Week 15

It's been a long time since I updated this. I need to look again at how much time I have and change the number of words I cover in one week, because I don't think that 6 per week is going to cut it at this point.

Lesson 1
吸う	すう	to smoke; to breathe in; to suck
渡す	わたす	to pass over; to hand over
渡る	わたる	to cross over; to go across
Lesson 2
切符	きっぷ	ticket
消える	きえる	to go out; to vanish; to disappear
着く	つく	to arrive at; to reach
Review
消す	けす	to turn off; to erase
切手	きって	stamp
葉書	はがき	postcard
無くす	なくす	to lose (something)
探す	さがす	to look for; to search
見つける	みつける	to find

Week 14

Lesson 1
庭	にわ	garden
八百屋	やおや	green grocer
咲く	さく	to bloom
Lesson 2
曇る	くもる	to become cloudy, dim
晴れる	はれる	to be sunny, clear away stop raining
採る	とる	to take, pick up, harvest earn, choose
Review
茶碗	ちゃわん	rice bowl, tea cup
呼ぶ	よぶ	to call out, invite
使う	つかう	to use
要る	いる	to need
売る	うる	to sell
買う	かう	to buy

Week 13

Well, I didn't manage to post on Saturday. But I'll get back on schedule, I swear.

Lesson 1
貸す	かす	to lend
借りる	かりる	to borrow, to hire, to rent
返す	かえす	to return something
Lesson 2
頼む	たのむ	to request, to beg, to ask
狭い	せまい	narrow, confined, small
広い	ひろい	spacious, vast, wide
Review
直す	なおす	to repair (transitive)
直る	なおる	to repair (intransitive)
壊す	こわす	to break (transitive)
壊れる	こわれる	to break (intransitive)
出す	だす	to take out (transitive)
出る	でる	to go out, leave (intransitive)

Week 12

I'm a little late again. I'll make my next post a week from this Saturday. Soudenakereba, watashi no boushi o tabemasu =)

Week 11

Week 10: On Time

In response to being 2 days late okay, 3 days late with this post, I figured the best vocabulary would be words dealing with time.



Also, I've been slacking again, so this weeks review words are just last weeks vocabulary. I haven't really absorbed them yet.

Week 9

Week 8 : Family

Okay, so I managed to find some words that were related (no pun intended) enough to have a theme again.



Also, I went to a restaurant in Tustin called Hondaya (本多屋) which is an izakaya (居酒屋), which is like a Japanese pub. The kanji are from　居る(いる : to be), 酒(さけ : sake) and 屋(や : establishment, shop). So it kinda means a place to sit and drink. The food was incredible. I had takoyaki for the first time, and I've now found a Japanese food to rival my old favorite, okonomiyaki.

Week 7

This weeks vocabulary



I originally put 冊子(さっし, booklet) instead of 雑誌(ざっし, magazine) so I decided to include that word as well, given that it has a related meaning, and could be easily confused.

Even though I've stopped trying to come up with a theme for each week, I'll keep trying to find words that are somewhat related. Mostly now so that its easier to come up with a few sentences that use all of them.

Oh, and this weeks post was written on my new MacBook while sitting in a neat cafe I found. It's called Graffitea according to Google, but when you see the place, it just looks like its called Chaya (茶屋). Free wifi is always nice (at least I assume the linksys my mac found is theirs).

Week 6 : sentences

Okay, so I've gone through and written up some sentences using the vocabulary from this week, and a friend of mine from work looked over them and corrected the things that sounded weird
(手伝って　ありがとう　ございました、じょさん).

バスを　待ちながら、私の　かぞくに　ついての　歌を　歌いました。
basu o machinagara, watashi no kazoku ni tsuite no uta o utaimashita.
While I waited for the bus, I sang a song about my family.

ギターを　弾く　ことを　習う　間に、その　歌を　作りました。
gitaa o hiku koto o narau aida ni, sono uta o tsukurimashita.
I wrote the song while I was learning to play the guitar.

昔の　夏休みに　ついて　です
mukashi no natsu yasumi ni tsuite desu
It's about summer vacations long ago.

私たちは　細い　川に　行って　いました
watashitachi wa hosoi kawa ni itte imashita.
We would go to a narrow river.

私は　ある時に　とても　太った　魚を　つかまえた。
watashi wa aru toki ni totemo futotta sakana o tsukamaeta.
I once caught a really fat fish.

長くて　厚い　草は　風の　中で　おどって　いました。
nagakute atsui kusa wa kaze no naka de odotte imashita.
The long, thick grass would dance in the wind.



The things I got wrong were:
バスに　待ちながら。。。　should be　ばすを　待ちながら。。。

I was using 引く instead of 弾く (both pronounced hiku, but the former meaning "to pull", and the latter meaning "to play")

習うの　間に。。。　should have just been 習う　間に。。。

She changed 太い魚　to 太った魚
I think the relative clause with the verb 太る is used to call something fat, whereas the adjective 太い is probably used for a thick book, or a deep voice (according to my japanese-english dictionary)

Finally 風で should have been 風の中で

Week 6

This week's vocabulary



Unfortunately, I've been slacking off, and I'm not really retaining these words very well. Probably because I don't have any chance to try using them. I think I'm going to try to end each week with a post where I have to use all the words from that week in a set of sentences. Then I just need to get a native Japanese speaker to make sure they're not completely wrong.

I'll start that next week ...

Week 5

Here's this weeks vocabulary



Also, I'm trying to find a Japanese penpal so that I can try writing letters. On the off chance any native Japanese speakers read this that want to help a guy out with his Japanese, feel free to contact me.

ありがとうございます

Week 4 : no more themes

So, yeah, I can't come up with themes (takes too much time). So I'm just going to continue to grab (seemingly) random words from the list each week.



I learned a new kanji this week that doesn't have its own pronunciation. It just serves to repeat the last kanji over again. It's the second kanji in iroiro : 色々

I ran into another few words that use it
kuniguni : 国々 : countries
shoushou : 少々 : a bit, little, few, some
tokidoki : 時々 : sometimes

Anyway, I thought that was interesting.

Week 3: More basic verbs

Here's some more basic verbs from the remaining vocabulary. I like to try to keep the transitive/intransitive words in pairs so that its a bit easier to remember them.



The review words seem a little random, but they're words that I've been practicing a lot lately, so I figured I'd include them.

Week 2: Basic Verbs

There were some basic verbs that I feel like I should know, so this week has some simple words that can get a lot of use.



Okay, so these aren't the only basics left on the list, but I'm still trying to keep to just six words per week. And since I'm still not very familiar with a couple of words from last week, I'm putting them in the review section.

Oh, and I noticed that the kanji for narau (習う) is the same as the second kanji of renshuu (練習) which means practice (noun)

Week 1 : Directions

Okay, this week I want to focus on some words that will help me in understanding directions. Namely the compass directions, and streets and so on. So here they are



Okay, so it was more than 3 per lesson. That's fine, as long as I don't bite off more than I can chew. I should also list some other words that I already know that fall into the same sort of category.

Goals

So(u desu ne), my plan for the year is to make a trip to Japan in mid October, and then take the lowest level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) a few months afterwards (they administer it every December). So I sat down, looked through all the vocabulary I need to learn, and of the roughly 700 words, I've got about 190 left to learn. I did better than I thought.

I'm going to try to get all of these by the time I go to Japan, which is just at 30 weeks from now. So I need to learn about 6 words a week. Here's the list of words that I don't know (or, rather, that I don't know well enough).



Whew .. that's pretty intimidating staring at that list all by itself. I just need to break it down into 3 new words for every lesson, and then try my hardest to use those words as much as possible from that point on.

Frist Psot

Ah, the first post. As a little introduction, this is going to be a chronicle of my ongoing adventures in learning the Japanese language, or as they call it 日本語 (Nihongo), where 日本(Nihon) means Japan, and 語(go) means language or word.

I plan on reviewing various study materials that I've bought, so that others can spend less money and still get all the essentials (without bothering with all the crap). I'll also occasionally post new words / kanji that I learn both as a record for myself, and as a word of the day kinda thing for anyone interested ... well, in reality, it'll probably be more like a bundle of words per weekend.