Three Traditions. Three New Habits.

With the new year already here I decided to try new ways to study Japanese. Now that I have finished school I want to put Japanese at the fore front of my life. One of the things I've decided to do is to try out Textfugu.

Even though I'm lower intermediate and not beginner, I thought it'd be good review and Tofugu gives good study tips. Plus, it's an online textbook for self-taught learners that is always updated and added on. Coming up this year they'll also be adding an intermediate section.

One of the first tasks in the book is to decide on three traditions to turn into habits. I decided on

1. Reading at least one chapter of manga a day.
2. Write journal entries twice a week.
3. Intensive reading at least once a week.

For the reading I've decided to read extensively and not intensively. Reading extensively means you don't worry about looking up every word you don't know. You simply try to understand what you can from vocabulary and grammar you've already learned, and see if you can figure out through context.

The journal entries will be done by hand to practice writing kanji, vocab, and grammar. From my past experience, hand written journals really help me to cement  what I've been learning. I'll also put them up on Lang-8 to make sure I get them corrected and not risk getting into bad language habits. I also think it is good to know how to write kanji because you're not always going to have the chance to type them up! (As my experience was when I was in Japan).

This year I want to walk away from using furigana. To do this I'm going to challenge myself to read my first light novel! I'm sure it'll be a slow and painful trudge but I think I'll also grow a lot from it. Just like it was with Saiunkoku.

A part of language learning is making sure to always change and improve your study habits and I hope doing these 3 things will take me to the next level of Japanese.