Today we will be starting with Kana101's Lesson 1 and 2 from their 14 day course to learn Kana.
In my Japanese binder the lessons are pages 7-12 for Lesson 1 and pages 8-11 for Lesson 2.
Before we start please add in the comments why you'd like to learn Japanese. As I am still learning myself I will post in the comments and add it on this blog itself.
Tips: The writing sheets linked to "Writing Hiragana" will have 30 places to write the kana without help. You can change how much you want to write them based on this.
Second: The Hiragana Song makes it a little harder to sound them out without signing it. I'd recommend the listening board or an App found on the Android Market called Japanese Gojuon.
My Japanese Practice:
Why do I want to learn Japanese:
I've been fascinated by the Japanese culture since I was a child. I've loved everything I've heard about it. It was one of the first places I've ever wanted to go. Bring this up, I was in the third grade when I decided this. Me wanting to go there was all based off when Sailor Moon was airing on Toonami. Ever since then I've been in love with both animation from Japan as well as the culture itself. I've found, and still find, it fascinating. One day I do hope to go to Japan and either visit there or move there.
Lesson 1:
I put this in a page protector and placed it behind lesson one.
Lesson 2:
There wasn't anything to post about for this lesson. :)
Flash Cards:
As this would be hard to tell you I studied with my flash cards. It will also be skipped in all future postings. If anyone has suggestions on this let me know!
Writing Hiragana:
I will update this a little later tonight. As I need to print the worksheet from here.
Listening Board:
As this would be hard to show you that I did listen, I will be leaving this one out of all future posts. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.
I made this binder a year ago when I was trying to learn Japanese then. I was studying a few days a week if not everyday. Until the Black Forest Fire broke out in Colorado. As I live in Colorado and lived right next to the fire, I had to get evacuated. I stopped my studies at that point and didn't have the drive to get back into learning Japanese right away.
Anyway back to the point. I went out and picked up some economy weight clear sheet protectors from Wal-mart. I bought three packages, since they were 25 sheets per package. They were $2.49 per package. I also bought a graph paper 5 star notebook with was around $3.49. My binder I picked out is one of these two. My Harajuku mini or Hello Kitty. As I only picked them since Hello Kitty and Harajuku are both from Japan. I already printed out Hiragana and Katakana practice and place them in the protective sheets.
The start of my Hiragana/Katakana binder goes as follows:
Page 1:
Genki Japans' current May Calendar
Sign up and get the current calendar emailed to you.
DIVIDER: Hiragana + Katakana charts and Stroke Orders
I also have the Let's Learn Hiragana and Let's Learn Katakana workbooks. I'd say its cheaper to buy some graph paper or a graph paper notebook and practice writing the characters down trying to fit in 2x2 square. The only part I found really cool is the word search at the end. Though I could make my own or google search for some already made Hiragana or Katakana word search.
I will be updating this blog, for lessons 3-14, as soon as we start the lesson they are involved with. As some of the links were not correct I had to resign up for the emails and they are sent daily. The new links should be coming out within the next few days. We will also be starting with lessons one and two tomorrow!
NOTE: I was going to put some photos in on how I did mine, but I guess this will have to do for now. I don't want to keep this blog from being posted just from pictures not downloading to my computer.
Tomorrow I plan to start up with the lessons. As I wanted to have a day on Kana101. This way I can put lesson 1-2 added in for one day and be on track for days 12-14 at the same time. I would have started it yesterday but the website wasn't working.
As for the rest of the day I'd suggest making your own Kana, both Hiragana and Katakana, flash cards. You can also download and print them off here. You can also study them a little bit with an app for your smart phone called Jalaga.
Since I'm starting to learn Japanese with my friend Raven and she just ordered her textbook the other day. I decided to looking up the "best" way to learn Japanese. I also looked up advice from those who have already learned Japanese. They all really repeated the same things, but they did have some great advice.
The way I'll display this is going by person to person about learning Japanese. I.E. It will look something like this:
+ Don't buy special pages for Kanji, Hiragana, or Katakana!
Use normal graph papaer!
+White board!
Buy a white board and use that. It will save you some paper and is great
for learning Kanji.
+Flash Cards!
Use flash cards to study your Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana!
+Set weekly targets!
Something as simple as 50 vocab a week!
+Textbook
Don't listen or buy anything that says "learn Japanese in x Days!"
+Use Pencil!
+Don't take offence to being corrected!
+Don't learn from Anime!
Use a podcast or the news!
+Don't be embarrassed to try and pronounce Japanese!
+ If you don't know a word don't stop the conversation to look it up, work around it
and try and explain what you mean.
This isn't her video for advice but its another video she did do. Unfortunately I couldn't find the video where she gives advice to link it on blogger. As they do it by searching youtube. If I can figure it out I'll change it later.
These last two videos are by far my favorite for advice!
Matador Network (Youtube)
The last thing I did was from a website named Matador Network.
+ Practice stroke order!
It's considered lazy if you don't write them correctly!
+ Don't stop when things get hard!
+ Invest in some quality materials!
A nice textbook
+ Watch plenty of Movies, Dramas, and listen to music!
Don't be afraid to sing along too!
+ Settle on the one set of romanization!
Some methods change "fu" ふ to "hu" since "fu" take the place in ha/hi/fu/he/ho.
The only think I've never seen is the Matador Networks advice on romanization. I've only ever seen the one that uses "fu". I will be trying to post weekly on this blog and updating it for things I plan to do or am doing.
Thank you for reading! :) Good Luck on your Japanese journey!
I've wanted, for a long time, to learn Japanese. I kept looking for an easy way to learn, and I wanted to know what others opinions are on the learning it were. There are not that many good websites for Japanese learning... I take that back, there are a few, but what I was looking for was review on textbooks and a helpful guides. They're either good for a little bit or cost money. My plan is to try out textbooks and give my honest opinion on where it gets hard for me, when it's super easy, and just my personal journey through learning Japanese. I've only really learned Hiragana so far, but am working on learning Katakana. I do know both should be learned around the same time and don't put off katakana, it will set you back later on.
4. Try and find a Hiragana and Katakana printout stroke order practice sheet. The one I have you no longer can get, but I'll be copying it for my personal use. (I'll update this later)
At this point I've decided to buy a graph paper notebook. It would help me keep my characters about the same size and help with the stroke order when writing. Since I want to be able to speak, read, and write Japanese.
My shopping list so far inculdes:
2 binders (I'm going to go for a theme. I have a Harajuku binder already and it holds BYU online Japanese 1 Part 1 in. I'll be looking for more of these)
Page protecters (Qty will be updated later, and updated link if not what I was looking for Current date: 6/3/2013)
1 Divider sets (only one because it comes with four sets)
The text books are in order from classes at my college. I.e. Japanese for Busy People I is the first year of Japanese. Yookoso 1 and workbook 1 are the second year of College. Yookoso 2 and workbook are the third year.
Since I'd like to make this a cheaper guide to help those that purely want to learn and not spend a lot of money I'll tell you tricks I take and if they end up being worth it.
I'll be going to Walmart for the shopping list this Wednesday (6/5/2013). I already got a copy of Yookoso I, but like I said I don't want to spend a lot on a textbook at this time, so I bought an older ed from HPB. I got my used copy for 5 Dollars after shipping, and 99 cents before. The Yookoso from HPB I bought was published in 1999 and in very good condition. I haven't found the workbook for it yet, but its not the textbook I'll be starting with so I'm not as worried.
Before buying any textbooks I'd check your local used book store and see if its worth it to buy it from there. I know that my personal used book store where I live wouldn't sell Yookoso I for 99 cents, but as long as its around 5 dollars then it would be the same as getting off HPB. When I go shopping 6/5/2013 I'll be looking for Japanese for busy people I from my used book store, as well as Yookoso 2, and see if they have the workbooks for all three textbooks. I'll be looking and compairing prices to make sure I get the best deal for my dollar.
Now I know some people may ask why page protectors? Well I'll tell you why I want them. I want to take a binder and put things I've printed out, like the worksheets from my third study options. That way I don't write directly on them and can reuse the print outs if I stop learning Japanese for a time, or need to practice a little more. Since some websites have few print out I'll be using the dividers to separate them and keep them nice and neat in one binder and not have thousands.
Once I start studying I'll keep you updated on what I'm doing to study and keep the links coming to help you learn Japanese. I do hope this guide helps you.
