These are already looking more difficult that the first week. Here they are:
22. 分
23. 前
24. 北
25. 十
26. 千
27. 午
28. 半
29. 南
30. 友
31. 口
32. 古
33. 右
34. 名
35. 四
36. 国
37. 土
38. 外
39. 多
40. 大
41. 天
42. 女
24 January 2010
23 January 2010
New Year's Resolution: 2048 x 1152
Well, I saw this clever signature somewhere that said his New Year's Resolution was 1900 x 1200, and I was planning on buying a bigger widescreen LCD for my computer, but when I went to check on the one I had my eye on, it's no longer available from Newegg! So now I have to find out if the monitor is just so good they are out of stock, or so bad that they don't carry it anymore, or if it was just a random decision? But now I hear there is something called OLED (Organic LED) that is coming out "soon" that is going to make the old LCDs seem obsolete. I guess that's par for the course though, right?
Stay tuned.
Stay tuned.
17 January 2010
Kana fun and Week one!
So we both went over our Kana today. Apparently I was a little more rusty than I thought up front, mainly because I could recognize stuff but there were about 10 that I had trouble remembering when it was time to write them from stratch. But we got through it and are very freshed up now!
We then decided we may as well start in on the fun stuff. I decided that doing 3 a day would be pretty dang borish, and it would be more fun to get 21 at a time to work on during the week. At least so far it's pretty fun. We decided to work on the Kun readings and later in the week do the On.
This week's characters:
一 one
七 seven
万 10,000
三 three
上 up
下 down
中 middle
九 nine
二 two
五 five
人 person
今 now
休 rest
会 meet
何 what
先 before
入 enter
八 eight
六 six
円 circle
出 exit
So far we have written each one out a bunch of times, and done flash-card quizzes and writing quiz (one person read and other person writes them).
Anyone know where I can get a good gridded writing tablet for practicing? I kind of like boxes that are a little bit bigger because my handwriting is terrible.
We then decided we may as well start in on the fun stuff. I decided that doing 3 a day would be pretty dang borish, and it would be more fun to get 21 at a time to work on during the week. At least so far it's pretty fun. We decided to work on the Kun readings and later in the week do the On.
This week's characters:
一 one
七 seven
万 10,000
三 three
上 up
下 down
中 middle
九 nine
二 two
五 five
人 person
今 now
休 rest
会 meet
何 what
先 before
入 enter
八 eight
六 six
円 circle
出 exit
So far we have written each one out a bunch of times, and done flash-card quizzes and writing quiz (one person read and other person writes them).
Anyone know where I can get a good gridded writing tablet for practicing? I kind of like boxes that are a little bit bigger because my handwriting is terrible.
16 January 2010
Two-yearly Resolution: Kanji
So I was thinking about how it's been 8 years since I've been in Japan, and I'm still essentially illiterate in the Japanese written language! I thought that a really awesome resolution would be to be literate by the 10 year mark.
I mentioned this to my lovely wife Natalie as a way to get myself accountable to someone, and she said she would do it with me! So now I'm even more pumped!
We'll spend the next two weeks brushing her up on her Kana (If she only needs a week we'll start a week early) and then we will divide the characters listed for the JLPT up throughout the next two years. This boils down to about 80 characters a month.
We're still working out the details for whether we will do a 3 characters per day thing, or 21 weekly, or a 28-monthly with extra days in the month as review days, or exactly how we will stay learned in the lettering we have already been through.
I've found some cards that I like fine so far from White Rabbit, and they have three sets. The first has 284 cards, the second has 739 and third has 903. They offer a 3-set deal that is cheaper than buying them individually, but I got mine at Amazon where they were a bit less.
We're still working out exactly how we will study. At least quizzing each other on the cards and writing them over and over on some sort of large grid paper.
Stay tuned, and anyone who wants to do this with us is welcome.
I mentioned this to my lovely wife Natalie as a way to get myself accountable to someone, and she said she would do it with me! So now I'm even more pumped!
We'll spend the next two weeks brushing her up on her Kana (If she only needs a week we'll start a week early) and then we will divide the characters listed for the JLPT up throughout the next two years. This boils down to about 80 characters a month.
We're still working out the details for whether we will do a 3 characters per day thing, or 21 weekly, or a 28-monthly with extra days in the month as review days, or exactly how we will stay learned in the lettering we have already been through.
I've found some cards that I like fine so far from White Rabbit, and they have three sets. The first has 284 cards, the second has 739 and third has 903. They offer a 3-set deal that is cheaper than buying them individually, but I got mine at Amazon where they were a bit less.
We're still working out exactly how we will study. At least quizzing each other on the cards and writing them over and over on some sort of large grid paper.
Stay tuned, and anyone who wants to do this with us is welcome.
05 January 2010
The Black Company review
I've been loving YA books and frowning upon the more traditional "for adults" (not adult content) fantasy books for one main reason: character interest. YA is usually very good at character development. Actually, that's pretty much what it's about. Usually one or up to a few main characters are the central topic of the book. We really get to know these people.
Traditional fantasy books usually focus on "the world". Which is nice and stuff, but they always leave me feeling empty in the end. There are various interesting characters, but usually the books just make me sad thinking about the old days back when they had all this awesome technology, or when there was more order, or some special king dude was around protecting the world, or when DarkLord_37 wasn't about to dominate the world. Oh, and elves.
Enter the Black Company. The main character is Croaker, the physician. That's it. He doesn't have magic, though he has some friends who can do it. He's not a military genius, though he's decent when he has to. He's very "regular guy"ish, that regular people connect with. He lives in a very grey world (not black or white) that is also kind of a drab grey color, because it's old school and dusty and stuff. Plus, there is cool fighting! There is also some funny stuff and a bit of the romantic. So it's cool.
I recommend this book!
(You may have to get the trilogy, which would be labeled as either "The Chronicles of The Black Company" or "Annals of the Black Company" depending on edition.
Oh, it's written by Glen Cook. I'm totally going to check out some of his other books. Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Cook
But seriously, if you happen to find one of the original non-trilogy books with a really pathetic picture on the cover, don't despair. It's good.
Traditional fantasy books usually focus on "the world". Which is nice and stuff, but they always leave me feeling empty in the end. There are various interesting characters, but usually the books just make me sad thinking about the old days back when they had all this awesome technology, or when there was more order, or some special king dude was around protecting the world, or when DarkLord_37 wasn't about to dominate the world. Oh, and elves.
Enter the Black Company. The main character is Croaker, the physician. That's it. He doesn't have magic, though he has some friends who can do it. He's not a military genius, though he's decent when he has to. He's very "regular guy"ish, that regular people connect with. He lives in a very grey world (not black or white) that is also kind of a drab grey color, because it's old school and dusty and stuff. Plus, there is cool fighting! There is also some funny stuff and a bit of the romantic. So it's cool.
I recommend this book!
(You may have to get the trilogy, which would be labeled as either "The Chronicles of The Black Company" or "Annals of the Black Company" depending on edition.
Oh, it's written by Glen Cook. I'm totally going to check out some of his other books. Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Cook
But seriously, if you happen to find one of the original non-trilogy books with a really pathetic picture on the cover, don't despair. It's good.
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