Sembreak Goal #1 Learning Japanese

So as I mentioned previously, I am currently on my semester break - essentially the calm before the hellstorm that is college life resumes. Hopefully I'll be able to balance semi-coherent blogposts and academics a lot better now that I'm not actually under a strict blogging schedule and have fallen back to a more leisurely style of posting.

That being said, the fun thing about this short break is I actually have time for my other hobbies - art, reading, writing and right now, learning Japanese ♥♥♥♥

I've actually been self-teaching myself Japanese since I was in grade school, but really only to the point of conversational speech and being able to understand anime/dramas with having to wait for subtitles, never to the point of actually considering myself anywhere close to literate in the language. Even then, I'd only be able to understand - much less speak in proper grammar or tenses.

A year ago, I decided I'd try to level my proficiency up and actually learn to read Hiragana and Katakana, but only recently when I decided I'd like to try to pursue my post-graduate studies in Japan did I decide I'd go the full way and actually learn Kanji, grammar, writing and composition. So here I am -

I saved up and bought a buttload of books last summer - grammar books, dictionaries, Kanji manuals and workbooks. I am especially in love with my books from Tuttle - definitely worth every penny. Only problem was that when school came, I didn't really have much time to continue studying. Thank goodness for sembreak because now I at least have enough time to get a few chapters of work done.

Studying is actually a lot easier when I use this cool memorization kit my brother gave me haha. It uses a simple yet clever principle in optics. So I highlight words in either red or green, and depending on which filter I use, I'll be able to see them or not.

Red or Red - Now you see it 

 Green on Red - Now you don't.

Pretty nifty eh? I'm making some headway, but I still find reading infinitely easier than actually writing, so I'll probably need more practice in that department. In the mean time, I've been making use of my new found skills by re-reading some of my old Japanese Magazines that I never really read (I just looked at the pretty pictures of all the handsome men). Yay for literacy!

And when I'm feeling disheartened or particularly lazy, all I really have to do is remind myself that Okamoto Keito lives in Japan and he'll probably be impressed by the fact I'm Japanese literate (despite the fact that he's fluent in English, because really, being multilingual is sexy). Really that's all the motivation I need haha.

Who wouldn't study for those arms? haha

Hope the rest of the people out there are making good use of your time. If not, who am I to tell you what or what not to do. It's your life - whatever you wanna do. And so I leave you with this:



It's not Japanese, but I just had to. Tell me you didn't laugh and start singing along. If you didn't, you're not human.

Peace out,

Ada
xoxo