Move your lips

言う             いいます            to say; to call

話す             はなします          to speak

語る             かたります          to talk; to tell

電話・する       でんわ・します      to telephone

掛ける           かけます            to make a call　　

一言・する       いちごん・します    to say only one word

いま = now, but not always

Sometimes I make pretty silly mistakes in Japanese. But when I get corrected, I never forget it, so that's good in fact.

A few weeks ago, I studied following sentence:
ちちは　いまで　しんぶんを　のんでいます。
And I thought I knew the correct meaning (As from now, my father is reading the newspaper).

Later on, when talking to a friend, I used the same phrasing:
今で　日本語べんきょうしています。　　来週　しけんが　ありますから。
(As from now, I am studying Japanese.  Because next week I have exams)
And than I got corrected: 今で should be 今, or maybe 今から.
I was confused, so I looked it up in the dictionary, and found in fact 2 meanings:
- いま[今] =  now
- いま[居間] =  living room
That explains a lot! So the original sentence was: my father is reading the newspaper in the living room.

So, another word I learned, the hard way :)

Kanji Writing Practice

In my evening class we learn the basics on Nihongo, and of course we started with Hiragana and Katakana pretty soon. These are the 2 sets of 48 characters that can be regarded as a Japanese alphabet. You just need to memorise them, and use them very frequently. I’ll come back to this later on.

The bigger challenge are the Kanji 「漢字 - かんじ 」. They are the Chinese characters that are used in Japanese, and the goal is to know 2000 of them. This is a job that can be spread over several years. You start slowly, and gradually increase the number.

As I also focused on using Anki for memorizing (more on that later), I systematically included the kanji for every word from the beginning. I never studied those kanji, but by seeing them frequently together with the explanation, they were slowly inserted into my memory and after I while I could recognize them and know their meaning. This was a big help afterwards, when we needed to memorise them in class.

During the first year, we also learned 14 of the most simple kanji. Basically all the digits (1 to 10, 100, 1000, 10.000) and a few extra.
During the second year, we learned one kanji per week. So by the end of the year, we knew about 48 more. I guess by the end of the third year, we’ll be at 150.

The stroke order, how to draw the kanji in the correct way, is very important and you should use the correct way from the beginning.
In order to practice 「練習 -　れんしゅう」, I created worksheets with a Kanji-stroke font.
For new kanji, I start with the big-size version, and smaller size when I get more confident.
- first year (Big and Small),
- second year (Big and Small),
- third year (Big and Small)
and an additional set (Small) with kanji that I want to learn next.

(As I will regularly check and update these sheets, please don’t send them around but refer to this page for the latest version.)

If you want to create your own, you can get the font here. Just download, drop in the Windows Fonts directory, and select it in the software.

2012. A new year. Time to start with something new.

Why this blog? Simply because I want to share my experiences of learning Japanese, along with resources and tips. So that’s what this will be about: learning Nihongo, nothing else.
I’m a real beginner at Japanese. At this moment I am attending the third year in evening class. Besides that I make a lot of efforts to understand the language and how it is used.
We live in a great era. Internet has made everything available and we can use it as a tool for finding information, use online dictionaries and other resources, read about other people’s experiences, share knowledge, and so on.

Sometimes I try something new, like watching FNN news broadcasts, but than I find it’s too difficult and I have to give up. No problem, that’ll come back in a later stage, when I do have enough background to follow the conversation. [Actually I did not give up, just don’t listen that intensively on a daily basis.]

Most important is to know where you’re going and how to get that, and not to overload yourself. Just take your time, and have fun.
Everybody’s different, so there is no general rule how to learn a language. But there are proven methods that will work for most of the people, so probably also for you.
Everybody’s situation is different, so there is no fixed rule on how much you must study. But you need to put effort, do what it takes, and not give up. If you’re in a situation where you’re getting older and your memory is getting worse, where you need to travel a lot for work so you don’t have time to study, where your work is so exhausting that you have no energy left in the evening, where your family needs your full attention in the weekend, don’t worry: go for the easier path: try to watch video clips or movies and learn to understand through that. The real study may come at another time when you can free up the necessary time.

So, enough blabla. Let’s get on with it. Don’t forget, I’m not a writer so you won’t find nice lyrics and well-written poetry here. Be ready for plain information and direct opinions. Also, I am open to feedback and welcome more info and tips.

はい、以上です。はしめましょう。「はい、いじょうです。 はしめましょう。」[That’s it, let’s start].