My December Fun Study Materials

On JALUP's site there is a series where you share what materials you've been using during the current month. I thought it's an interesting idea and thought I'd answer the questions here.

1.What are you watching?

 I've been re-watching 彩雲国物語(Saiunkoku Monogatari). It's one of my favorite shows and I know the the jist of what's going on without subtitles. The voice acting is fun to listen to, and the plot of a girl trying to follow her dream in a male-world is a bonus too. 

I also began watching (and finished) 薄桜鬼 (Hakuouki). It's a series based on the historical events of the Shinsengumi with an added twist. The thing that I really like about this series is that it branches off to other forms of media. 

2.What are you listening to?

I've started to listen to Drama CDs. Each time I listen to them I pick something else up. What I love about these CDs compared to listening to a rip of a show is that it was made for listening. So no second of the listening time is wasted since there are no visuals. There are 乙女 (otome) CDs like 主観添い寝 (shukan soine). This is probably my favorite series to listen to because it is soothing enough to fall asleep to. It also has my favorite voice actors: Midorikawa Hikaru, Kousuke Toriumi, Morikawa Toshiyuki, Kuroda Takaya, and Morita Masakazu. They also have an app in the apple store where you can listen to clips from the CDs. (Soine Kareshi or sleepy boyfriend) Each CD has a different story and a "free talk" where the voice actor just talks. The free talk section is advanced for me since it's very natural pace of speech.

The other type of Drama CDs are based on anime series or games. One that I have is from Hakuouki. They came in a book I ordered. The dialog is hard for me to follow, but the positive thing is the book has the script. This series is very good listening practice for me, because every character has a different way of speaking. Some of them I can't understand at all, while others I can kinda follow. It also has numerous humorous scenes. These CDs also have a free talk section, but with the whole cast together. This is great to listen to because it's very natural. As in everyone is talking over each other. 

3.What are you playing?

Recently I have fallen into the world of 乙女ゲーム(otome games or visual novels). There are many for the iPhone which I will talk about in another post, but I've been playing Hakuouki. The game is in English but the voice overs are in Japanese. I really like it because I get to see how a line is translated. (And it's translated very differently in my opinion!)

4.What are you reading?

I finished my first manga! （やった！）This one was a nice way to ease into reading manga because there isn't much dialogue, and I knew what was going on since I had already seen the movie. I am currently in the process of transcoding it and adding the vocab into Anki.

I am half-way through 彩雲国 (Saiunkoku) vol. 1. I read it first in English and then in Japanese. But I read the English version so long ago that I don't remember it. This volume ties closely to the anime plot so I know what's going on. Sometimes I even get the jokes!♪

Even though I am reading Saiunkoku right now I really want to start reading Hakuouki. Though I am not sure if it's a good idea to read two series at once or bounce around. Should I go back to reading DBZ then?

I hope this entry was interesting or useful. I want to leave you with some examples of Drama CDs. Enjoy!

A Hakuouki Drama CD

Hakuouki Live Drama CD

Hakuouki Anime Clip

Shukan Soine

No More Guilt

I really missed blogging!
I'm sorry to everyone who reads my blog.
My blog is for fun, I'd rather not schedule my entries.
Quality over quantity, right?

After my trip from Utah I felt pretty horrible about my Japanese abilities.
I had the goal of only speaking Japanese while I was there.
I felt frustrated with myself. I felt I failed.

When I came back I was pumped in trying the Tofugu 30day book, and see if
my studies would improve. The rule is that you MUST do whatever activity the chapter for that day requires. I loved it. A step-by-step guide. 
But if backfired.
Realistically, there will be some days that you can't study.
There was also chapters that built on other chapters. For one of them I needed replies on rhino spike. Since I wasn't getting any it didn't work.
How could I continue if I was stuck on a chapter?!

I felt even worse. From the jblogging community I got the feeling that you don't really love Japanese if you don't study everyday. I didn't want to blog because I didn't want to admit I don't have time to put into Japanese as I would like. 

Then school began. That meant making a new schedule. Usually I dread re-working my routine, but I was actually pretty excited. It should be a chance to see what to throw out, set aside, or focus on. I had it all figured out.
But I wasn't expecting the unexpected. 
I'm taking 2 production classes and the amount of outside class work is unbelievable. So the time I set aside for Japanese is now taken over by production work. 

I felt like a huge failure. Why bother even trying?

It wasn't till Rachel pointed me to a blog that my mind changed.
It's about not putting yourself down because you couldn't follow the plan.
Not letting yourself feel bad because your day isn't focus on Japanese all the time. 

One piece really stood out to me:

the mindset that spending 10 minutes a day on Japanese is awesome.  This is a huge project and we all deserve a pat on the back for spending any time on it.  Therefore, thirty minutes is extra awesome.  An hour is super extra awesome and several hours is super duper extra awesome.  Then we know without question that working on it all day is super duper extra awesome fantastic.

Reading that made me realize that it's OK. As long as you keep going and keep learning it's great. Even if you can only put in a few minutes. I have been putting in a few minutes everyday. I should feel pretty awesome about it!

So I'm going to keep going at my own pace. Doing what I think is fitting for that day. I'm not gonna hold on to a strict schedule. I have to be realistic. School comes first. 

But as long as I keep putting in some time it's OK.

Next few posts I want to share more of my manga, my new tutor, and I plan to share my experiences with the different chapters of Tofugu 30-day book.

Please share any thoughts below!

My Experiance as a Living-in Nanny (for a Japanese Family)

 I might have mentioned in a previews post that I was going on working holiday to Utah.
Which is why I've been absent these past few weeks.
 I am still here until June 12th.
 I'm here to take care of a 3 year old for two weeks.
 (My previous teacher's son)
 He only speaks Japanese and understands very little English.
This forces me to speak in Japanese, but really just the basics.

 I have however, memorized words from constant use. Either new words or a conjugation of an old one I studied but never used. For example, I now have no difficulty to remember how to say 「上げて」
 I hear Japanese all day long between him and his mother.
I can understand a lot more now then when I arrived, but I still feel my speaking ability is just the same.

My flow of my reading-aloud ability has improved a bit from reading to him at least 30 minutes a day.
With some of the books I understand what is going on, while with others I'm not sure.
That's still a big improvement!

I don't think I'm learning as much as I could for a couple of reasons
. I can't always ask or look up words I'm constantly hearing.
 I don't have time to write them down. I hesitate to speak only in Japanese to his mother.
 I planned to study grammar and vocab with Erin's challenge while I'm here, and review Genki in my short breaks. My laptop went bust so those things are inaccessible. (I'm writing from an iPad)

 As important and great as it is to be immersed in a Japanese environment, I feel it can't work fully on its own. At least not for me. I need to study grammar and understand sentence structure.
And I always need to review. I need to look things up when I write in my journal.
I suppose I'm a little frustrated that my pre-study plans back fired, and that I will feel more behind when I begin my summer challenge when I return home.
And that I rely heavily on books. (and that I can't afford a new laptop)

 One cool thing though is that I've been going to a Japanese church here every Sunday.
 The meeting is a mix of Japanese and English, and the church community is made of not just Japanese. There's a lot of interesting people there. From people that experienced being in the Japanese camps, ni-sei and san-sei, Japanese major students, exchange student, and interracial couples.
I can see that even though most have forgotten how to speak Japanese, they are still very in-tune with their Japanese heritage.

 Everyone here is also very nice! I've been able to make a couple of new acquaintances, and have similar interests beyond Japanese. Yai!
 Tomorrow I will be meeting another Japanese.
I feel I won't speak out of hesitation. (story of my life)
 I have filmed my stay here so in some distant future look forward to that.

日本語のブログ９（ののちゃんから誕生日プレゼント）

Preparation for Summer Challenge: MANGA!

One of the important aspects of immersion is having material that you really enjoy. I had children's books and a couple of manga before, but I wasn't really in love with them. So I decided to stock up on reading material that I would enjoy this summer. At first it was hard to find anything that I was interested in, and if I did find something, it was too expensive. But to my delight I got series I've wanted to get my hands on.

The first series I bought is the Emma light novel. This is based on Kaoru Mori's manga Emma. I always wanted to own a light novel series. 

At the moment I think the novel is above my level, but I think it's still good to have something advanced for when you to enjoy in the future. 

Of course I had to buy Emma! I have the anime series and the English version of the manga. So reading it in Japanese is just natural since I love the story so much!

The manga has no 振り仮名（ふりがな）so I plan to use it as 漢字 practice. I know the story well so it won't bother me that I don't understand the conversations 100%. 

A Bride's Story is a series I haven't read. So I don't know the story at all. This also has no 振り仮名. I think this manga will be good to read when I'll be able to understand what I'm reading. (Though that's if I don't buy the English version by then...)

The Story of the Land of Colored Clouds is an anime I had found accidentally, and I'm so glad I did! I just finished watching Season 1, and love it so much I just had to get the 漫画. I only got 4 of the 9 in the series and I hope to complete my collection. The manga is based on the light novel series which I hope to purchase as well. 

This series has 振り仮名! I'm really glad at least one of the series I purchased has it. This means I can take it along with me and enjoy just reading without worrying about looking up 漢字 readings. I might take these with me on vacation. (I'm afraid of loosing them though T^T) I won't understand everything word for word, but I know the story so it shouldn't be a problem. I'm interested to see the similarities and differences in translation from Japanese to English. 

As I mentioned in the vlog, I purchased these on ebay. I found a shop that specializes in printed Japanese material. I will definitively be purchasing from there again. The seller also takes requests for manga series you're looking for! Awesome! http://stores.ebay.com/fromnippon

You can buy all items mentioned at this store. I also saw some of this stuff on yesasia. Whichever you feel most comfortable with. 

I hope you enjoyed this entry and found it helpful. Where do you shop for your Japanese books? Let me know! Any series you're dying to read?

Meetup #3

During the long weekend I got the chance to hang out with レイチェルちゃん again. I also got the chance to sleep over. (やった！）
I feel a lot more comfortable riding the train now. During the ride to ボストン I finishing reading ダーリンは外国人in English. The story was OK, and it wasn't enjoyable enough for me to want to read it in Japanese. I thought it was a romantic story, but that's not the case. I didn't like the couple in it either. There are a lot of good example sentences of everyday expressions one can use though. The translation too was a tad bit off I think. I think I'll come back to it at a later time. 


レイチェル picked me up from the station and we went to the Japanese lunch square like we always do. She treated me to our favorite delicious smoothie, and I treated us to Japanese baked goods. For some reason it never hit me to try the stuff there. I've always wanted to try Japanese bakery food, and Meaphe's videos about them got me VERY curious. (And jelly) I was going to buy melon pan but it quickly ran out!
As we looked around I asked レイチェル how order food in Japanese. I wanted to practice the counters. To my disappointment the person at the bakery was not Japanese. 

 I always wanted to try this treat! Never thought I'd get to so soon.I remember seeing it in lucky star and really wanted to it. Though I'm not positive if it is the same dish.

 The second item I bought was bread filled with curry. 美味しかった～

 This was レイチェル's treat, but I don't remember what it was. 
















We also went to a supermarket that has a bakery and I bought メロンパン! It was as tasty as I imagined it would be. We made rice and curry for diner. レイチェル's curry is the best I've ever had. ♥_♥


We spend the day chatting about our Japanese learning journey and other things. She showed me her book collection. There's something warm and comforting seeing a shelf full of books. We then spent the rest of the day watching MLP and the Legend of Korra. 


We both hope that eventually we'll be brave enough to publicly vlog. I hardly filmed or I would forget too. So I hope in the future to make up for it. I would write my experiences with レイチェル in Japanese for practice, but I need to get these up ASAP. I don't have the extra time I would need to do so. ごめん

I hope to learn to make these in the future!

Video I took over her house.

Immersion: Tools I use

I realized I have never shared what I use to immerse myself in Japanese.
I thought it'd be fun to share that, and hopefully you might find something useful here.

iTouch Apps

I am very much addicted to my iTouch. 

It's a pocket-computer for me.

I'm never without it.

I also changed the language setting to Japanese.

Before I even get out of bed I listen to Daily Audio Bible Japan. (Free)

Each day a chapter of the Bible is read. The female reader is relaxing to listen to.

(I'm very picky about voices when it comes to podcasts). I don't understand much of what is being read, but I'm sure a higher level learner will know from where they are reading. They say it in the beginning and if you have a Japanese Bible you can read a long. Each podcast is less than 10 minutes.

Now there is a Daily Audio Bible by the same team in English. But they do not read the same passage as the Japanese version. There's also a Proverbs podcast and I hope that they'll make one in Japanese also. 

A podcast I like to listen to before bed is one called Japanese Classical Literature at Bedtime. (Free) This one also has a nice female voice. This one I would say is advanced. I have no clue what is going on. It is good nonetheless. If you like classical literature I recommend this podcast.

I have no idea how I found this one, nor how to pronounce the title. This one comes with a free book and other stories available for purchase. Again, a nice soft voice to listen to. The text appears on screen as she reads. It's good practice to improve reading speed and see how the sentences would be read. You can skip to a certain page, pause and come back, or have no sound. 

The books you own are archived and you can select to see the written text as a whole. You can see by who and when it was written. The story that comes along free with the app is a very old and famous work. 

I have not bought any other books on the app yet, but I plan to in the future. I enjoy reading a long.

This is probably the most popular app for Japanese. (free) Kotoba is a electric dictionary. One thing I really like is that it does not need wi-fi. You can:

Search in dictionary either in romanji or kanji, see the stroke order of kanji, example sentences, conjugation in either formal or informal, look up kanji by school grade or JLPT level, and save words into custom folders. 

This is SO much better than traditional dictionaries!

 

On-line sources

Before using anki I used Asahi kanji. I still like using this to test myself. There is also an iTouch app for this. N5 is free on the app but then you have to buy the rest. The website is completely free. 

I love using this site to read stories. Some of the stories have a recording so you can listen and read along. Great for comprehension and improve reading speed. The recordings are also downloadable so you can carry it along with you.

Erin's Challenge is great. It is a free program that was once a paid material. It has skits with the dialog written, review questions, manga, and a lot more things. It is a nice interactive course. If I didn't have Genki this would be my main tool.

I follow a lot of blogs, but I focus on two main ones: JALUP and Tofugu. JALUP is more of a guide blog. It has many good entries that help clear up the muddle and difficulties of learning Japanese. Tofugu has many entries on different topics, and the tips for improving on how to learn Japanese are helpful.

I like reading Rachel's site for motivation and seeing how another immersion method learner is learning. 

I read this Japanese blog for entertainment on a topic I enjoy.

Recently I am in a 小グループ on google+ that meets once a month. We are all Japanese learners and are slowly trying to make our group be fully in Japanese. 

Skype is another great tool if you have friends in Japan, YouTubers, or mixi buddies.

When I'm on the computer I use Denshi Jisho as my online dictionary. When I want to know what a kanji means or how to pronounce it, I use Rikaikun. You simply scroll over the word and it will show you the meaning and how to read it. My social network sites are all in Japanese.

Desktop

I think there is enough information out there about Anki. So I will simply say it is a great tool.

I've recently bought 30 day eBook from Tofugu which I hope will help me with my studies.

I love using Evernote to organize helpful information I've found online for Japanese. Tofugu has a good article about this here.

Out and about

Rachel suggested to me the idea of making CDs of episodes of dramas or anime to listen to when on the commute. It is enjoyable and a challenge. This helps to really focus on the dialog instead of subtitles or the action on screen.

I keep a little memo that I take to work. I write down vocabulary I want to learn and keep it with me at all times. 

When I feel like learning Japanese through video games I play My Japanese Coach. I think it's a nice leisure way to study.When I want to focus on writing Kanji I like to use 美文字トレーニング. I also have a children's calligraphy set if I feel like going old-school. 

That is pretty much it. I was thinking of doing what books I use and shows I own in a separate post with video. Would you guys be interested in seeing that? Would YouTubers I follow be interesting too? I'd do it sometime in May.

 I hope this post was helpful.

Let me know what podcast, apps, sites, blogs, and games you use. I'd really like to know! 




I do not lay claim to any of the images used.