Status Update and Going to the Bookstore

As my first month of studying draws to a close, I’ve started to reflect on how my studying has gone so far. Although I had wished to be more productive and studious, it didn’t happen. I realize that I should have stuck with my original plan and tried to accomplish a ridiculous amount of studying and stayed optimistic, because that mindset and attitude gave me better results. With the second month of studying, I plan to crack down and study harder by going back to my initial study plan.

In order to promote this renewal of the old study plan, I went to the bookstore and bought some new material…actually, that’s a lie. I went to the bookstore on a whim, to look for and possibly buy some travel books for Japan and wound up buying more than I had planned to. So, I’ll be writing about the new books I bought some time in the near future or in the new blog I plan on writing when I’m in Japan.

Day 22

It’s been a while since I wrote a post about my progress. I’ve definitely have not been as productive as I wanted to be, but I am still studying and I think that is great that I have not stopped studying and being productive completely. I’m continually trying out new programs for studying, which I think is evident by all of the JLR posts I’ve been writing.  I’ve had a lot of realizations recently. For one, I realized that there is only so much I can do in one day and it’s not realistic to think I can study all day, every day. I am constantly changing my schedule and being flexible about my study habits, because not every day can be the same and I have other things to do with my time.

Another realization that I have come to is that I have been studying passively, not always, but there are some aspects of my studying that I need to be more engaged in. For example, I have been experimenting with using non-Japanese learning material to learn Japanese such as reading books and playing video games. I can remember the meanings of some of the new words and phrases that I encounter, but I cannot tell you how to pronounce them. I have an iKnow account, which I primarily use for their Japanese Core study lists to build my Japanese vocabulary, but I can make custom lists as well. So, I have started using the custom list feature in order to actively study the new words and phrases I encounter.

I’m glad that I created this blog. Why? Because it forces me to constantly reflect and think about how I am studying and encourages me to become better at studying Japanese. I realized that while having a blog is great, I need to see what other people are doing in order to study Japanese. For me, that means reading other language blogs, watching YouTube videos and discovering other language websites etc. Learning a language is not just a thing you do, it’s a lifelong commitment. While I may have three months until I study abroad, my language studies will continue after I come back, just as they began before I knew I was accepted to study abroad in Japan.

Day 17

I’ve decided that I like not having a set plan for how I am going to study Japanese. Learning a language is a life-long endeavor and there is no set way to go about it. Although I am majoring in Japanese at college, that will not make me instantly fluent after four years. I think something I’ve taken for granted was studying by myself outside of the work I did in the classroom and the homework I was given. Recently, I’ve been reading other language blogs and watching YouTube videos about hyperpolyglots etc. so, the opinions and advice of other language learners, especially those that have been studying longer than me and have a higher level of proficiency, matter to me. I think anyone who truly wants to learn a language needs to look beyond the act of learning another language and take note of the other issues surrounding learning that language at the very least.

That’s not to say I’m going to take a laissez-faire approach to studying Japanese; I’m just going to be more flexible in how I approach studying Japanese so that I can tailor my study methods to how I want to learn. I’ve decided to at least make it through the material (textbooks) that make Japanese language classes covered and anything beyond that will be icing on the cake. I’ve already started this change in studying and it delivers results. I think my ‘plan’ is to focus on one or two things (Japanese learning material) each day, until I get bored. I’ll be writing about some of the new learning materials I’ve discovered soon.

Day 3

Last night, I stayed up late in order to finish some of the items of my study checklist. There are some things I do not want to get behind on, such as studying from my Japanese textbooks and studying kanji. Today, I decided to start studying my textbook first so that I can make sure that gets crossed off my checklist. Everything seems a lot easier since I have already had five Japanese language classes and I notice important facts written in the book about grammar that I overlooked the first time I read the textbook in class. One of my major achievements yesterday was the fact that I finished reviewing kana! Now, I can focus on learning kanji.

Day 9 Update

I have not been feeling well, so I took a break for a few days. With the break, my organized and ambitious schedule fell apart. But, the good news is that since I have been trying to do a lesson a day in the Genki I textbook, I am not that far behind with those studies. Since there is only twelve lessons in the first Genki textbook, I am actually not doing so bad in that aspect of my studies. I also found another Japanese learning resource today, so I will be posting about that in the near future.

Day 2

Today, I woke up really early and began studying. I am still debating if I want to make a concrete schedule or not. I like the flexibility of just having a checklist of things to do, but having a schedule would more likely yield better results if I stuck to it. I learned a lot of random, but useful information today, which I attribute to the fact that I do not have a set schedule. One interesting thing I read about was an article about staying focused, I will place the link under resources.

Although I did complete a lot of the items on my checklist, I am falling behind on some of the items…and it is only day two! I think one of the things I will be considering is making some of the items on my checklist every other day items or something. I have already got a lot of great information (in terms of my own feedback) from these past two days about how I should handle studying Japanese and I think all of the reflective blog posts have helped a great deal too. I am constantly thinking about what I can do to study better or about sharing resources I like or know about through this blog and that is keeping me motivated.

I am glad (right now) that I decided to study Japanese using my study with multiple materials approach. As I said in a previous approach, I have a short attention span, and some material that I am using is more engaging to me than others. I think the fact that I am recognizing this and acknowledging these facts will help me in the long run and keep me more open-minded to changing my study method and way of thinking in a way that can improve the results of my studying.

Conclusion:

My plan is to aim high, even though I will most likely not complete everything I set out to do, and accomplish what I can by taking it one day at a time.

Resources:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/225321 (Focus Article)

Day 1

I began studying my Genki I textbook today. It is one of the things I will be studying daily. My goal is to do one lesson per day, which will be easier with the introductory material. I will probably deviate from that plan later on depending on how it works out. I began with lesson one, using the audio, which you can find online for the textbook if you do not have a CD, as a guide. Since I know that I cannot try to stay focused on one thing for a long time, I switched to writing practice (hiragana) at the back of the book before starting to study lesson one’s grammar section. The Genki I textbook does not go over stroke order for kana characters, so I will be using kana de Manga to review the stroke order of kana. I tried to break up reviewing hiragana into smaller chunks throughout the day, because I started reviewing kanji today as well.

My plan is to study 15 kanji per day from the Kanji de Manga series in order to complete the series in three months. I do not plan to use just the Kanji de Manga series to study kanji, because that will only be 480 kanji in total. I will also study the kanji from the Genki I and II textbooks (317 kanji in the reading/writing sections). In addition to those two programs, I will be studying kanji in other programs as well. I will be using my Midori and Japanese dictionary apps’ flashcards to study kanji by JLPT level (levels N5-N3). I will be using a series of apps that cover kanji from first grade to sixth grade (小学一年生漢字ドリル). That way I am reinforcing the kanji I learn from each resource by seeing it in other learning material and that way I make sure I am not just learning the same kanji over and over, but new kanji as well.

Besides those programs, I will be indirectly studying kanji through the other material (programs) that I will be using, which I will write about in the JLR posts. I will also be doing reading and listening practice using an iPhone app called ANN Player, which plays news audio with its transcript, and TuneIn Radio.

Some other things I did to study today were: go through lesson one of Mirai Japanese (this is a different company than the Elementary kanji app), listen to lesson one of NHK’s Japanese lessons and go through lesson one of Minna no Nihongo (the iPhone app).

Resources:

http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/index_en (Here is a link to the Genki textbook series.)

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/sheaa/projects/genki/index.html (This website has resources to use with the Genki textbook series)

小学一年生漢字ドリル by Mirai (iPhone app)

Mirai Japanese (by Mirai LLP)

Minna no Nihongo (iPhone app)

Midori (iPhone dictionary app)

Japanese (iPhone dictionary app)

http://iknow.jp

http://www.howtodrawmanga.com/ (This is the website that sells the kanji de Manga series)

ANN Player (iPhone app)

http://tunein.com/ (This is a website and an iPhone app)