Hi guys! So we’re a week into May – a week into this 6WC – and it’s time to have a look at how my Japanese is faring!
Well, honestly, it’s been a pretty good week in comparison to some I’ve had. I did things relating to Japanese for two hours and twenty-five minutes this week, which I think is great – it’s definitely more than it has been in a while. I maybe need to work on being more consistent, but that’s an ongoing battle.
What did I do? Well, I worked through more of the hiragana and katakana workbook; I’m just going through the rules of hiragana, then there’s a quiz and I’ll be moving onto katakana properly. I also went back to Memrise (some of my RL friends finally got into it and I remembered that I should probably use it…) and refreshed the hiragana I’d covered there. I’m finding I’m having trouble with the ‘m’ sounds: ま、み、む、め、も, but if I put in some more effort with those next week, I should get there.
I also created an Anki deck for the Easy Japanese sentences and vocabulary. This has been great because I use basic and reversed cards, so I get to practise writing Japanese until I get it right. I can finally feel the words sticking. I also listened to a couple of the Easy Japanese audio tracks again and wrote out the dialogues. This has, again, been helpful and I’m hoping I’ll catch up to where I was soon and then I’ll begin to progress with a better foundation.
It’s kind of – not disappointing, not quite – but it’s odd, to be five months in and not feel like I’ve achieved so much here. I don’t really feel bad about it, just that I’ve wasted time doing this and that when I could have been actively learning Japanese, but there’s nothing to be done about that now. Plus, I’m learning how I learn in a much more detailed way because I’m having to pull my learning together from varied resources and by having reports along the way, I can reflect on what I’ve done and say ‘oh, well that won’t work for me’. So really, it’s like five months of research and we’ll see where we go from here. 🙂
My goals for this week:
- Refresh the audio of Easy Japanese up to lesson four.
- Add the vocabulary from those lessons to my Anki deck.
- Watch one more episode of Last Cinderella. (I watched one last week! This show is sometimes strange, but it is fun.)
I’m going away next Saturday, so the next update on my challenge should be published on the Wednesday. I hope you’ll come back around then! 🙂
Gambatte, Charlotte! 🙂
Has it happened to you too that after so much study and focus on hira/katakana you start seeing the kanas even when you close your eyes?!
Oh man, not yet, but that stage is going to be fun! 😉 (Truth be told, I’ve been playing a lot of Piano Tiles on my phone, so I just have black squares dancing around in my brain instead haha. I should probably spend more time on Japanese…)
It’s good that you are reflecting on how you learn. I think that is the most important thing – learning really is a process, and I believe that you can you really become an effective language learner by trying new things and discovering what works for you over time. Keep going, and I look forward to your next update!
Thanks, Nick! I think it’s really important in language learning to know how you learn, but it is a process that can take a while. Sometimes I think I’ve cracked it, but then I realise I’m not quite there yet – especially since there always seems to be so many different resources out there that I want to try. It’s probably an ongoing process though, haha. Thanks for commenting! 😀