Friday 20 June 2014

Book off in Paris!

Before I went to France I found out that we have a Book off in Europe... and that it's in Paris. So how could I be in a Paris for a few hours (student exchange) and don't come in to this shop if it's in the centre of a city?!?! Of course I had to :DDD Too bad, we were sightseeing without our bus, so I had a few hours to go, before I could leave my manga in a car - that means I had to choose few of them ;_;

That's what I bought:




1. SHOUJO Koukou Debut by Kazune Kawahara vol.1-5 for 1€ each


2. YAOI Ashita mo Tanin by Sangatsu Masao - 2
3. YAOI Work in by Suzuki Tsuta - 2
4. SHOUNEN-AI Kirakira by Romuko Miike - 2
5. YAOI Ai ga Aru kara by Haruki Fujimoto - 2

As you can see, you can buy Boy's Love manga for 2 euro there. Most of the manga you can find there looks like new :D The only minus are the stickers with prices and number on the back covers which are quite hard to remove - glue stays, and it looks bad with a light... I think I will just leave them :s



So, I have 9 manga for 13 euro instead of 55! How beautiful it is?! I had less than 30 minutes to choose them, and it was REALLY hard with so little time, I swear! Moreover, I though that the Koukou Debut is completed (5 volumes), but it has 15 volumes! Ehh... My sister's says that it's a really good manga etc. I hope she's right ;_; 



Saturday 26 April 2014

90. Hikaru no Go 23p

Monthly conclusion:I

It has been 3 months since I started this blog. A lazy month. A lazy quarter... I hope ordering Japanese manga will help with it and my motivation won't ''pass away''!

Furthermore, it's also the day in which I completed my first manga chapter in Japanese! Hikaru no Go, 55 pages! *o* The longest chapter in this volume >.<''

I am looking forward to a day in which I will can read whole volume (oh. maybe even yaoi one!!) at once! :33

Tuesday 22 April 2014

86. MANGA!! || Hikaru no Go 17p

Finally... Finally it came! From cdjapan.co.jp - recommended!






New manga list:

I've bought BL, but only as a collector's items. I don't understand them yet...
1. BL: Shoowa / Iberikobuta to Koi to Tsubaki (GUSH COMICS) 
2. BL: Yoneda Kou / NightS (Be Boy Comics Deluxe)
3. BL: Mei Sakuraga / Mujihi na Anata (Hanaoto Comics)
4. BL: Saike Deriko / Choco Strawberry Vanilla (Bamboo Comics)

5. SHOUJO (with 'BL'): Ogura Akane / Kano ni Naru Hi (Hana to Yume Comics)
6. SHOUJO: Yuki Midorikawa / Hotarubi no Mori e (Hana to Yume Comics Special)
7. SHOUJO: Akizuki Souta / Vahlia no Hanamuko (Hana to Yume Comics)


Last two with links, because I recommend to buy them:

Hikaru no Go: It's easy for me to understand... Nothing strange, considering I've watched anime twice! XDD

Yotsubato!: Hmm, not so easy, but I don't know anything about it. However, it has been recommended by A LOT of Japanese learners. Main charakter is a little girl => she's using basic vocabulary.

Download application for android - Japanese dictionary (Jsho). Really simple to use, I don't have any problems with it. Website version: click



Friday 4 April 2014

68. 04/04/2014 - 75. 11/04/2014 STUDENT EXCHANGE

International student exchange, what more is there to say? No time! :D I host Frech girl, two years younger than me (in Poland she wouldn't be in high school yet! ;o)

Thursday 27 March 2014

60.

Nothing to say, I did nothing this month... I don't have any justification (-.-)''

Monday 24 March 2014

Sunday 23 March 2014

56. Concert

Justification: My first concert soon and so on, I didn't have mind to learn! :D *Excited to see Miyavi~*

Saturday 22 March 2014

55. Concert

Justification: My first concert soon and so on, I didn't have mind to learn! :D *Excited to see Miyavi~*

Wednesday 26 February 2014

31. Anki 10min

So, today is the 31. day of learnin Japanese... And statistically I spend a few minutes on Japanese only every other day... :s

But!

It will totally change, because I didn't have a mobile phone for a while, so I wouldn't use Anki and so on while being at school, train etc. I am sure I will find time on a break every day *o* I hope I will practise more writing this way at home...



Monthly conclusion

Anki: 240min=4h
Kanjibox: 11h
Other: 3h
 = 18h in total. Statistically it means 35min every day for Japanese. Hmmm it doesn't sound bad, but I think I should have better results with spending 18 hours but oh well, it doesn't matter now :3 I think that if I actually spent this time every day it would be much better than having man lazy gaps >.<''

Monday 17 February 2014

23.

I have totally forgotten about this, because I spend many hours drawing my dream wardrobe which I would love to order handmade some day...

Saturday 15 February 2014

21. Anki 50min

Magically, dock on Anki started working... How?! Why it wasn't?! Ughr... But the most important is that I was able to continue reviewing etc. ^^

Friday 14 February 2014

20. trying Anki ;/

Whyyy...? Every time I opened my Japanese dock on Anki it was shutting down an application on the phone... Moreover, every other dock has been working perfectly fine!

Friday 7 February 2014

13. Anki 1h15min

No, I didn't forgot about my Japanese learning... But I was quite lazy in this week, I can't conceal it >.< It was hard to come back to high school after winter break :s


Thirteen is such a beautiful number. I decided to install Anki today. I've downloaded a few decks already and I start to work on my vocabulary ^^

Monday 3 February 2014

9. translating 2h

Yeah, I fell ashmed of myself right now... But my winter holidays were ending and moreover I have broken the power socket in laptop... ughr... And now, after the first day of a school I am too tired to do anything, even though I have an esey to write and a business plan... -.- No Japanese today T.T

EDIT: There was a small change of plans, I didn't do any school. assignments. I just spent 1.5-2h on translating a few bubble texts on a fanarts instead. >.<

Thursday 30 January 2014

5. Printing ebook 1.5h | kanjibox 0.5h | word 1.5h

Today I printed Japanese Stage-Step Course -  Workbook and Writing practice book whoch took 1.5h.
I printed kanji information and mainly reading exercises, a little writing exercises.
I found there something interesting. The importance of short/long vowel:

Do I have to say that the 3rd example (husband --> prisoner) made my day? XD

I haven't put in my contact lenses today so I am quite blind... But whathever, I can be lazy today, so it's not really important >.<

I did a table of kanji today in a Microsoft Word... It took longer than I though ;_;

Wednesday 29 January 2014

4. new sites | kanjibox 0,5h

I installed Rikaikun (chrome extension) yesterday, this helps to read kanji on the weebsites. Ehh.. I mainly read about lerning Japanese yesterday, on sites such as:
Nice blog, have a few links -> レベル 別日本語多読ライブラリー
Dialuogues
Free Reading Material for Beginners (Graded Reader Equivalent)
Learning Japanese w/ Free & Cheap Materials: Study Guide & Big List
Japanese newspaper for kids

Moreover I spent only half an hour on learning vocabulary on kanjibox... But I've translated every word I couldn't understand even if I knew which one of four is appropriate one ^・^



Tuesday 28 January 2014

3. kanjibox 3h | Yotsubato! manga

Today I started doing vocab secion on kanjibox and I exercised ~150 words of 750 words for JLPT N5... I could have done a lot more, but I've read most of the displayed sentences for the word (examples of usage) - it takes a lot of time, because I understand next to nothing in them ;_; I hope it will make me remember them better!

Moreover I started reading Yotsubato! manga in Japanese, but only a first few pages. To remember words from it I've done a vocabulary set on kanjibox. Now it contains only 10 entries, but I will continue adding more for sure!

I also started doing 'Minna no Nihongo 1-5' vocab set.

Summing up 3rd day of my Japanese learning: I feel quite confident about reading hiragana (I knew it a long time before, but I sometimes misread some of the characters like e.g. さ or ち) and I do it a lot more fluently than before... But there is nothing weird in it, I had no contact with hiragana whatsoever. Also, I noticed I know a word here and there while doing quizes. I have to say, it's quite a nice feeling!

Monday 27 January 2014

2. kanjibox 3h

When I woke up I painted one of my walls in the room using Chalkboard paint. I hope I used it in good amount, because I had only 1l (a small can) and I was afraid it won't be enough, but ended up with almost half a can left, lol.

Later, as yesterday, I continued on kanjibox.net. Getting everything done in kana has taken 45 minutes (2h15min in total knowing hiragana before):

I had a few unusual problems :/ I've chosen a good answer, but there were two options, and...


It's quite confusing! >.<''

I have to say I don't know all katakana... I've learnt how to choose good aswer while not knowing all characters yet! I think I will learn them later by writing them down on paper sheets.

What about kanji? It took a. one hour (I could hve done it in less than 30 minutes, but decided I will read everything in hiragana and katakana again and again to remember better):

I've also completed reading section in about an hour (3.5h in total):

I know at least one reading for almost every kanji in this section, but which kanji has only one? Ehh... I still don't remember east, west, north, while I can choose the answer from proposed without any problems >.<''

Completed kanji JLPT5 section in ~40 minutes, but tbh I mostly looked only on english translation, so it was pointless, easy way (1.5h-2h in total).


What more can I say? Kanjibox has 80 kanji for JLPT5 while nihongoichiban.com lists 103... Hm...

Sunday 26 January 2014

1. New sites to see | kanjibox 4h

Today I came across a few sites I have to explore:

Learning:
kanjibox.net study resource. That's what I did today. It took me ~2.5 h to get everything in green:

Now starts the nice part of it: I feel good when I am sure about the answer, and obviously it happens a lot more often than 2.5 hours before! >.<
www.lingq.com  study resource
kanji.sljfaq.org You draw the kanji you see, they find it for you in a dictionary.
Evernote - notes
www.tofugu.com/2012/04/24/practicing-japanese-to-insanity/ The Headset made my day <3

Reading:
lwt.sourceforge.net You add 'your' texts and words you don't know, I guess...
japaneseerc.weebly.com Japanese reading club (have a few links)
www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy Japanese news with furigana
Rikaichan - chrome extension, looks up kanji 

Yotsubato! - manga
www.raw-manga.net
www.updateraw.com




I have to finally try Anki (Core 2000 and Core 6000 decks). It's been recommended to me and I see posts about it often....

At the end of my day I went back on kanjibox.net and did some kana exercises, I think I have the wrong order of doing things, lol. To get everything green took me a. 1.5 h:


Saturday 25 January 2014

0. Getting started. What I already know?

Emm... Nothing much. More precisely: hardly anything. It's:
   >> Hiragana
   >> Part of a katakana
   >> I can understand a few words while watching anime
   >> I know tens of kanji, but mostly can only name them (not always in Japanese) and can't remember how to read them. In worst cases I know I 'learnt/saw' it somewhere, but have no idea what it is.


Silly of me - trying to learn kanji while not knowing katakana, but... The characters are too easy O.o'' I mean I don't think enough while learning them, so I forget it reeeally fast. I just decided time for katakana will come when I will actually start reading something.

The easiest way to learn new words/characters... is by seeing them in context. So my new decision is: I will start translating raw Japanese manga. I will start from something easy... like short shoujo mangas.

I think learning Japanese will be a little easier to me this way, because 4.5 years ago I started learning English this method. Back then I think I knew next to nothing and didn't feel comfortable in foreign language. Now I 'Don't See Obstacles, [I] See Opportunities' to write/speak/communicate in English. The only differences are that: I am older and... shoujo mangas sucks big time for me now, while then I've read them with enyojement.
Knowing this for a moment I though about reading shounen manga... BUT... But they are mostly long and the words are more uncommon, unrealistic and unnecessary. Of course I won't start from josei or, my goal, yaoi, because they lack furigana and I would became discouraged because of the raid of unknown to me kanji really soon. It takes me a lot of time to find kanji by radicals (jisho.org), so...

I've found an article about tips what to read on the low Japanese language knowledge - it's obvious that the higher level you are the more sources you can find to read... So what to do when you know next to nothing? Here is an article which points the way: tofugu.com

I am starting to learn Japanese seriously. FINALLY

I watched TED talk:




 and decided that if I shouldn't say anybody about it, then I will write daily. Of course not about my plans, but about what I did in current day with my Japanese.

Today and a few days before I found myself not actually learning it, but reading about learning, but whathever.

Two weeks ago I did Basic Japanese course at memrise.com. I think it's a nice way to start.

Here are one of the most popular obstacles in learning Japanese. Btw, it's for me, I will look on this post every time I will lack motivation or will try to find any excusses (source: http://www.textfugu.com/season-1/hard-way/1-4/)

1. The lack of time: In your free time you mainly read manga, watch anime, read fanfiction. Why not read manga in Japanese instead if you want to so hard?! Time to make a bank account and ship some nice Japanese manga home!

2. 'I don't have enough money': Your parents pay for your house bills, you have an Internet. There are a few free resources to learn Japanese! You would finally buy one of the books too... You don't really need to buy new manga title! No more new titles in 2014! Except yaoi ones, of course! XD

3. 'I will end up burning out and quitting midway': Well... It's time to show yourself you can do everything, but only if you really want to. Are you in?! We can't be half assed here! You don't 'want to learn Japanese'. You WILL BE LEARNING Japanese when you finish writing this post!

4. 'I'm not very good at learning languages': It's really one of the most popular excusses? I'm quite shocked. Every people can speak their native language. The only exception? Abuse when young. I have to say that I quite can't agree with the textfugu (see:source) here. Every human being have an ability to learn languages. Others may feel better about this, but it's only because of different attitude. You can't think 'I don't think I can do this/', because then you really CAN'T. Think the other way around!


Now I'm in the middle of my two weeks winter holidays. One week passed on sleeping and preparing walls in my room for painting them, which sadly only started today. Tommorow is a Sunday, my only plan is to visit my grandpas, so I will definitely find some time for Japanese! No youtube tommorow, lol.