I Am Learning Japanese!

The reason I started this blog is to post reviews on the animes I have watched. Problem is, I can't seem to catch up with latest animes and then review it the next day. The reasons are:

1. Internet sucks here, so the download can take days or even weeks. 
2. I don't know which to watch first, and;
3. I have no mood to watch them.

Don't get me wrong, I really, really love anime so much but then, I have other hobbies like reading or surfing the net 24hrs or play my 3DS (Need to complete my Rune Factory 4, brother reached the  credits!) 

Although today I am not going to talk about animes.

 I've been trying to learn Japanese language since last year [2013]. The reasons why I want to learn the language are to be able to understand what the animes are saying because I don't want to read the subtitles [sometimes I don't understand the story because of the subs mixed up], and another reason is that, to be able to communicate and understand the language IF one day I decided to pay a visit to Japan. Yes, Japan is one of the top on my list of 'To Visit' places.

Japanese was not my first language that I want to learn. It was actually French. Buuuuuut, I find it difficult and decided to drop it. And then I got interested in animes, saw friends typing in Japanese, visited Danny Choo's website and I thought... They know Japanese. I should too!

 At first, I don't even know where to start. Applying for the classes are too expensive (B$300 for the whole Japanese class I believe), attending the free classes while I'm in Uni the class was too full if I remembered correctly and also, I can only focus on my studies at that time and no time with learning languages. 

And then, I saw my ex-classmate from highschool tweets using Japanese words. And then he went to visit Japan with his friends or cousins. And then, he uploaded pictures of Japan and then, he posted pictures of games in Japanese that he played and then, he posted pictures of him taking studying for Japanese Language Proficiency Test [JLPT for short] When I saw those pictures I said to myself, 'HE SELF-STUDIED JAPANESE. HE SAT FOR THE EXAM AND HE WENT TO JAPAN. I WANT THAT AS WELL'. 

My motivation photo that I've found~

Early of January 2014, I decided to get serious in learning the language. I asked my ex-classmate where and how I can start learning the language. He gave me some tips like I should start learning Hiragana first, then Katakana and finally Kanji before I learn the grammars and stuff. He recommended me to few sites but the one I always visit is Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese. This website provides practice sheets for us to write Hiragana and Katakana [Not sure if he provides Kanji]. So, I printed out the sheets and practiced writing them during my lunch time at work. I managed to learn 1 row each day but as soon as I get to the R, W and Y row, I stopped. Because the strokes are hard to remember especially W and Y. 

My Hiragana's practice sheets in a file from Tae Kim's site

Another thing is that, I try to memorize each one of them. As I'm getting older, my memories aren't functioning well and also, I don't want to spend so much money to buy books and other learning stuffs [White Rabbit Press products and Danny's Moekana & Moekanji are pretty tempting though]. But I decided to download Dr. Moku's Hiragana app [US$3.99] on my iphone [not sure on Android] because it provides mnemonics. They say if you try doing mnemonics, it's easy for you to remember. And it does for me. 

Moekana and White Rabbit Press

I might post on my learning progress. Maybe it'll motivate to study until I am fluent in the language in which I hope I will. If you self-studied Japanese or know any good websites that I should try, do leave a comment. :)