So a bit of a break from my reviews, as I really ran out of things to write reviews for. Hahaha…. Today I cleaned my house, about as thoroughly as I could… Sweeping, counters, bathrooms, carpets, sofas, glass, doorknobs, sink handles, light switches, laundry, litter box, cat water fountain, dishes, bedsheets, desks, etc. etc. Went and did my weekly grocery shopping too, I came home and was putting the milk into the refrigerator, and I heard a *POP*. I turn around and one of the backdoor’s glass had completely shattered for what seems like no good reason. No glass got in the house, it’s all still “together” but the pane that broke was on the outside of the door, and not the inside. Thank goodness too I was dreading having to clean up a ton of glass in my house. Can’t call management until Monday either. Let’s hope it stays intact! All in all, I’m pretty worn out, and my day isn’t over yet, but I think it’s time to relax a bit.

So I was trying to think about what I should post about next. I’m kind of at a loss here. Everything has been done before, and I don’t want to seem like I’m just copying someone else’s idea for blog posts. The reviews were great because it was my own opinion, and even though I’ve seen a few sites who have done reviews on learning resources, this was MY opinion, and so was more original in that respect. So ideas? Comments? I thought about writing a compilation list of things like Japanese Table Manners, or something to that effect. I don’t get any comments (except perhaps one or two, total. For my ENTIRE site.) so I don’t have a whole lot of motivation to keep writing, I’d rather know what the people who read my blog would like to see. So go ahead. Throw out ideas in the comments! I’d love to hear them! As always, thanks so much for reading! ありがとうございました！

おやすみなさい、皆さん。

 So today I thought I would write about all the apps that I use for my iOS devices. For those of you who don’t know, this would be my iPhone/iPod/iPad devices. Some of these are free of charge to download and use, some are not. Although, I will have to say that the ones that you have to pay for, sometimes have a “lite” version that you can test for free, and decide if you like it or not. That is always useful! So here we go~

Let’s start with ones for iPhone. Keep in mind apps that are on your iPhone, you can also see on your iPad (if applicable, bear with me). Sometimes there are two versions, one for each. I’ll come back to this later, but my point is when I list apps for iPhone, you can still use them on your iPad but the quality is very low since it’s meant for a smaller screen. Also a little note: my iPod touch is 2nd generation, so these do not apply for my iPod. I think most iPhone apps you can also use on your newer iPod touches, but I am not 100% certain. Anyway without further ado!

iPhone Apps:

Japanese: This is an app that is a paid app. For around $10* you can get this wicked awesome reference app. Your go-to source for looking things up and has so many other fun tools to use. So originally I bought this app because it was like a compressed pocket dictionary. I could type in anything in Japanese, or in English, and it would search to find what I was looking for. In the menu there are several tools. The first one is “All Entries” this is your search. Then it has the kana syllabaries listed, you can click these and it shows all the kana, and if you click on a particular one, it shows the stroke order. There is no audio though, just keep that in mind. It even has the odd forms like 「ふぃ」、「ふぉ」、etc. It has a history option, so you can see what you’ve been looking at. The vocab lists I haven’t gotten much chance to play with, but from what I  can tell it seems like a really handy tool to sort vocab that you want to study. There’s also a classification tab, so if you were looking for something specific, but don’t know how to type it, or not exactly sure what you’re looking for, these are categories such as “Anthroplogy”, “Computer”, “Colors”, “Medicine”, “Transportation”, etc. Handy tool to have for search. :) There’s a lexical category also, another handy tool for searching, these are for your nouns, verbs, adjectives. Last but definitely not least is the Study tool, for the JLPT test. It says at the top how many days until the next test, and then from there you can pick your level, and what you want to study. Over all this app is fantastic, I would say it’s definitely worth the $10* I paid for it! My rating: ★★★★★

Tae KIm’s Learning Japanese: This app is a free* app. It has sooooo much information in it, I can’t begin to cover it all. It has tons and tons of lessons to learn from, and it’s really just so much information. It’s got lessons on the writing system, basic grammar lessons, essential grammar lessons, expressions, and some advanced topics. Since it’s free* you should just go see for yourself! It’s really a great learning app to have in your library. :) There’s not a whole lot I can go over, but I can say it’s a great resource to look into. My rating: ★★★★★

Japanese Phrases and Lessons: This app is about $10, but again, has some really neat features. There is a FREE version of this that’s a lite version, if you want to check that out first. :D The main page has several things to choose from for study. Under the study card tab it has two choices: Study Cards, and Flash Cards. The study cards have all the information at once, the flash cards you have to flip over, which seems pretty self explanatory but I wrote it anyway. There are also progress bars on how well you have done with these. It goes into some depth too, so for example you were studying the kana, it doesn’t JUST do the kana, it does words using kana. Pretty helpful really. Back on the main page the next  tab is Lessons. These include an intro, the kana syllabaries, grammar, kanji, some stories, there’s a tab for other lessons that goes more in depth like using counters, family words, Keigo polite Japanese, and more. There’s even videos you can watch, but you need to have internet connection for that part. The next tab on the main page is quizzes. This is my favorite part. I love taking the quizzes to see how much I have learned. The only thing I don’t really like is that it’s multiple choice, so you can use the process of elimination to get your answer rather than just knowing it. But it’s still a great tool. This app DOES have audio files with it, so you can hear how things are supposed to sound. That’s a huge plus. The other two tabs are Study Bank, and oMise. The study bank is for words you have missed, and may not know as well and need to study. oMise requires internet connection, and when you click on it it’s just a bunch of ads really. :P That’s Japanese Phrases in a nutshell. My rating: ★★★★☆

Kotoba!: Another great reference app. This app is free*! To be perfectly honest I haven’t had this app for very long. This has so much information in it, I don’t think I’ve even seen it all! So let’s start with the basics. At the bottom of the page when you open Kotoba! is a bar with some options. The first one is Dictionary. This is pretty obvious. Type it in, like you would in the Japanese app, and it gives you all the matches. When you type, for example, 「猫」the character for “cat”, it not only gives you the single kanji but also a HUGE list of compounds. Handy right? The next icon on the bar is Kanji. You click this one, and and there’s MORE options, a text-based search, SKIP (never used this, not sure what it is), multi-radical, JLPT levels, School grades in the Japanese educational system,  and by Chinese radicals. If you click on a kanji, it shows you the kanji, the meaning, the readings, a little animation of the stroke order, chinese pinyin (if you don’t know what this is, it’s best to google it), and even the korean. The meaning is given in English, French, Spanish, and Portugese. It tells you how many strokes the kanji has, which radicals it has, the components, which grade it would be, which level in the JLPT it would be, and then a list of compounds. But wait! That’s not all! It has Character sets (unicode 4.0 for example) and Query codes (not sure what this is), and External references (such as Japanese for Busy People, Heisigs, Tuttle Kanji Cards, etc. etc.). The next icon on the bar is for examples, you enter a search term, it gives you examples of that term in sentences or situations. The other two icons are lists (history/favorites) and then ・・・ more for about information. Overall, pretty awesome app for being free*! My rating: ★★★★★

Japanese Verb Conjugator Free: This next one is also free*, as the name states. This is a pretty straightforward app. There’s not much overlap like there is for some of the others. This is a verb conjugator, and that’s pretty much all it does. However if you know anything about Japanese, that’s the one thing, at least for THIS girl, to get the hang of, and memorize. For me Japanese is pretty easy until you get to the verb conjugation, then I have a hard time remembering all the rules. Not only that but there seems to be like 25 ways to conjugate just ONE verb. There’s two little wheels. On the left there is the kanji, or the verb to conjugate. On the right side is the conjugation. So for 「会う」you can change it to 「会います」、「会いました」、「会いません」、「会いませんでした」、「会いましょう」、「会う」、「会った」、「会わない」、「会わなかった」、「会えば」、「会ったら」、「会われる」、「会わせる」、「合わせられる」、「会おう」、「会える」、「会え」、「会って」。That’s just one verb, crazy right? It tells you at the bottom which conjugation it is, past/polite, past/negative, etc. So that helps out a lot. I will admit it’s really difficult not to use this as a crutch to cheat on verb conjugations, but it’s still really nice to have it. Over all My rating: ★★★★★

J-Grammar: Another free* app. This one is pretty straightforward and basic, meaning it doesn’t really go into a lot of detail to get you to learn things. 「XはYです」X is Y. Pretty much… If you don’t already know some Japanese, this won’t be of much help to you I don’t think. It won’t give you much detail about why things are they way they are it just assumes you are taking it’s word for it. Not to say it’s not helpful, but going in blind would get you nowhere. This app is good if you know the basics, but need a reminder with out going through all those tutorials with text about WHY things are they way they are. My rating: ★★★☆☆

Learn Japanese with Japancasts Free: This is a free* app as well. This app doesn’t really impress me all that much, but it DOES give you practice writing if you don’t have a pen/pencil handy. It is a bit hard to trace things on a touch screen and have nice smooth, fluid movements, but it does an okay job. Practicing writing by hand though is far superior than trying to trace it . But that’s just my opinion. My rating: ★★☆☆☆

iPad apps (these won’t work in any smaller devices, they are iPad only. Remember though sometimes there are versions for both but are listed separate.)

Human Japanese HD: This app costs about $15*. This does have a lite version that is free to try, which I did before I purchased it. This has so much information in it. Not ONLY little lessons on Japanese, but culture lessons too! The guy who wrote this put more into it than just “Here’s the kana, now run with it!” which I appreciate a whole lot. He broke up the lessons with little cultural excerpts to break the monotony a little bit. Every time you click on something written in Japanese, there’s audio to go with it. After every lesson there’s two quiz options (usually). You can set it so it’s an English word and you have to pick the Japanese word from the choices, or the other way around. I like the vocabulary this program has to offer. This app is so warm and inviting compared to some of the others. Probably why it’s called “Human” Japanese. Even though I gave the other apps high ratings, this one really brings some personality to the table compared to some of the others. It would be like having a doctor come in and be all “Sit up. Stick out your tongue. Please take two daily. Call me.” compared something like this “Oh so how are we feeling today? Good, could you please sit up and breathe deeply. Good…” maybe that’s a bad comparison, but one is warm and inviting, the other is not as much. If you already know most of your lower level Japanese this is not the app for you. This is meant for beginners, maybe between beginner and intermediate later on. It has 40 chapters of lessons, not including all the cultural notes. I think it’s worth the cost. My rating: ★★★★★

JLPT 500: The real name for this is really long “Preparation Workbook for the JLP test N5-N4 500+ Sample Questions”. There are apps for higher levels that are the same kind of deal. There is also a lite version of this. The full version costs about $14*. This app has a lot to offer. Although I will say, you must absolutely already have knowledge in Japanese before you try this. My Japanese isn’t too good, so even I struggle sometimes with it. This app is so complicated, I don’t even think I can really explain it too well. It would really be best if you’re interested to just go DL the light version and try it out. Basically it asks you questions, in Japanese, and you pick from 4 answers the one that fits the blank. Even the instructions are in Japanese though so like I said, you have to have some knowledge or it will be really overwhelming. It’s a great study app though! Especially if you’re really hardcore about learning. So go check it out! My rating: ★★★★★

These are the best apps that I have found. There are TONS and TONS of Japanese learning apps, but these are the best ones that I have come across. I have several more that are fun little games, but are really not geared towards adults. They are fun none the less, but not as educational. I use all my phone apps on my iPad too, except perhaps a couple. :)  Thanks so much for reading my website! I hope you enjoyed my review. ありがとうございました！

じゃね、皆さん！

*Prices are always subject to change, while it may be free now it might not be later. So keep this in mind.  ^_^

So yesterday I wrote about my Japanese resource books, gave each one a little review, and then my rating on how useful I thought it was. So today I thought I would write about which websites I use online to help me with my Japanese, and pretty much do the same thing I did with the books. There are so many though, I will only do the really important ones that I use a whole lot. Alrighty then, let’s get started!

1.) Read The Kanji

This is a website that I am totally in love with. I  joined this site a couple of years ago, when I joined it was free. Now though you have to pay a small fee to use it. If you’re really serious about learning Japanese though, and dedicated to it, it’s worth the cost. You choose your list to study from, JLPT lists, or even Kana lists. If you don’t know what JLPT is I suggest you google it, it’s the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, and is given to judge your level of knowledge in the language. From what I’ve heard it seems very difficult though, even the “easy” levels. So you pick what you want to study, and it puts it up on the screen, it has components you can change like you can have JUST the kanji (or kana) and no English at all below it, or you can have an English and Japanese example using said kanji/kana below it, or just Japanese, or nothing at all. It’s pretty customizable really. This is how I learned my kana so quickly. Another thing is it doesn’t require your computer to be able to type in Japanese. When you type it in the box it comes out as Japanese automatically. You can turn that feature off, but I don’t see why you would want to. My rating: ★★★★★

2.) Learn Hiragana and Katakana

I used this site more when I was learning kana, so it’s been a while. I thought it was really neat though on the righthand side it has a column of links. Many of which are to kana-learning games. Making a game out of learning sometimes takes the stress and anxiety away I’ve found. Some of them are a little quirky, but overall decent. It has kanji on the site too, not just kana.  Not a totally outstanding source, but pretty fun nonetheless! My rating: ★★☆☆☆

3.) All Japanese All The Time : AJATT

This blog is AWESOME. The whole premise behind this blogger’s theory is that if you want to learn a language, you have to immerse yourself in it as MUCH as possible. So instead of just learning Japanese, for example, make your shopping lists in Japanese, instead of watching movies in English, watch them in Japanese, try to put your thoughts into Japanese. “You don’t learn a language, you get used to it.” I think this is awesome advice, I’ve tried to do this myself and it does help. Although with a family of my own complete with children it makes it a bit more difficult to do this. It can still be done though if you have enough passion. There are just a ton of useful and interesting articles on this site, I suggest you pop over and take a look! :) My rating: ★★★★★

4.) Tofugu blog

This blog is a lot like the AJATT blog. Different writers, a bit of a different feel. But like AJATT it has a ton of awesome, interesting, and sometimes silly, articles the authors have written. I spent two whole days poring over their articles last week, I was just completely in the zone. They don’t just talk about the language either, they talk about culture in Japan, and sometimes misused phrases (the bukkake post is HILARIOUS… to those of you who don’t know what it is, DO NOT google that. Ever.) Just go over and look for it, it will save you a whole lot of greif, embarrassment, and possibly the gross out factor. Just trust me on this one. This blog is where I got the inspiration to change mine up a bit, so to all of you over at Tofugu, THANKS! You guys rock. My rating: ★★★★★

5.) JLPT

This is a JLPT website. I find this site highly useful. It tells you what the test is all about, and there’s options to compare old tests and new tests since they changed the level system in 2010. (It used to be 4 levels, N1 being the highest, N4 being the lowest, but now there’s N5 which is the lowest. They added extra level in the middle that would have been the equivalent of somewhere between N2 and N3 ). It even has a section for registration processes for taking the JLPT test. There is also a section for sample questions. This is probably my favorite part of that entire site. It gives me an idea (very general idea, mind you) if I would be even close to ready to take the test. The JLPT test isn’t just written, there are other parts too like listening, reading, grammar. Not just “what does this kanji mean?”. Since it is a proficiency test this doesn’t surprise me, but I thought I’d throw it out there anyway. They have a page too that you can purchase study books and CD’s and stuff, pretty neat I’d say! My rating: ★★★★☆

6.) EJOD

This is an acronym for English Japanese Online Dictionary. Although this is a members site, where members get more access than the rest of us, it’s still a decent resource. The link I put up there is to the readings page. It has a couple of readings in Japanese and then some little questions about the passage you just read. It’s not my favorite site, but I would say it’s at least worth taking a look at. I haven’t fully explored this site, there are quite a few things that are for “members only”. It’s cheap to be a member, only $12 for a whole year, but I have found better resources. But the free part of the site can help some too. :) My rating: ★★☆☆☆

7.)  Another JLPT Resource Site

This is a site based in the UK that has links for resources for the JLPT  test. It has little charts that kind of give a very basic idea on how much you need to know to pass a level of the test. When you click on a link for resources it gives you some options, and some links for free downloads. It has kana charts (if you clicked on N5) and some sample listening clips, some videos, resources the poster things is awesome, some downloadable lists for vocab and kanji, and even a level checker to see where you might fall. Although I’m not entirely sure how accurate that might be. All in all, I think this site is pretty spiffy. It has a lot of free downloads to expand your library with things to study. My rating: ★★★★☆

8.) Handwritten Kanji Search

This site is awesome. This is the best site for kanji look up, when you find a kanji, can’t copy and paste it, having problems looking it up, or don’t know how to look it up you just draw it in the box and as you draw it comes up with possible matches. The only drawback to this is it can be hard to write with the mouse, it takes a bit of practice. But still a good resource! My rating: ★★★★☆

9.) Online Verb List 

This is an online verb conjugator. Anyone who has studied Japanese long enough knows the stress of learning how to conjugate ONE verb 20 different ways. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating… a little. It’s so much harder, at least for me personally, to think about how to conjugate a verb. When I do it automatically in English. English is my native language I know, but I always have to stop and think about how the heck am I going to conjugate this verb ? Oh jeeze… and then stress over whether I’m going to fsck it up or not. This site is great. It has the list of verbs, probably not all inclusive, but a pretty decent sized list regardless. If you click on one of the links to a verb, it then lists all the possible conjugations. I’m still not sure if that list is entirely inclusive either, but it’s still nice to have. So if you’re stressing about how to conjugate a verb, go here and look it up! My rating: ★★★★★

10.) Verb Conjugation Groups

Here’s yet another resource for verbs in Japanese. This site has the groups for verbs, and then lists the conjugations to the right. So if you need a volitional form, you click on the volitional link. Extremely useful. It may provide the same information as the last link I write about, but in a different style. And since everyone is different, sees things differently, and learns differently, maybe someone will like this layout more than the previous. :) My rating: ★★★★★

11.) Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese

This website is REALLY useful. I have an app for this in my phone and ipad (more about those in another post!) There are several different categories you can select from for certain things you want to learn, touch up on, look over, whatever. The links on the right side take you to the section you want to view. It’s easy to follow layout, and the way it’s written make it pretty easy to understand. Although I would say knowing some key basics is a good idea, it’s not totally necessary as this person has covered that as well with the syllabary and pronunciation link provided. And… it’s FREE! Can’t get much better than that right? My rating: ★★★★★

12.) Kanji Radicals

When you are learning Kanji there are of course many ways to go about doing it. One of the ways is to learn the radicals, that is, basic parts of kanji that you can learn and then look up to find a certain kanji in a list, or if you don’t know the meaning of a kanji sometimes you can look to see what radicals are in it, and get a basic idea. This doesn’t always work out, but I would still recommend learning them anyways. This site just lists the “meanings” behind the radicals, these lists don’t always match up. Sometimes you can make  your own meanings if the ones they list don’t work out for you. Most of these (not all of them) are NOT kanji by themselves, just parts of kanji. Just to be clear. This list is pretty decent, although it doesn’t match some of the other ones out there, like I said. My rating: ★★★☆☆

13.) Multi-radical Search

This is my favorite page for searching through radicals. You click on one, and it shows you all the kanji that has that radical in it, if it has another radical that you know you can click an additional one and it shows then all the matches for those two. Over all, really handy. Gives a lot of information on the kanji too when you see the matches that come up. Over all a really nice radical search page really. :) My rating: ★★★★★

14.) Another Radical Search

This is another page much like the one listed above, just a tad different with the presentation of results. Some may prefr one over the other so I went ahead and listed both. I like the other one though, compared to this one. My rating: ★★★★☆

Those are the top sites that I use. There are SEVERAL others I have in my bookmarks but not really worth sharing. They aren’t as nice, the layout is often poor, the quality is poor, and really these are just overall better. In every aspect. I’m sure there are some websites out there that I haven’t listed that are excellent, but I haven’t found them yet. :)

I hope these help you in your journey to better your Japanese skills! I know they have certainly helped me. Like I’ve said before, I’m by no means fluent, but that doesn’t mean I’ve done a bit of exploring on some decent learning methods. :) 頑張ってください！Thanks for reading! ありがとうございました！

Upcoming: my list of iPad/iPod/iPhone apps and some reviews! Stay tuned!

So in my last post I talked about how, why, and when I got into Japanese. In this post I am going to go over the references I have/use, and give my opinion on some of them. Ready? Here we go! These are all books I own, and of course all opinions are just that, opinions. To each their own. :)

1.) Japanese Demystified – Eriko Sato
I love this book. It starts out pretty simple, but meant for an adult, and not a child. Which is what I think the biggest mistake people make, try to learn a language like a child, when they aren’t a child anymore. Our brains don’t work the same then as they do now. After the basics this book starts throwing Kanji and grammar at you right away, which I love. It makes it easy to start building simple sentences when you know what the components are, and how to use them. This book has oral practice sections, written practice sections, little mini quizzes at the end of each chapter, a “mid-term” so to speak half way through the book, and then a final exam at the end. So you can see how well, or badly, you may be doing. My rating: ★★★★★

2.) Japanese in 10 minutes a day – Bilingual Books Inc., Kershul
This. Book. Sucks. It’s okay if you want to learn just a few words and how to say them… but  that’s all it does. Romaji and ONLY romaji. No hiragana, no katakana, no kanji. So in my opinion, unless all you want to do is say a few lone words, this is a horrible option. No one can learn a language in 10 minutes a day. My rating: ★☆☆☆☆

3.) The First 100 Japanese Kanji – Introduction by Eriko Sato
This book is just Kanji. It does go into a tiny bit about pronunciation, and a little bit of the history of kanji. I do like how it goes over kun-readings and on-readings, and even talks about okurigana. [Kun-readings are Japanese readings of the kanji, on-readings are the chinese readings of the kanji, and okurigana is when kanji has kana attached to the end of it such as 「高い」instead of just 「高」by itself). The book even tells you what radical goes with which kanji. This book also gives you little examples with the kanji, but if you don’t know what you are doing it’s hard to understand it. Pretty handy. My rating: ★★★☆☆

4.) Reading Japanese – Eleanor Harz Jorden & Hamako Ito Chaplin
This book is EXCELLENT. I can’t compare it to the Japanese Demystified book because it’s just too different. It spends a lot of time introducing you to the syllabaries. And then has tons and tons of drills to read little words using them. It does introduce kanji too but not until a bit later on. Once you really get into the book you read stories, longer drills, and then hand written pieces so you get used to reading things that aren’t just typed. It helps a lot really (I need more practice in this area for sure) when you can’t just plug something into an online translator and cheat. Or use Rikaikun to hover over something to get the gist meaning of something. Although I would recommend learning the syllabaries FIRST before diving into this. It would just make it easier to start off rather than make it harder. But maybe that’s just me. My rating: ★★★★★

5.) A Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese – 3rd edition – Compiled by Florence Sakade – Tuttle Language Library
This book is a bit like the 100 first kanji book. However it’s got a lot more kanji in it. It doesn’t go into as detail as the other book does, or it would be REALLY thick. This book shows you a kanji, tells you how many strokes it has, what it’s meaning is, gives the on/kun readings, and then gives you a few examples of how to use it in a compound, if applicable. In the back it has a few  ways to look up kanji by stroke order, or by number, as they are all given an ID number. To be perfectly honest I barely ever open this book. But it’s still nice to have just in case I need it. My rating: ★★★☆☆

6.) Japanese-English / English-Japanese dictionary
Must have. If you’re learning ANY language a dictionary is an absolute must. The one I have is Random House, and has romanizations and Japanese characters in it thanks to Seigo Nakao. Although I will say this: Don’t use a dictionary as a crutch. Just like you shouldn’t use an online translator as a crutch. I know I am guilty of the latter more often than I care to admit, but I learn from my mistakes, and I’m trying to get better with just reading something rather than being lazy about it. Handy reference, but don’t over use it, or rely on it. My rating: ★★★☆☆

7.) Read Real Japanese – short stories compilation by contemporary writers such as Hiromi Kawakami, Otsuichi, Shinji Ishii, Banana Yoshimoto, Kaoru Kitamura, and Yoko Tawada.
This book is a little too advanced for me. I look at it every once in a while to see what words I can make out and understand. It’s basically a bunch of little stories written in Japanese (right to left, top to bottom style) that you read, and then after the Japanese page there is an explanation page where it tells you which sentence says what in English. I won’t rate this one, as I can’t read it yet. But I’m sure once I  can it will be a great practice resource. My rating: ✖

8.) Kana de Manga: Japanese Sound FX!
This book I got just for fun. It’s a tiny thin little book that just has sound effects in it, and onomatopoeia. Such as 「オロオロ」(oro-oro) is kind of a sound that happens when you make a mistake. Or 「ドキドキ」(doki-doki) is the sound your heart makes when it beats really loudly. It has animal sounds, human sounds, mechanical sounds, etc. This book really isn’t necessary, but it’s fun to have. My rating: ★★☆☆☆

9.) Basic Connections: Making Your Japanese flow – Kakuko Shoji
I got this book, and to be 100% honest I totally forgot I had it in my library. “This book is to help provide information on Japanese expressions and usages that facilitate the flow of ideas and thought in written and spoken Japanese”. That is a quote from the introduction. You cannot use this book though if you don’t know enough Japanese to read basic sentences, or even intermediate sentences. It has exercises, and reading excerpts in it too. Really neat book, but as I haven’t used it, I’m not going to provide a rating. If I had to assign a “ghost rating” or how I THINK it would be, just from the little I’ve looked at it, I would probably say it would be 4/5 stars. But for now, it gets an X, or n/a. My Rating: ✖

10.) All About Particles: a Handbook of Japanese Function Words – Naoko Chino
Here is another great book I forgot I had. If you have any knowledge of Japanese you know that particles (those little kana that mark things in the sentence, for example 「を」 is the direct object marker) can be confusing. Especially if there is more than one way of stating something, using different particles. This book is PURELY particles and how/when to use them. I’m sure I would get SO much out of this book, if I had remembered I had it. Haha! So no rating for this one, although I’m sure it’s a fantastic reference. My rating: ✖

11.) Essential Kanji – P.G. O’Neill
This is almost exactly like that “Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese” book, except it has a TON more kanji in it, and they are printed a lot smaller. It shows numbered stroke order, and meaning, and readings and all of that. Basically same book – more information added – smaller package. I don’t use this book really, at first I tried but it was difficult to search for things. My rating: ★☆☆☆☆

12.) Japanese Grammar – 2nd edition – Carol and Nobuo Akiyama
This book is okay… but I’m not a huge fan. It’s ALL in Romaji, no kana, no kanji. I have problems visualizing things when it’s not just written as it should be. Okay reference for grammar, but not my pick unless I absolutely had no other choice. I might use it for the verb charts but that’s it. My rating: ★☆☆☆☆

So there you have it. There are a few other books I have that I didn’t bother listing, but they are really more cultural books than language books.  :) Thanks for reading! Coming up in the next post: websites and other tools! ありがとうございました。

じゃね、皆さん。

So today I’m going to talk a little bit of WHEN I started learning Japanese, WHY I’m learning Japanese, HOW I started learning Japanese, and give my opinions on some of the resources that I use. And maybe if I get time the difference between Chinese and Japanese, and some other asian languages. This is going to be a VERY long post… maybe I should split it up, questions and answers first, then another post dedicated to resources.
So let’s start from the beginning shall we? I’ll just throw some questions out there for clarification. Also for organizational purposes I’m leaving the emotes out of this post, and likely the next one too.

Q: So… when did you get interested in Japanese and Japanese culture?
A: Actually it started with Chinese. I was interested in Chinese culture farther back than I can remember. I’m not even sure what kicked the whole thing off. There wasn’t “one event” that just made me obsessed with the whole thing. I had a friend in middle school who was of Chinese decent and I would attend with her to Chinese events around town, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. But I seem to remember being into it before that. My bedroom was covered in various little Chinese/asian style decorations and ornaments. I had fans hanging on my walls, little bamboo plants, little cups and dishes with a strong asian flare, or even with Kanji printed on them. I don’t even remember when I learned how to use chopsticks, it seems like a skill I’ve just had forever.
Really I didn’t start to get into Japanese until college (round two of college that is). A friend of mine was obsessed with Japan, so I started looking into it. I was hooked, line, and sinker after that. I would read articles about culture, some history, and raided my local Barnes & Nobles language section for anything Japanese I could get my little hands on. I have an ENTIRE shelf in my bookcase dedicated just for Japanese related books and materials. Extreme you say? No way… I can always use more. I love books so much. ❤

Q: When did you start learning Japanes? How long has it been up until now?
A: I started learning in the spring of 2009. It was really light learning (as in, taking my sweet time) until my sister bought tickets for my husband and I to go to Japan for our honeymoon in fall of 2009. So I turned up the heat a bit so I wouldn’t be completely out of my element when we went over. So I guess that would make it almost 3 years. When we went to Japan I was scared out of my wits to use anything I had learned. I didn’t know near as much as I do now, but even the little I did know back then I could have used it more. I was more afraid to offend someone than anything else.

Q: So you’re learning Japanese just because you like the culture?
A: Yes and no… I don’t know really how to explain it. I LOVE Japan, everything about it. I don’t think anyone should learn a language without learning about the culture of that country. I have known a few people in my life that learned some Japanese JUST so they can watch anime and understand what they are saying, and for no other reason. These people I have known, which was really many years ago, didn’t get very far. They didn’t have the passion for it. I like to think I live in my own little corner of Japan here at my house. We do a few things at home that are Japanese in nature. For example: We have a low dining room table, and sit on zabuton cushions; we take off our shoes at the entrance; we say 「いただきます」before a meal; three out of 6 of us have お弁当 boxes but I haven’t made a box lunch in a long time. I want to, but there are lots of roadblocks before I can do that again. I totally believe I’m a reincarnated Japanese, everything about it comes so easily to me, and it just feels so much more “right” than anything else. I know what you’re probably thinking, “WTF ever… you’re nuts…/leaves blog now shaking head”. Think what you want, I’m simply putting into writing what my heart tells me.

Q: Okay so then, how did you start? Japanese is so intimidating and difficult!
A: I started from the bottom. No one can really expect to just dive right in somewhere in the middle because they watch a ton of anime and read a lot of manga and expect to know anything about structure, grammar, or really anything else about the real language.

**Please don’t learn Japanese just from Anime… it REALLY won’t help you as much as it will hinder you** I figured I needed to know the sounds, and the “alphabets” (which will here-after be referred to as syllabaries, since that’s really what they are). I learned hiragana first 「ひらがな」. It’s the curvy flow-y looking one. I didn’t give myself a ton of time to take learning it either, two weeks I think? After all I was on a time schedule. After tackling hiragana I took on katakana 「カタカナ」. This is the one that westerners usually learn easier, and write easier, because writing it is more like writing the roman alphabet (here-after called romaji). It has the exact same sounds as the hiragana syllabary, just different characters. But a lot of them look very similar, so it’s not as difficult as it seems. Personally I find katakana more difficult than hiragana. I know them both, but just looking at it I can recite hiragana more quickly than katakana. Maybe I’m just backwards? Haha. Now I did take 4 years of high school Chinese. So, I had a bit of a head start on Kanji (looks like this–> 「漢字」) . I knew a bunch, the sounds aren’t the same, but as long as stroke order, making a habit of stroke order, and knowing some basic meanings I already had that knowledge. It made re-learning Kanji MUCH less intimidating.

Over all Japanese is NOT difficult, at all. At least not in my opinion. I think westerners are often afraid because it’s so different from any European or Romantic language (i.e. Spanish, French, Italian… etc., etc,). Parts of a sentence are even labeled with particles so you know what the topic is, the object, and the rule is all verbs MUST go at the end. But really it’s not as scary as it seems. Promise.
So there you have it. Any other questions you may have (like I said in my last post, no one reads my blog anyways, haha so I don’t exactly expect any response but just in case I’ll throw this out there regardless) shoot me an email “pinkstarhime@gmail.com”, or leave a comment, or… something.
See you next time! じゃね〜

So to the few of you who read this, should know me well enough to know I have been trying to self-teach myself Japanese for almost 3 years now. I decided to change up my blog a little bit and post things about what I’ve learned about Japanese. This includes, but is not limited to:

♡ Resources I have been using to learn Japanese
♡ My opinions and/or reviews of said resources
♡ New things I’ve learned that I want to share :D
♡ Maybe some other posts about things I’ve learned about culture, or other fun stuff I’ve learned about Japan in general.
♡ If I have enough interest (NOT likely) I can post little mini lessons with Japanese greetings or something…. but I don’t think my blog will ever have enough followers for that. Maybe just for fun… perhaps.

I will still post updates about my life, whats been going on, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I need more motivation to post on my website, after all, I’m paying for it. I figured since no one really reads it ANYWAY I can do whatever I want with out anyone whining about it. Haha! I’m not going to pretend to be fluent in Japanese by any means, or act like an insufferable know-it-all. I simply need something else to talk about, to keep me writing. What better to do that than with something that I take a HUGE interest in?

So this is what has been up since I posted last (in terms of everyday stuff):
Since July… Let’s see… shortly after I wrote that post, I went to the beach with my cousin. I had previously seen all these little boys (8 years old or so?) skim-boarding on the beach. It looked easy enough… you just take this thin board, throw it on the first inch or two of water on the shore, run and jump and skim the surface. ALRIGHT! Let’s be BOLD for once and give it a try! Spent about $15, bought a board and took it to the beach with my cousin. The very first time I tried to do it, I ended up slipping, and putting all my weight on my left foot and breaking it in three places. Oops… I spent a couple weeks in one of those walking boots, no load bearing though. Then I had to go to DC for a family event, and so I asked to be put in a cast for safety on the plane. It was a rough three months, I’ll just say. And then RIGHT after it was done healing, I slammed my foot (yes, same foot) into a door-jam and broke two toes. Everything is healed and well now though, but even talking about it makes my foot feel like it’s aching. haha…

Everyone is fine. All the kids, the baby, hubby, all healthy and well. Had a nice string of colds this past season, but everyone is on the up-and-up now, or close to it. The baby has come leaps and bounds since July. She not only can sit up on her own, she can crawl, and stand, and cruise. I put all the bottles in a box when she was 9 months and switched her cold turkey to a soft-tip sippy cup. She’s doing very well. She can eat little finger snacks, and she babbles CONSTANTLY. The other kids are growing and learning too. All learning things in school, the two middle kids have had a lot of difficulty with behavioral problems the last several months. More than usual… so we are doing everything we can to try to get them back on track. It’s a slow…. painfully… drawn…. out…. process…..

I am planning a trip to Japan here in probably about September. I’ve been TRYING to save up money for plane tickets but it’s proven to be rather difficult. With extra bills for my foot, and insurance changes, and other random necessary things. My best friend though lives in Japan, and she has been super amazing and has offered to let me stay with her and her family when I go to visit. ありがとうございます！I’m trying to brush up and work on my 日本語 skills as much as I can before I make it there though.

So for now I’ll wrap it up with that. Maybe soon I will make my first post about Japanese related things. 頑張ります！Until then・・・

じゃね〜

I haven’t posted in nearly a year!! I am so ashamed. Sooo what is new? LOTS. Let’s see if we can re-cap what’s happened in the last year:

Shortly after I made that post I found out I was pregnant. The due date was 22 April, 2011. So my belly grew… and grew… and grew… and grew… I was huge! During that time I was walking to and from V’s school to get her, and also working my cake job. I continued to work until the 19th of April, by then it was hard to work more than a few hours at a time, and also stand on my feet that long. So the 21st comes, and I went in to see the Doctor, still only dilated to 1cm, no progress. So we set a date for induction. The next day I had what I THOUGHT was fake contractions all day long, starting at about, 4 in the morning. lunch time came and both kids were home and they were being naughty and I was in screaming pain and told my husband he needed to come home, like NOW. hahaha, I had my baby that night. She’s definitely one of mine! Always punctual

Last month we made a road trip to TN to get his daughter, and make the obligatory trip to visit family. This was on the 15th. He got a call from his friend down in Florida that they wanted to hire him. Annnd they need him to move, asap, like 3 weeks. We flew down right after getting home from TN, and had two days to find a place to live and secure it. We did that… and so… we quit our jobs, packed up our stuff, rented a truck and drove… from south east Nebraska, to Florida. Suuuckkky. I think it took us a total of 4 days to get down here. We had to get rid of that kitty I posted about last, 紅葉-ちゃん。:cry: I couldn’t afford to have two cats, and she was peeing. So we’re here now!

Florida. ROCKS. Other than leaving my awesome house and my parents behind I love it here. The beach is awesome! And we have our own private pool right in our backyard! AND… the best part… NO FREAKING WINTER!! The coldest it gets is like 40, and that’s at night. Ha!!! So having taken the girls to the beach today (boy stayed home, he cut his foot, not so much for going into salt water) I’m worn out! my house is now FINALLY clean and completely put away! So now I can focus on things like my drawing skills, and 日本語! Although it w ill be better when the kiddies are in school, and only baby will be home

Sooo maybe I will actually -remember- to post more than once a year… I’ll write myself a sticky!

じゃね！