久しぶり~
It’s a little ironic that my last entry for WAtRC was about motivation and then I didn’t make a post for it in five months.
I have do have excuses: busy with the podcast, moved out of my childhood home, sleep studies, illnesses, a conclusion of a four year relationship.
That doesn’t mean I’ve paused my progress learning Japanese, however, I’ve been studying daily with new and old resources and I’m finally at the point that I can feel improvement!
WaniKani, which I purchased a lifetime membership of in January, has been a huge help. I’m currently level 8 and I clear out my reviews and lessons daily.
I’ve decided that I want to make this blog a little more frequent since I’m going back to Japan in January and I’ve decided to actually take the JLPT (Just N4, don’t get too excited for me) at the end of the year. With both of these factoring in, I feel like it would be good to have more frequent, possibly shorter-length wise, updates of how I’m improving. I would also set up weekly or fortnightly goals, and WaniKani progress updates. Or at least, that’s the plan.
I think I’ll try to include puns involving Japanese in each entry title.
As for slightly longer-term goals, as I mentioned, I have plans to take the JLPT in December. So, by November or December, I would like to be Level 28 on WaniKani as it seems all of the N5 and N4 Kanji is covered by the Level 27. So that’s 20 levels in less than 9 months, which shouldn’t be too hard if I try to manage completing approximately one level every week and a bit.
Also, to assist me passing N4 in December, I would like to finish both Genki I and II by then. I’m currently a few chapters into Genki I (progress in Genki has been slower than WaniKani, but hopefully that speeds up). I would like to be done with Genki I by June, giving me the next 5-6 months to tackle Genki II. 23 Chapters in 8 months should mean I should cover three chapters per month. Not too hard.
Assuming I pass N4, I can jump into N3 content when I’m in Japan in January (Japanuary, as I’m now calling it).
During this time, I might try picking up some Light Novels perhaps and reading through some more of the Manga that I have sitting on my shelf (mostly Digimon).
I’ll also look into purchasing ‘Tobira’ which everybody says is the next door to go through after finishing with Genki.
As for resources that I’ll be trying in the next few months, – I’d like to pick up the Kiki’s Delivery Service Light Novel cuz it’s recommended for N4-N3 level and I’d also like to pick up ‘A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar’ while I’m still covering Genki I and II.
That’s about it from me in terms of updates and goals, funnily enough, this was meant to be just the intro to another post I’m writing, but it was getting pretty long so I guess it’s something to look forward to in WAtRC #5.
As for my goals for the next week or so, I guess I’d like to chomp through some Genki lessons and possibly finish Level 8 of WaniKani. WaniKani is really starting to get harder, so I should probably actually pay attention to the mnemonics to help me remember, the ones that I’ve read actually help me, sometimes I’m just too hasty and just look at the reading and the meaning. Even when they seem dumb and make me think ‘Gee I won’t remember it with that little story’, I manage to. Like the radical ‘raptor cage’ is the Kanji for ‘Long Time’ and is read as ‘Hisa’. In the mnemonic, we are told that Jar Jar Binks tells you that the raptor in the cage will be there for a long time ‘Heesaa in there for a long time’. I hate how easily it is to remember and recite that.
Well, until next time.
じゃあまったね！～