I already know what I’ve been up to for the past six months, so I’m not going to do a re-cap for the imaginary audience. I’m just going to start in on my new format. Blogs are for bitching and logging! No real bitching to be done today, so let’s just do some logging. Going forward, I’m going to try and make regular use of my blog for keeping track of things I’ve learned. It’s mostly for my benefit, but you’re welcome to read it too 🙂
I’m starting to get back into learning Japanese again. I first took a course back in 2004 (I think) and another one in like… 2009. Needless to say, I’m rusty, so I’ve been doing a little bit of research on how to get back into it without doing it formally at a night class. I’m already teaching twice a week and now that I’ve got a kid, I’m reluctant to spend money and go out at night. So I’m going to attempt to do it on the cheap.
I’ve already got a couple of resources to work with. I bought “Human Japanese” a while ago and from what I can tell it’s a good resource. I think I’ll start there. Here’s some of the other resources I’ve come across recently while stoking my Japanese embers.
– Japan uses a different paper size than we use in Canada. Here the standard sheet of paper is simply called “letter”. It’s 8.5″ by 11″. That’s right, I’m Canadian, and yet can’t measure paper in centimeters. At any rate, if you want to prepare a resume on paper that will be printed in Japan, better to make sure that your paper is formatted for A4 size. That’s 8 1/4 by 11 11/16.
– speaking of resumes, here’s How to Write an Effective Cover Letter and a list of some common phrases. Here’s one phrase in particular I expect to be using for quite a while longer: わたしは-にほんごが-まだ-へた-です。
– I mean to check out some of the Learn Japanese Pod content. I’ve tried Japanese Pod 101 and don’t enjoy it.
– I think it’s too lofty of a goal for me to take an equivalency exam this year. I’m way too rusty, and busy to be able to cram enough. But http://www.jlptstudy.net/ seems like a good resource for studying for the exams. N5 is the least fluent, while N1 is the most fluent. This is an official trial exam when the time comes that I feel comfortable reviewing for N5. This appears to be relevant to proficiency exams and teaching material for Japanese teachers…. but… I only know this thanks to google translate. Definitely not ready for this yet.
– When the time comes though, here is the official site for the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test.
– My buddy Matt, who is quite proficient has recommended these books: Japanese Expression Sentence Patterns, Japanese sentence pattern dictionary, Teach Yourself Japanese, along with the above proficiency test resources.
– Pimsleur seems highly recommended on the internet… but… I’m not completely convinced. There seems to be a fair amount of criticism of the actor’s pronunciation.
– r/learnjapanese seems to think that Anki is one of the best tools out there for learning… so I think I’ll give it a shot.
– And tofugu seems to have a great list of resources. I’ve been hearing about the Genki I book it recommends… so maybe I’ll get to that after Human Japanese.
– I find “life hacks” to be rather dubious… and often common sense… but that said, I haven’t learned a language since I learned my native language 🙂 so I could use a few tips. JapanToday.com has their own set of tips. Probably the most likely tip is what injapan.gaijinpot.com states: “not only is there no best method, but it almost doesn’t matter what you do, so long as you do a lot of it”.
– I really want to believe that All Japanese All The Time is a great resource. I’ve seen it recommended almost as though it were a bible… but the organization of the website makes it really difficult for me to read.
So now that I’ve been able to de-clutter my bookmarks bar on my web browser, lets look at what my strategy is.
– I’m going to start with Human Japanese. An hour a day seems doable.
– I’m going to try and play some games in Japanese. I was downloading Fable – The Lost Chapters while writing this post, a game I already own, haven’t played before, and according to Steam I can play in Japanese. This is going to be grueling and time consuming as I don’t know enough Japanese to make it through a game right now.
– This means making heavy use of the flash cards via Anki, I think. Along with constant hunting in a Japanese dictionary.
– I’m going to try and update the blog as I learn stuff to help re-enforce it.