily. Some new words are just down right tough like this word 以外 (other than), oh and this word too 先回り(anticipation). Thankfully, WaniKani doesn’t always teach me a long string of new, difficult words like those. A few days ago I learned 10 new words since they were all so easy. The new vocabulary was just a combination of other Kanji I already knew well. Like 金魚 and 白鳥.
While doing my next WaniKani lessons today I finally came upon the level 9 radicals! Great feeling when you get to the next level’s subjects. I’m not too far from the Painful group of levels which starts at level 11. I’m guessing the Kanji just gets more compact and complex. Excited to be in the teens soon!
Yelp that’s all for now.
またね！
本当に難しい！That’s what I said to myself a few times today while running a half marathon here in Lubbock, Texas. The race was the Willie McCool memorial half marathon. The first 8 or so miles went wonderfully but then I turned on to this straight, un-shaded road with absolutely no wind. So hot or あついですね！I really had to drop my pace in order to keep my heart rate in a tolerable range. I was in the 170s for the last part and wasn’t too keen on that tempo. I reduced my pace to below 12:00 minute mile and that didn’t help too much due to the heat. Getting of that super hot road helped me recover and get back to running a bit faster. I wanted to get a new personal best and I believe I achieved that today. Around 4 minutes faster. I’d like to make that 30 minutes faster one day!
When I passed the finish line and saw one of my friends waiting I had a real strong urge to say お疲れ様でした！I’m certain I would have received quite a strange stare haha. It’s funny when these Japanese phrases just pop into your head. As I continue to slowly learn, that will probably get more frequent and I’ll just want to say more things in Japanese. Probably need to just speak to myself though or make sure the other person knows the language too. Another half marathon in the books! (funny saying)
またね！
Good news! I reached the next level in WaniKani. Level 8! レベルアップ！
Every new level reached is always a celebration since it means one small step closer to level 六十. Also, I’ll take this moment to use a new phrase I learned on myself lol: お疲れ様でした. Very good phrase to know since I’ve been told it’s used heavily, every day by many Japanese people. It means basically “great job” and used to show someone you acknowledge their hard work they put into something. So… I’m acknowledging myself! 😇
On to the next level! 頑張りましょう‼
またね and happy 金曜！
My Roomba, 丸さん, got lost somehow trying to make it back to his charging station yesterday so he inevitably gave up and asked for my help. As I approached 丸さん I tapped the glowing red button on top of him out of curiosity and then he said a phrase to me! I only could pick out the end but thought it would be fun to fully figure out what he was trying to tell me. I recorded the message and began typing out what I heard. Once I got something semi-close I fired up ChatGPT for translation assistance. Amazing how helpful that tool is and when you give it more context it just keeps understanding more. We finally settled on these two sentences that were being said:
バッテリー残容量が低下しています。充電してください。
Basically is says the battery’s remaining capacity is decreasing and needs to be recharged. A difficult problem was figuring out 残容量 (ざんよりょ). I kept hearing it as just さんりょwhich doesn’t appear to be an actual word. ChatGPT said that perhaps the robot is saying that word a bit differently than expected. I think that’s probably the reason and will maybe fully understand more one day. Maybe it some sort of dialect (方言) thing.
Anyhow, fun exercise and I’ll leave you with a picture of sleeping 丸さん.
またね！
Happy 金曜日!
Work hasn’t been too busy this morning, so I’d thought I’d make a post! I started going through the Japanese From Zero series and I’m on book 1 currently. So far, I’m really enjoying it and I’m also following along using their online study material. Going smooth since I’ve already been studying Japanese for a few months and know Hiragana and Katakana. The culture notes and helpful phrases are great, and the flow of the chapters is nice. The book was actually bigger than I expected but there’s not tons of material on each page, so you flip pages pretty quickly. All text is large enough to read easily and not microscopic. George has fun videos to watch on their website/YouTube if you desire to follow along that way.
Japanese has an incredible amount of information and study tools available that can tempt you to take on too much or just plain overwhelm you into doing nothing. I’m being cautious to not take on so many things at once. My learning stack, I believe, is good currently and not bloated. It still consists of the following:
I engage in the above daily except I rotate the grammar specific material. Somedays I’ll read some more of Tae Kim’s grammar book or watch some Cure Dolly. I don’t spend a lot of time on grammar but mainly focus on listening and vocabulary studies. I think I should definitely not add anything more into the learning mix!
Okay that’s it for now. Time for me to go heat up my super veggie for lunch. 美味しい！
