6.

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 ;_;

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 -> ﾚﾍﾞﾙ 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 ＾・＾

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!

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...

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:

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.