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Friday, August 5, 2011

Still ploughing on with memory work...

I must be crazy...trying to memorise new 600 Japanese Kanji in two days. That is 1200 if I include having to remember the corresponding hiragana that comes along with each kanji words.  Sometimes I wonder why I inflict such torture to myself....at this age...

My partner asked if I wasnt being too hard on myself, the fact that even if I didnt know the 600 new words, I would still pass rather well from past records. However I tried to explain to him that studying a language, Japanese in my case, isnt about "pass/fail". It's about getting the grammar right, and expanding one's vocab wide enough (that is when hard core memorising comes into play here) to be able to converse well with a native Japanese. Well, I have a more humble wish, which is to learn it well enough to be able to watch and read my anime/manga without translations for starters.

My friend who actually works in Japan told me she hates Kanji. It's so tough for her. Personally for me,  Kanji is much easier than Katagana because the former is like a bunch of foreign symbols that tries to sound like English phonetically but it doesnt always match what it sounds like in English, say Video...it's more like bi-deo in Japanese... sigh.

I was doing my assignment while having my hair cut by my Japanese stylist and he was like "Oh dear, now u make me feel like I should go back to school and polish up my Japanese.." I was tickled...

While having lunch with my Hk classmates, they had a very bad grasp of the Godan basics. I realise that Japanese when taught correctly, cements a better foundation too. In Singapore when I was with Bunka, we were taught the 7 different forms from the start and taught to use the "dictionary form" first. In HK, my classmates were only taught with "masu" form and now they are struggling with the other forms as we progressed into more advance stages because they didnt know the order of how to change the form. I suppose even with Japanese language, taught differently, yield rather different results.
 
Oh well, gotto stop wasting time blogging and get back to mugging....about time I make a new bunch of flashcards. Damn those Keigo....if only the Japanese will not make so many variations for the same sentence and phrase. arrrggghhhh 


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