Friday, March 31, 2006
happy 1-year anniversary!
today is our (joe & me) 1-year anniversary! :) we are going to celebrate by having dinner at the Top of the Hub. It's cool, I've been there many times (4 times) but I've never had dinner there, so that should be interesting. 楽しみにしています。
Anyways, in other news...今、いい天気です！ It's been sunny and in the 60s...let's just hope this lasts!! :)
oh, and i'm up to ~550 漢字 in that Heisig book. Can you believe that? Basically in one month I memorized how to write over 500 漢字 (stroke order and everything). I swear, Heisig's method totally works for me. I'm so glad..at the rate I'm going I should have finished the whole book (2,042, including all 常用漢字) by the end of June. After that, it's on to the second volume (pronunciation) and the 漢字 flashcards, and 文法 .
*note* if you can't see the Japanese characters on this page, something's up with your browser (you need to change the options so that it can read Japanese....see this site for instructions). Sorry if this is a pain, but at this point of my Japanese learning I can barely stand to write in romaji, it's hard to read and it just doesn't do Japanese words justice!! :)
oh, btw, today is the last day of Spring Break. For the first time in several years I actually took the liberty of going home for a few days (part of the reason I decided to go was that I had banked miles on Northwest, and it was basically the only time I could use them, since Xmas, Thanksgiving, and other holidays are always blacked out). So it was pretty cool to take a trip across the country for free (plus I got to fly first class part of the way there!!). Anyways, on Wednesday night I got back...overall, it was really busy, yet relaxing. Saturday and Sunday was spent in 日本町 with my parents..on Saturday we had dinner with DD & her daughter, Lurene (she's so adorable!) and on Sunday I went shopping with Teresa & Paul, in 日本町 and also around Union Square. It was cool to see them because I hadn't seen them in a really long time (being so busy with things lately, I only get to go home a few times a year). Sunday I went back to Santa Rosa, and spent the rest of the time there doing various things, like going to a pilates class and getting a massage. On Tuesday I met with Maureen, Ad, and Greg, and got to hear more about Maureen's wedding preparations (she's getting married in October). Seems like there is a lot of stress in planning a wedding!
anyways, I would write more but I must get back to my thesis proposal!
and to joe: あなたに愛する!
Anyways, in other news...今、いい天気です！ It's been sunny and in the 60s...let's just hope this lasts!! :)
oh, and i'm up to ~550 漢字 in that Heisig book. Can you believe that? Basically in one month I memorized how to write over 500 漢字 (stroke order and everything). I swear, Heisig's method totally works for me. I'm so glad..at the rate I'm going I should have finished the whole book (2,042, including all 常用漢字) by the end of June. After that, it's on to the second volume (pronunciation) and the 漢字 flashcards, and 文法 .
*note* if you can't see the Japanese characters on this page, something's up with your browser (you need to change the options so that it can read Japanese....see this site for instructions). Sorry if this is a pain, but at this point of my Japanese learning I can barely stand to write in romaji, it's hard to read and it just doesn't do Japanese words justice!! :)
oh, btw, today is the last day of Spring Break. For the first time in several years I actually took the liberty of going home for a few days (part of the reason I decided to go was that I had banked miles on Northwest, and it was basically the only time I could use them, since Xmas, Thanksgiving, and other holidays are always blacked out). So it was pretty cool to take a trip across the country for free (plus I got to fly first class part of the way there!!). Anyways, on Wednesday night I got back...overall, it was really busy, yet relaxing. Saturday and Sunday was spent in 日本町 with my parents..on Saturday we had dinner with DD & her daughter, Lurene (she's so adorable!) and on Sunday I went shopping with Teresa & Paul, in 日本町 and also around Union Square. It was cool to see them because I hadn't seen them in a really long time (being so busy with things lately, I only get to go home a few times a year). Sunday I went back to Santa Rosa, and spent the rest of the time there doing various things, like going to a pilates class and getting a massage. On Tuesday I met with Maureen, Ad, and Greg, and got to hear more about Maureen's wedding preparations (she's getting married in October). Seems like there is a lot of stress in planning a wedding!
anyways, I would write more but I must get back to my thesis proposal!
and to joe: あなたに愛する!
Thursday, March 16, 2006
352, or 17.2%
ok, so i guess i got ahead of myself with the kanji book, i just now finished lesson 15, so i have learned 352 so far. i know plan to do lessons 16-17 on friday + the weekend, so that'll get me up to 395. Next goal is do have done all 508 (up to & including lesson 19) by the time I leave for california on the 25th. That basically means i learned how to write about ~500 kanji in just one month! Granted I had seen about ~100 of those kanji before, but I probably could only write about ~30 of them from memory.
well anyways, that's enough for today. got to get back to work on my thesis proposal!
well anyways, that's enough for today. got to get back to work on my thesis proposal!
Sunday, March 12, 2006
13.5% (finished Part I)
ok, so today i finished studying (and reviewing) the first 276 kanji in the Heisig book, which is Part 1. Woo-hoo! Pretty good, since i only started 2 weeks ago, and I went on vacation for ~5 days (no studying) somewhere in between.
anyway, i think James Heisig's method of remembering the kanji is excellent, it really works for me. Even though this is my 3rd year (6th semester) of taking Japanese, i had always found it extremely difficult in learning the kanji. In my classes we likely studied over 500 kanji, but i could honestly probabably only remember the meaing of about 300 of them, and of those i could probably only write 100 of them (i was a lot better at recognizing kanji than actually writing them down). But not anymore with this book! The book provides a really interesting way to remember the meaning of the kanji.
Anyway, my next short-term goals is that by next week (Sun 3/19) i do lessons 13-15 (an additional 76 kanji), making the total of reviewed kanji to 352. :) I would do more, but i think next week will be a busy week as i have a japanese exam and lots of reading assigments, plus i need to get to work on my thesis proposal.
anyway, i think James Heisig's method of remembering the kanji is excellent, it really works for me. Even though this is my 3rd year (6th semester) of taking Japanese, i had always found it extremely difficult in learning the kanji. In my classes we likely studied over 500 kanji, but i could honestly probabably only remember the meaing of about 300 of them, and of those i could probably only write 100 of them (i was a lot better at recognizing kanji than actually writing them down). But not anymore with this book! The book provides a really interesting way to remember the meaning of the kanji.
Anyway, my next short-term goals is that by next week (Sun 3/19) i do lessons 13-15 (an additional 76 kanji), making the total of reviewed kanji to 352. :) I would do more, but i think next week will be a busy week as i have a japanese exam and lots of reading assigments, plus i need to get to work on my thesis proposal.
