じゅなん

As I creep past the learning of kana, TextFugu told me to, rather then learn every piece of vocab, find my passion and learn terms associated with it to grasp "vocab I care about" Therefore it asked for my passion, and 20 words associated with it, so obviously I chose Biology because it's something that isn't just a habit or hobby, it's something I care and plan to continue throughout my life serious enough to rest my security and life upon. Though I do like games, I thought biology would give me some more fun things, possibly I will create another list as though I had chosen games, just for more vocab and practice using the recommended dictionary 

My current List is:

Vocab Word                                         Hiragana

Biology                                                 せいぶつがく

Cell                                                      さいぼう

Physical Sciences                                  りがく

Parasite                                                きせい

Evolution                                               しんか

Plague                                                   えきびょう

Dangerous Disease                                たいびょう

Bacteria                                                ばいきん

Genetics                                                いでんがく
Neuroscience                                        のうかがく
Research                                               けんきゅう
Species                                                  いっしゅ
Medical Science                                    いか
Human                                                  にんげん
Life and Death                                       せいし
Medicine                                               やくざい
Test Tube                                              しけんかん
Virus                                                     びゃうどく
Laboratory                                            じっけんしつ
Chemistry                                              かがく

That's my vocab list, now (along with a worksheet a day) I have more material to study!

The gritty part

Studying, repetition, all that wonderfulness. After 1 week I am evaluating my progress:

• Vowel row down (writing and reading)

• K row down, occasionally forgetting how to draw け and drawing こ a bit "weird" according to my friend who has experience with Japanese... also drawing く backwards hindered me until I realized it.
• S row pretty much down, forgetting そis drawn in one stroke rather then my noobish 3 strokes!
• T row pretty much down, て　gives me occasional trouble remembering how to draw it, but I can read it well enough.
• Haven't begun M, H, N, R, Y, or N yet.... those will be this week!

Pronouncing Time

I have been working on my pronunciation of the kana and am done with the simple kana:

あ　い　う　え　お　=Vowel
か　き　く　け　こ　=K
さ　し　す　せ　そ  =S
ま　み　む　め　も =M
は　ひ　ふ　へ　ほ =H
な　に　ぬ　ね　の =N
ら　り　る　れ　ろ   =R
や　　　ゆ　　よ　 =Y
わ　　　　　　を     =W
　　　　　　　　ん =N

I have also worked on the additional stuff, such as:
が　ぎ　ぐ　げ　ご =G
ざ　じ　ず　ぜ　ぞ  =Z
だ　ぢ　づ　で　ど   =D
ば　び　ぶ　べ　ぼ  =B
ぱ　ぴ　ぷ　ぺ　ぽ  =P

I am also aware of the little Y column and combo characters.
きや　＝kya for example (Ki + Ya)

I am now embarking on learning to read!

ひらがな, The Beginning

Apparently Hiragana（ひらがな） is the first step, but TextFugu breaks it down to pronunciation before learning the characters (kana) So we'll try this out. They gave  a nice chart for learning it.

I am also making flash cards for the characters and working on vowel pronunciation:

あ　い　う　え　お　
A      I     U     E     O
ah     ee   oo    eh    oh

This video is a good study tool and will be remembered later.

Looking on to the next page, we learn about ka ki ku ke ko, the second set of kana involving the consonant "K" all Hiragana (other then A I U E O and N) have a consonant and vowel. Now that I'm working on the pattern  I will work on pronunciation later on tonight. I just need repetition.

I have sufficiently worked through vowel pronunciations, now i am moving onto the K row.
かKa きKi くKu けKe こKo

たTa ちChi つTsu てTe とTo

さSa しShi すSu せSe そSo

け　さ　て　These are the ones I have trouble with (Ke, Sa, Te) and will need to work on while I study.

The first steps

I completed, or at least looked over the "first chapter" in Textfugu where we look at the language and the different alphabets:

Hiragana (Native words and suffixes)
Katakana (Borrowed words)
Kanji (Borrowed Chinese characters with tons of different pronunciations and characters)
Romaji (Roman alphabet for Japanese words.)

At the end of the chapter, it gave me a page to review what I had learned. Here I will put the questions, as well as my answers.

1. Should I bother to learn Romaji? -No, as it is just the English alphabet and isn't meant to be used to learn, it's more for a memorization approach, and is never used.
2. Which alphabet is used to write all the vocabulary words? -Kanji
3. Where did Kanji come from? -The Chinese (Textfugu- it came from China from people reading burnt turtle shell cracks as messages from the Gods.)
4. Which alphabet do you use to write foreign words? -Katakana
5. Which alphabet tends to be more "boxy shaped" and "rigid?" -Katakana
6. Do Hiragana and Katakana consist of the same sounds? -Yes
7. Which alphabets are you going to learn on TextFugu? -All of them except Romaji
8. Which alphabet would you use to write the "Roma" in Romaji? -Katakana

Progress log: I feel more confidant about each of the alphabets and I felt this chapter was a great source of insight into how to look at them. 

I had struggled with remembering when to use Hiragana and Katakana and now the hardest part is remembering that Hiragana is spelt Hir-a-gana and not Hir-i-gana. I feel confidant to move on.... later.

Intro

I am beginning a journey of self discovery and self learning.  For my own reference this blog is created for notes and for a practice space/ reminder of all that I have learned and plan to learn in preparation for the Japan Travel Course this spring break. My main goal for learning Japanese was to be able to read manga and videogame text and watch anime in their natural language, and to better understand the culture.

Thinking deeper, I said, "that would be interesting, and useful since I enjoy their culture... but what would a big goal/ something I can constantly remind myself of 'why' I am doing this be?" I thought for a while, then gave up. A few days ago, I visited a site called textfugu (An online textbook geared towards self-learners of Japanese) and started reading through their 'textbook'. The textbook gave me some preparation exercises, introducing itself like a person which I liked a lot. It asked me to write down a personal question and answer it. The question it asked was:

Why are you learning Japanese in the first place?

This took a while to think, and it gave some examples, such as "I want to talk to my Japanese grandma in Japanese"  or "I want to live there and work for Sony" and other really deep and future-thinking ideas. I felt like my idea was something I could do with Japanese, but not a good enough reason for me to learn the language, therefore I thought deeply. I thought about why I want to go on the travel course also, is it just for the camaraderie? or for the anime/culture? or something deeper? I then thought about the question many people ask of "What religion are you?"

That was a question that has troubled me for a while. When I was young, i was raised christian at Sunday school where we did fun activities... but when it came to the lectures and actual church part, I felt absolutely nothing... other then boredom. I tried Christianity again later on, but I did that because my friends wanted me to give it another go, and because they had music and it was fun to get up and dance with people... but during the lectures again, I would feel myself completely disconnected and I felt guilty for not paying attention and just sitting there like a lump who fidgeted.

I looked into other religions like druidism, paganism, and shamanism because I like Norse mythology, druids, nature, and the idea of spirits, but those didn't really fit... the thing they all shared in common though was the basis of Animism. I do feel that I am an animist. The thing I like about Animism vs. Christianity is that I can say I am an animist, without saying "I am an orthodox catholic whatever sect." Not that I'm bashing religions, I just feel that being an animist opens me up to all aspects of animism rather then forcing me into one section. I also like that animism to me, is the belief that everything has some governing body and motivation behind it. to certain objects, I feel some kind of connection to them, in nature, I enjoy trees when I need something sturdy to re-affirm my beliefs on a subject, or to help me get my mind relaxed. I enjoy flowers because they seem so jovial and it makes me happy looking at them. I also talk to inanimate objects like they are alive and care about what I say. I'm not trying to bash on Christianity, it just isn't for me.

I looked into other animistic religions and found Shintoism, one of my friends actually practices Shintoism  though I dunno how regularly. and looking at it, it seems very open and low-stress, no prayer at 4:00, no church every Sunday etc. Just a personal respect for nature and all that it encompasses.

 I attended a panel at Anime Boston that further opened my eyes to Shintoism  Buddhism  Taoism and many other religions in Japan. The speaker, of which I can't remember the name, talked about the gods, and spirits a little, but the main focus was on the history of Shintoism Vs. Buddhism Vs. Taoism Vs Christianity and how Taoism, Buddhism and Shintoism can all get along fine and don't care, but these "one-God religions" don't like to play with others and that is why the decline in Shintoism was so harsh in the past. I really liked the concept of Shintoism after that speech and felt that maybe it is the religion for me, since apparently everyone must belong to some religion. But that is a digression, the main point of this post is about Why I want to learn Japanese.

Long story short, I decided that my major goal in learning Japanese, would be to pray at a temple in Japan, I haven't decided which one, in Japanese. I think that would be a great soul-lifting experience.

Now that my goal is affirmed, I want to pray in Japanese, at a Japanese Shinto shrine the next step was to write down my excuses for not following through, or for giving up, or for not reaching my goal the way I wanted to. I wrote the following:

- I feel I am not good at learning new languages.

- I tend to dive into things too much and with all my enthusiasm, then burn my self out.

- I am very busy, and might not have time to practice every day or even every week.

- I get excited about making task lists, but never actually follow through with them.

- I am not confidant at speaking in front of people in other languages.

-I forget words and phrases easily.

- It will be hard to learn while getting through this French class I have to take.

Now that I went through that soul crushing evaluation of myself, the next step was not to tell people about your plans, as it will give you "hope" that you are making more progress then you really are, and it will cause you to slack off. I really liked the first bit of this book and I think I will work on goal-setting before taking a class "for the funsies" that I really care about.

The following posts will contain  format similar to:

What I learned
How I felt about said learning (was it easy, interesting, hard, something I want to learn more about)
What I need to work on
What I want to learn next

For now, I believe that will be all! Hopefully I can make this less-text filled and put some pictures etc. if you want to read this for keeping track on my progress, feel free, or if you want to use it as a resource  feel free, but I won't be trying to teach myself and the world Japanese, as I am no expert.