Konbanwa!

It's late where I am at (Tampa, fl. USA). I went to the beach this morning and stayed there all day, so I didn't have much time to study my Japanese! O.O

BUT

Once I got home I memorized 5 more Kana's from the Hiragana chart (na, ni, nu, ne, no). I remember that last time I had started Japanese, before my hiatus, I had a lot of trouble with confusing the kana  
with the Kana


But I made sure to focus on those two for the past few days and I'm very comfortable now with both.
something really awesome is now being able to write some words I naturally know using kana like the word Sushi (すし) or longer words like karate ( からて).

Favorite Kana's so far!

I really like the Hiragana kana for "e," I find it supper smooth and sexy ;) lol, if you haven't realized it by now I enjoy grammer. I also really like "ki" and "chi" but one of my most favorites is "se." "se" is incredible in my eyes, whoever designed that kana was a true master......wow, I have internet, let's find out who actually did it....(5min later)...well can't really find the actual designer, if you know let me know :). 

Well since I haven't had much time to study I will be ending with a short post today :(. Let me know what kana's are dificult for you, or were, and which are your favorite kana's to write :).

2nd Stepping Stone to Fuji

Ohayo Gozaimasu! Konnichiwa! Konbanwa! 

It's my 3rd day with Japanese and I have many things to share. Yesterday I memorized (again) the Ka group of the Hiragana (ka, ki, ku, ke, ko)

 

Something I recommend, and everyone else seems to as well, is to MEMORIZE the Kana's (Japanese characters). If you memorize them early on it will be so much easier. And if you need an incentive then let me ask you this, how awesome would it be for you to be able to go to a Japanese restaurant or a place that has signs with multiple languages (one being Japanese) and you're able to read it instantly without a problem? I'd think that would be amazing, and even though I've only memorized about five of the hiragana groups it is incredible how much I can read without the other Kanas.

Cool apps

So I'm pretty sure the majority of the people reading this have smartphones, or one of those downloadable software that can allow phone apps on the computer.

Well I bring this up because something that has kept me active and motivated with Japanese (even while I was on hiatus) were smartphone apps. I personally use a Droid phone, but I AM SURE there are apps for apple phones and other phone developers. Here are some of my favorite:

1)AnkiDroid! = This app is INCREDIBLE x infinity. 

2)Aedict= this is very good for when you start improving a lot and looking up words you do not know.

3)Q2 Keyboard = awesome app that allows you to write using japanese Kana.

4)Japanese Hiragana Free = is another fun and interactive app for learning hiragana

Check these out and have fun.

Mr. Raf and his random, yet important notes 

Hello class, today I found out what has happened to your previous teacher, Mr. Ando. Unfortunately Mr. Ando was arrested after having attacked a man who was destroying a forest in order to develop a new building. He will be in prison for life.

Anyways today I shall tell you some useful information. The first, and possibly the most important piece of information of this entire document, is that Romaji is useless. Learn to hate it.

2nd, watch a LOT of anime with Japanese dub and subtitles that you can read and understand. The more Japanese pronunciation you hear the more chances you have of properly pronouncing words.

If you don't like Anime then watch some regular television from Japan online.

3rd, Have fun! Repeat some words you find hilarious, an example being Pero (click on the word to see what I mean). Repeating "funny" words or words you find interesting will make you want to find more words like that and make you feel like you already know some Japanese :). Try it out.....Pero, Pero, Pero............peroooooo! 

Today's Stepping Stone toward Fuji

Daily Questions:

What I learned

1) Four different types of "alphabets" in Japanese (it's actually syllabaries but I'll call it alphabets since it is more associated with English, association is key). 

                 

                       BTW my source for learning Japanese is TextFugu.com. It's wonderful and I telling you so if you already knew about textfugu then you wouldn't think I'm plagiarizing so this will act as my citation of my source ;). CHECK IT OUT. I HIGHLY recommend TextFugu.

2) Four types: Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, Romaji (and from my own research of scholarly articles I decided to list them according to how they came to existence, I'll teach about my knowledge from other sources at the end of the post; where I try to teach you what I was taught :))

                        BTW romaji is evil (not just because textfugu says it, which it does) because it causes many pronunciation issues (an example being the sound of the roman letter "R"), therefore I won't cover it in the Teaching section below. Just know romaji is the writing of Japanese words with the use of roman letters (A, B, C, D....etc.) instead of Japanese Characters. 

Teaching time with Mr. Raf

Hello class, I'm sorry to say that I am your teacher today, Mr. Ando got lost in the woods and couldn't make it to class so I am taking his place....forever.

Japanese consists of three amazing alphabets (syllabaries) and one turd that just lays there (romaji). The three majestic and incredibly interesting alphabets (syllabaries) include the great and older than the process of walking, Kanji, the sexy and smooth Hiragana, and the exotic and multicultural Katakana (I hope you get why I chose the descriptions).

KANJI

*Kanji originates from the big piece of land we call Zhōngguó......or China. The Japanese gained access to it as a gift from the King of Paikche (from Korea) around the year 400 (Japan rescued them in 391 and then received the gift a couple years later). The gift included many language scholars with books consisting of Kanji. 

Kanji is a HUGE part of Japanese, but today's Japanese Kanji is actually not very much alike the Chinese Kanji (modern) because Kanji in China has gone through hundreds of years of development while the Japanese Kanji has actually stayed mostly the same. This means today's Kanji in Japan is more like China's Kanji a couple hundred years compare to modern Kanji vs past Kanji.

                *source: "The Japanese Writing System" by Matthew White

INTERESTING....(I'm actually really fascinated by this. 

                       

Google Images

HIRAGANA

Hiragana came after the introduction of Kanji in Japan. During the period in which Kanji was first being taught in Japan only men would be known to be learning it. But Kanji was an extremely difficult system to learn (as it still is today). It was so difficult that when women actually began learning it they formed a new, more smooth and easy way of writing it, which was first called "Onnade" or "woman's hand (translated)" which is now known as Hiragana. 

Google images

But men found Hiragana to be to easy and "womanly" to consider learning it and excused themselves from it by saying that Kanji is for smart people since it is so difficult. But, as with anything, as time passed Hiragana became very relevant to the Japanese culture and is now considered one of the three great "alphabets" of Japanese, excluding the turd, romaji. 

KATAKANA

Katakana was simply created to introduce foreign words like names into the Japanese language. Katakana is also the main system of writing for scientific writings in Japanese. Words that represented "sound, movements, or animal noises" are also written in Katakana (the Japanese use a LOT of onomatopoeia in everyday communication.) 

SUMMARY 

Four different systems of "alphabet" in Japanese: Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, and worthless and ugly romaji (seriously, it does). Kanji represents the backbone of Japanese, while Hiragana is the most used syllabary in the Japanese language today. Katakana is used to introduce foreign words into the Japanese language as well as being a key part of the scientific community and a main part of writing down emotions and feelings. 

CONCLUSION

Romaji sucks, I recommend textfugu greatly, and the Japanese have really fun and colorful pictures on google.

Hope you enjoyed it. Stay toned for the next episode of drag......Japanese with Raf.

Starting (again)

Almost 7 months ago I started learning Japanese. It was during a period of my life when I began to fall in love with learning (and actually acting like it). As time passed, the more my new passion grew and to this day it is still growing, and because of this I thought to myself, "why not continue my journey of language learning," so I did. And that is how I started learning Japanese.

But this was also a time in which I was recovering from a terrible first semester in college. My grades for that semester were terrible and my GPA dropped a large amount, and so (here comes the excuse) I had to focus a lot on my studies and went on hiatus with my Japanese learning journey after a two months of hardcore dedication.

Now I'm back. AND with a stronger than before passion for learning I will be embarking (again) on my journey towards polyglotism (well, just learning more than I already know; I'm currently fluent in English and Spanish so I'm going for more).

In this blog I will write about my daily studies with Japanese which will include posts covering what I learned that day, how I felt about it (easy, hard), why it is important for my studies, and I will end with a my own lesson of the matter: the best way to learn something is to teach it.

I'm the little guy, Japanese is the big guy: let's see who wins.

Well, no more using up time on this post. I'm gonna begin (again) my studies and hopefully I can teach you along with me :). If you know Japanese I would REALLY, I mean REALLY, appreciate it if you commented below or emailed me about any tips or experiences you have from learning Japanese, and if you are from Japan I WOULD REALLY!!!! like to know about your experiences and knowledge of living there. And if you would like to learn Spanish, or English (idk how you would know I'm offering help with English if this is all in ENglish and you probably don't know it) then become my Penpal and we can share some conversations and learn from each other.

BTW I am a profession photographer O.O so if you are from another country and would like to see the US, or at least where I live, and pictures of Cuba (where I was born), let me know and I'll do some posts with pictures of these places at the end of the daily post

Atode anata o sanshō shite kudasai.

Raf



*pics "borrowed" from google.