Just Trying to Study

Two pairs of kanji which are composed of the SAME elements distributed in a different order/way.

杏 (on’yomi: きょう・kyou, kun’yomi: あんず・anzu)

杏・あんず・anzu “apricot”

巴旦杏・はたんきょう・hatankyou “plum” or “almond”

呆 (on’yomi: ほう・hou, kun’yomi: 呆ける・ぼける・bokeru,呆れる・あきれる・akireru)

呆ける “to be shocked”, “to be amazed”

呆れる “to be grow sinile”

痴呆症・ちほうしょう・chihoushou “dementia”

招 (on’yomi: しょう・shou, kun’yomi: 招く・まねく・maneku)

招く “to invite”, “to beckon”

招待・しょうたい・shoutai “invitation”

招致・しょうち・shouchi “invitation”, “summons”

拐  (on’yomi:かい・ kai )

誘拐・ゆうかい・yuukai “kidnapping”

誤り　「あやまり」　Error, mistake

誤る　「あやまる」 To make a mistake

誤解　「ごかい」　Misunderstanding

誤記　「ごき」 Misentry, miswriting, clerical error

誤差　「ごさ」 Measurement error

誤魔化す　「ごまかす」 To decieve, to gloss over

誤植　「ごしょく」 Misprint, typo

錯誤　「さくご」 Mistake, discrepancy

試行錯誤　「しこうさくご」 Trial and error

誤認　「ごにん」　Misrecognition

間誤付く　「まごつく」 To be confused, to be at a loss

誤字　「ごじ」 Misprint, typo

誤訳　「ごやく」 Mistranslation

正誤　「せいご」 Correct and incorrect, accuracy

過誤　「かご」 Mistake, fault

過誤記憶　「かごきおく」 False memory syndrome

So here's the stack of my new study materials and y'all... kanji in context is arguably the best reference book for kanji I've come across in my life. I cannot praise it highly enough.

It's designed to be gone through three times. The first time is learning the kanji and the readings for the vocabulary in red. The second time is for review and all the unmarked black words. The third time is for mastery and the unusual, difficult, or obsolete words marked by diamonds. I love it a lot.

The workbook might be the true gem though. That's where the "in context" part comes from. You get practice and a bunch of example sentences actually using the vocabulary. Two words really similar in meaning that you can't tell the usage apart? No problem here. You'll get to see how it's actually used and, by extension, continue building and reinforcing your vocabulary.

へきれき

Hekireki

So the first one shares 「 ヘキ 」 on-yomi with a number of more common kanji that all share 辟 these components:

璧 as in 完璧 「 かんぺき 」 perfect

壁 as in 岸壁 「 がんぺき」 cliff wall​

癖 as in 性癖 「 せいへき 」 disposition

僻 as in 僻地 「 へきち 」 backcountry

The second one shares 「レキ」 on-yomi with 歴 as in 歴史「れきし」 history.

Today's theme is "It's a bother".

今日のテーマは「めんどくさい」です。

(きょうの　てーまは　めんどくさい　です)

①A: Can you buy some coke at the supermarket?

　スーパーでコーラ買ってきてくれる？

(すーぱーで　こーら　かってきてくれる)

B: No, it's a bother.

　めんどくさい

② I can't be bothered to do my homework.

　　宿題するのめんどくさい

You should use it!

JLPT N3 Grammar

Verb (た form) + とたん

As soon as; just as

お酒を飲んだとたん、顔が赤くなった。 osake wo nonda totan kao ga akakunatta As soon as I drank the alcohol, my face turned red.

文法の勉強〜！「にわたって」と「からして」っていうの文法はちょっと分からなかった少し練習して度々会話で使ったら分かるようになると思いますねぇ。

I started thinking about my language learning goals for 2020. Out of all the languages I would love to learn, I've decided to narrow them down to 12 for next year and really take 3 of them seriously to prepare for exams.

Of course I don't mean to be fluent in 12 by end of next year, but I just want to actively learn a specific set of languages.

I know I know, I’m back, again? Another promise to be active and not leave for months? Yep, that’s exactly what this is.

I’m not going to get into detail about what’s happened but this year has been really tough so here’s an overview including getting so sick I almost died, had to kick my roommate out, almost got evicted, mental health collapsed in on me. But I’m here to try again.

What makes this time different? Well, unlike the previous times I’ve actually been studying while I’ve been away! Hooray! This way there’s less pressure on me to suddenly get back into studying because I’ve already been going for months! Below I’ll show how much of a notebook I’ve filled in the last few months from Japanese, which has been the only thing I’ve been focusing on. But what’s important is I’ve finally figured out how to get hiragana and katakana to stick in my brain!

And below I’ll throw some photos of random pages from my notebook.

20/9/19 • 金曜日

So I’ve found a new podcast called JLPT stories. Please please please check them out. I highly recommend this podcast. Every story comes with a transcript in english and Japanese. Along with important grammar points to remember. They have just wrapped up “season 1” you could say. And they are looking to improve the quality for “season 2”

Even if you’re not taking the JLPT it is amazing for listening and comprehension whereas, Let’s Learn Japanese from Small Talk has no transcripts available (that i know of) and NHK news is, well, news that doesn’t always have common words. This podcast has pretty everyday stories about school, work, travel, etc.

Not as exciting, but I’ve recently joined a couple of forums for learning Japanese and I have started a twitter to post my everyday thoughts in Japanese. So far, I’m not very active in the forums and I haven’t made any friends on twitter but hopefully I’ll be able to reach out soon.

I made my New Year’s resolution to learn japanese this year and the year is coming to a close. I don’t see myself completing all of my goals before the year ends but I think a good chunk of it will be out of the way before next year. I knew learning would take a lot longer than a year, and this has definitely been a test run so far. I think some of my mini goals where more clear than others, which is why they were easier to meet and some of them definitely had more structure (duoling and wanikani being the main ones)

I think I have to teach myself to set better goals. It sounds easy in theory but hopefully I’ve learned enough about myself through this journey to really make it count in the future. One of my main problems is that I get bored pretty easy, so unless something is already planned out for me, I have trouble following it. Another one of my problems is that taking notes is really tedious. Don’t get me wrong, I love taking notes, in fact I may be overdoing the notes thing. But when I’m trying to get through a lesson and I have to stop and take notes, instead of taking 30 minutes, it may end up taking several hours. Even taking digital notes is quite tedious. There has to be some kind of balance here. Maybe just watching/reading the lessons several times?? I’ve definitely tried to step away from the note-taking recently but for someone who is still a beginner, I really feel like notes are important to help me, not reinforce new ideas, but to slow down and absorb them for later. Because just listening and reading can only get me so far, there has to be a point where I stop and really think about what I’m listening to or reading.

詐欺（さぎ）- fraud, swindle

極上（ごくじょう）- first-rate; the best

秘匿（ひとく）- hiding, concealment 

備え（そな。）- preparation; provision; guarding