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.