sengoku_jeniko

I have decided that I am going to attack kanji, as much as possible before I go back to England. I'm doing this in a few different ways... firstly, working through the kanji textbook that we have for our kanji lessons, which is 6/8 revision, 1/8 not having learnt the kanji but vaguely knowing what it means anyway, and 1/8 kanji I am completely ignorant about. I am currently covering 1 chapter a day, which is 16-18 kanji. As well as this I am studying any kanji which come up in the vocabulary which I don't know/am not entirely sure of, instead of just ignoring it, or only learning what it means in that particular word and leaving it at that.

I'm also noting down any new words that I come across when I read (although, to be honest it depends on my mood/how late it is/how useful I think the word will actually be), and studying them and the kanji which they comprise of as well. Wheee.

I read somewhere that when you come across some new vocabulary you should look it up, and then once you've finished the sentence that you are reading, go over the sentence and read it again, so that you're immediately reinforcing the word in your memory. Even if you don't think that the word will be particularly useful, it really does help to get the word in your brain! I've actually found that some of the words that I have only done this with, I have used whilst talking to people, so it's nice to know that you can learn things sometimes without really trying to.

From now on I'm also going to try to remember to note down whenever I misread a kanji, so that I can concentrate on learning the correct reading for it, and focus in on the differences between the kanji I thought it was and the kanji that it is, so that I hopefully won't make that mistake in the future.

I've decided in general that I'm far far far too passive in general when it comes to language learning, and like to just assume that I'll absorb things through osmosis if I just surround myself with enough Japanese. Although this does help a bit, I've also discovered that when I do put a bit of effort in I can REALLY see the difference from that point onwards.

I currently have a lot of motivation, probably because I spent a few weeks unable to really study in any proper way, and I plan to utilise it as much as possible before it all flies away!

I am currently studying at University in Japan. Before I first came here, one of my main aims was to be able to read a novel in Japanese. This was actually much easier than I initially thought it would be, and now I really enjoy reading in Japanese. I do, however, find it slightly intimidating the sheer number of books that confront you when you walk into a bookshop. If you have no idea about Japanese authors, how on earth are you supposed to choose what book to read?

At first I just made obvious choices. For example, 村上春樹 (Murakami Haruki), as I had read several of his books in English and he is one of my favourite authors. The first book that I read in Japanese was ノルウェイの森 (Norwegian Wood), and after that I went on to read スプートニクの恋人 (Sputnik Sweetheart) and カンガルー日和 (A perfect day for kangaroos - A collection of short stories). I then went on to read 星新一 (Hoshi Shinichi), as I had translated one of his stories in one of my University classes.

I then discovered that just like the BBC did a few years ago, Japan has a list of 100 books which are presented as being essential reads. Although, the Japanese list actually seems to be produced by one publisher, so it's very biased. Still, I have come to read some good books through it, so I would reccommend to anybody who is wanting to read something new, to have a look at it. There is a website: www.100satsu.com, where you can read descriptions of all of the books, and I think most of them have a 立ち読み option so you can read a bit and see if it's the right level for you before spending money on it.

I am currently reading さくらももこ　ー　さくらえび, which is a collection of essays. They're all very short, only 5 or 6 pages long, which means that it's perfect for when you want to read something but don't want to commit yourself to anything too involved. The stories are very easy to understand, amusing, and very sweet. Although I have to say, I did just buy it because I saw it in the 100冊 section of the bookshop and thought that the cover looked cute.



See? Cute!

I deliberately chose something on the easy side though, because I am ill at the moment and the only books that I have/am willing to buy are Japanese ones, because I alredy have a huge pile of English books waiting for me at home.