十四番 － 一ヶ月 残る

Well what a month of setbacks, both good and bad! Still I have now made it to 1500 leaving 1 month to achieve my goal of finishing Heisig Vol 1 before I go to Japan. Only made it through 400 the last month due to holidays (the good), sickness and working overtime (the bad). But enough excuses, I will prevail!
Oh and another interesting point I found out over the last month: Don't use noise cancelling head phones to listen to Japanese at work, it may really piss of your boss! hehe. No I didn't lose my Job but not sure if / when I will be able to use head phones at work again.

So to keep with the current trend another great Kanji poster pic: 1500 Wohoooo :D



And finally some Japanese ripped from one of my favourite animes: 秒速５センチメートル,

（アカリ）
　
ねえ

秒速５ｾﾝﾁなんだって

（タカキ）

えっ　何？

（アカリ）

桜の花の落ちるｽﾋﾟｰﾄﾞ
秒速５ｾﾝﾁﾒｰﾄﾙ

（タカキ）

うん

アカリそういうこと
よく知ってるよね

---------------------------------> fin.

十三番 - 千百漢字。。。。やった！

Well its been a month and I'm up to 1100!. At this rate I'm confident I can easily get through 2000 before I go to Japan in February (pending I don't party to hard over the next couple of months...) So not much else to say this post, still vague from a bucks party on the weekend but I thought I should at least post some progress to look back on.. and here it is:

A quality pic of my Kanji poster..wooooooooooooooo

I should at least add some 日本語　to the post so here's a sentence I've been meaning to type up and add to Khatzumemo:

ぼくたちが最初にあったときもしぼく早く話したらあなたはあまり理解できなかった。

十二番 －六百漢字！

Almost a month since my last post so thought this would be a good milestone to track my progress. That's right: 六百漢字...すばらしい！　For a while around the 300-400 range I felt a bit bogged down with kanji and was wondering how I would manage with so many to go. However with a few good review sessions and implementing Anki into my reviewing all came good and now I'm speeding through Heisig keeping an average of 85% correct recall when reviewing!

Also I'm now using my Kanji Poster to track my progress through heisig which is great motivation to see how many I've got through. I should of started this earlier!

Thought I would leave the hat in the Image to make it a bit more interesting!

So everything is still progressing well, although speaking isn't getting very far due to the large amounts of time spent on Heisig. 日本語がわかるようになってきたでもあまり話せない。...忍耐...

No new vocab but need to type up part of this letter I have been drafting to send to a long lost Japanese exchange student that once stayed with my family...

さちこさん、ひさしぶりです！げんきですか？ぼくは元気です。ぼくは二月から日本語のべんきょうをしてます。ぼくの日本語のべんきょうをしたかったのと、あなたがどのようにしているかしりたくてﾒｰﾙをかいています。今ぼくはシドニーに住んでいてけい景観設計のしごとをしてます。二月に二週かんともだちとほっかいどうにいってスーキーをします。たのしみです！そのあとで一週かん東京にいきます。あなたはなにおしてます？

お返事もらえるとうれいしいです。
ではまた。
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　アンドリュー

That will do for now... Oh one more thing, I finally got the Simpsons in 日本語!!
Yeah it doesn't seem like a big deal but after ordering Season 10 from amazon.jp and finding it was only the English version (ばか...) I was a bit nervous this one would be the same! Fortunately this was not the case so now I have complete season 5 and many hours to laugh at how the Simpsons humor gets translated in 日本語.

十一ばん －Transition and streamlining

So here I am 8 months in and thing are going pretty well. Still there is room for improvement, hence the title. Now I have finished my classes I can make the full transition to my preferred learning methods and continue to make my way through heisig. I few things that I have been doing need to be changed to allow better efficiency for learning:

1. No full translation of sentences to English, only translation of key words if needed.

2. Implementing Anki (srs program) into Kanji learning as well as the review process at http://kanji.koohii.com. This will ensure more constant exposure and hopefully prevent too many 'failed' cards piling up in my review stack.

3. Attendance to fortnightly langauge exchange meetup group to make help my confidence in conversation and continue to exapnd my vocabulary.

So these are the main goals to help my study now. I feel im getting to a point where my learning environment is just right for me, just a little more tweaking! :D

A few more words now:

おしえる　－To teach, inform, instruct
たとえば　－For example
ちがう　－To vary, be different
じんせい　－Human life、

十ばん - 300 and rising!

Another unstructered post full of random verbs and a couple of sentences...why? Becasue heisig calls! Just passed the 300 mark and feeling good. I will have my last japanese class next week and then full steam ahead with the Kanji. My conversation may not progress for a while but it has to be done!

とる　- to take
ねる - to sleep
かく - To write

かす　- To lend
つく - to turn on, to be lit, to catch fire
けす- To turn off, to erase, to delete, to cross out, to extiunguish
もち - To Hold, charge, keep possesion
あく - to open to, to be free, to be vacant
しめ - enclosure or end mark
とる- to take up, to pick up, to harvest
かつぐ - to carry on shoulders

しゃしん - Photograph
おみこし - Portable Shrine
はなび - Fireworks
ゆき - Snow
しあい - Game/match

こっち　- Close to this side / close to me/you
あっち - Other side/far/yonder

カメラをともだちにかしたからかれはしゃしんをとった

I lent my camera to my friend and he took a photo.

カメラをともだちにかしたかれかれはしゃしんをとることができた

I lent my camera to my friend so he could take a photo.

でんきをつけましょうか？

Shall I turn on the light

いいえあかるすぎます、ぜんぶけしてください。

No its to birght pleas turn them all off.

九ばん - I like Bing Lee

Cant think of anything interesting to write at the moment, hence the random title. Also it should be noted the original tune in the Bing Lee add is based on is a Monty Python song call 'I like Chinese'. This original song is funny but the fact Bing Lee decided to use it as their tune is even funnier!

Lets go for some adjectives then:

べんり　Convenient
からい Hot, Spicy
あまい Sweet
やさしい Easy
しずか Quiet
にかい Lively
ひま Free (not busy)
しんせつKind
すまるない Boring


And a couple of verbs:

あげる　- Give, plus many other notions of release which I cant be bothered listing
もらう - To receive, accept, take, get somebody to do something

Now of course come the sentences...

Randwickにすむことはしごとばがちかいからべんりです

Living in Randwick is convenient because it is close to work.


Damn I've been stalling on this post for a while now, so some more adjectives and......POST.

ゆうめい - Famous
じょうず - Skillful
しんせつ - Kindness
かんたん - Easy
おそい - slow/late
へた - unskillful/poor awkward
すてき - Stylish, cool, lovely, dreamy, superb
おもい - Felling desire, emotion, wish

Ok next post will be the sentence one just gotta get this out of my damn drafts!

いまあいかわらずおれはあかずきんちゃんをきいてねむる。。。

八ばん - A snowball of Variety.

What is a Snowball of Variety? This is my new analogy for learning Japanese. This snowball of variety can only keep growing if it is has a continuous supply of variety to accumulate as it rolls along. So as it get bigger it will require even more amounts of variety to grow. More audio, more text more people to speak with, more sentences for Khatzumemo. Pretty obvious really but I needed something to write so I can look back and laugh later on.

No vocab list this time just a nice story about：　　

わたしのしゅまつ

どようびははやおきをしてパンをかった。そのあと、あさごはんをたべた。そして、九じにきれいなかのじょにでんわをした。かのじょははやおきがにがてです。そのあとで、おれとサイモンくんはくるまでシティにいった。そしてダーリングハーバーでかのじょとあいました。ぼく、まちながらスターバックスでコーヒーをかった。そのあとでわたしたちはしょくぶえんにいった。こうもりがたくさんきにいた。そこでひるごはんをたべたあとでえいがをみた。えいがはおもしろくてとてもすきだった。そのあとかのじょのうちにいって、にほんりょうりをつくった。どようびはとてもいいひでした。

にちようび、あさおれはかのじょのとなりでおきて、しゃわーをあびるためによくしつにいった。あとでわたしのうつくしいかのじょは、あさごはんにパンとめだまやきをおれにつくった。めだまやきはうまかったけど、ハ゜ンはちょっとかたかった。十じいはわたしたちはシティにいた。そしてバスでボンダイビーチにいった。わたしたちはコーヒーをかったあとでしばふにすわってけしきをみた。わたしたちはコーヒーをのみおえたあとでボンダイからうちにあるいた。しゃしんをとるのにはてんきがよかった。わたしたちは、おれのうちについてひるごはんにブルスケッタをつくった。そのあとでまんがをみた。そして、おれはあすかちゃんをくるまでうちまでおくっていった。そのあとおれはスーパーにかいものにいった。たくさんたのしいことをしたひでした。