Sunday, July 11, 2010

Study started the past week (4 real)

Let me first explain. The week before the 21st of June I was suffering from great pressure because of the up until then upcoming test. Ok, I finished it, and finally came home to enjoy my weel deserved vacations. For the first week I thought, ok, I'll rest this week, I studied only a bit of japanese. In the end of the week I started having anxiety attacks. It was H.O.R.R.I.B.L.E., I was thinking about giving up my course, I was thinking I was starting to get crazy, I coulnd't sleep well...horrible. However, in the wend of the "anxiety week" those attacks started fading away. I don't have them for some days now, and the past week I studied everyday.

So far, I studied:

Ginki lesson, 12, 13
Minna no Nihongo lesson 25, 26, 27 and I'm now on the 28th.

This weekend I decided to rest. I continue with my reviews. I'll add new vocabulary today, from the books because vocabulary and grammar are getting more difficult.

Tomorrow I'll work on Minna no Nihongo's lesson 28 (started yesterday but as I didn't understood one thing I gave up, tomorrow I'll have it know so...). Oh, and I will also work on Genki 2 workbook from lesson 13.

What's cool about studying these 2 books at the same time is that as they teach the same thing I can reinforce what I learned in one of the book's lesson. For example, -nagara appeared me on MNN lesson 28, but still hasn't in genki, so when I study it in Genki I'll be reviweing it.

頑張りましょう!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

夏休みになりました!

HURRAY! I'm on vacations, finally!
Yesterday was my last test, a Geography of China one. It was hard, and I don't think my grade will be good.
I also received my japanese oral and written tests grades. On the oral one I had 82/100, even though it was really, really easy! When my teacher was reading (1 or 2 times per text, 4 texts) I was writting while I listened but sometimes while I was writing I couldn't hear the rest. And in a few I heard, and forgot -_-
On the written test I had 19.2/20, the text of the test was huge and really hard (I'll post a copy later).

Well, yesterday I was really tired and after the test did nothing. I mean, I went home (1.15 minutes from my university's city by car.) In the night I SRSed and added a few sentences, just lie today. Tomorrow I'll start for real with study and working out. AS I said, my morning will be spent working out (1-2 hours) and the rest of the day studying japanese and living in a japanese environment (Music, TV, anime with english subtitles |:, and of course, げんき1、げんき2、みんなの日本語1 and みんなの日本語2. At night I shall SRS (and also in the early morning).

In the meantime, my cat, さき:

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

夏休みは未だ!

やった!夏休みは来週の月曜日に始める! 12月に日本語能力試験をしたいから、たくさん勉強しなくちゃいけませんわよ! 私が勉強する本はげんきと皆の日本語だわ。 来週は私の勉強も始める。日本語能力試験の単語のリストーをしている。 未だ終わらない。でも日本語能力試験5級のは終わった。

Sunday, June 13, 2010

New cat, JLPT and so much more...

Hey there! I have no time to come here (I have, but I always end up forgetting it. Or I'm just too lazy, portuguese style).

I want to give you some news.

1)
I have a new cat. Later I'll post her pics (after the 21st, when I have my last test and school is already over). Her name is Saki. I couldn't come up with anything more, shame on me. If you have suggestions, please. She's a baby, she is really cute and funny. I don't know if you know this kind, but she's a Tortoiseshell cat. Black, white and honey colored.

05/June/2010, Saturday -> the day I adopted this cat :)

2)
Also, I'm gonna register for JLPT. Still don't know the level (probably 4...?), but I intend to finish Minna no Nihongo 1 and 2 and Genki 1 and 2 in these vacations. JUst like last year, but now is Grammar and vocab instead of Kanji. And once again, during the morning I will work out and from 2/3 PM until I go to sleep (or 1 or 2 hourd before falling asleep) I will study Grammar and vocab. During the night I intend to SRS Anki. I'm using sentences that I understand with vocabulary from the JLPT 3 & 4. I haven't started for real yet but shall do it starting day 22. The day after my Geography of China final test (oh my, I have still so much to study!...).

SRS is great as I said it before, last friday I managed to learn 2 new words in this sentence: 彼は石を池に投げた。 Very, very interesting. I SRSed it 2 or 3 times.

I'm really looking forward to day 22.

3)
In these vacations I also want to study chinese (otherwise will forget a lot). Chinese I will study from textbooks (Integrated Chinese 1 & 2). I will just SRS when I go to the masters or even after. 1 or 2 days a week for 1 or 2 hours (or as long as I want) I willstudy grammar and vocabulary (something my course sucks, lol). This because I also like chinese and doing the HSK is mandatory on my course to do the masters. Last week we made a sample of the HSK2 and it was really easy. I couln't believe it! And yet made that really easilyI know almost no chinese at all (I'm one of the best of my class, but still think that this course is a waste of time, because they are terrible teachers - some of the chinese language teachers) and because if I learned at home it's much faster and I would actually understand the grammar. My book has almost no grammar explanations, nor grammar patterns, we still haven't learn how to use "bie"!!!

The time I had to devote in this course for geography subjects was really a waste of time in my opinion. Instead I could have studied the languages. I'm gonna end up forgetting almost everything I learned so...and next year I will history with the same teacher (a japanese) so I can predict that it will be even worse...

4)
I'm thinking of buying a netbook for japanese learning purposes (AKA Anki, and to use my study pen drive) and internet only. And because to take out my big, fat and heavy portable computer (hm, how do you call it?) of my trolley and to to hold it in the traing can be quite difficult sometimes. But I still don't know, I will wait for my birthday or christmas so that new models come out and prices drop.

5)
I have been playing more nintendo DS lately, in english, Pokémon Soul Silver mostly. And bought The legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass for only 6.90€! I intend to finish it during the summer vacations. I would also like to play GTA Chinatown Wars, I have it and restarted it yeasterday. It's sooooo great!


I will soon post pics of several stuff. My cat, HTC Hero, my study place...
Do you like the new look?

Thursday, April 29, 2010

とても疲れています・・・

Hello people.
I haven't written anything here the past weeks, why, oh why? Ever since I have Geography of Japan and Geography of China I have no time to spend here, I rather spend it doing other stuff. The past 4 weeks I have been having interim tests. Check the results:

Japanese

Written test: 19.5/20
Oral/auditive tests: 18.5/20

Both results were the best in my class.

Geography of Japan: 17.3

Geograpgy of China: 14.4

I don't have interim tests for chinese, for some reason I'm yet to understand.

My classes finish on June 18th, and I can't wait. Just to think that I will still have the final tests of those 3 subjects...Gography of Japan and of China has so much stuff to study, for example, in Geography of China we have to study all the provinces, their abreviations and capitals, in hanzi. The caractheristics of wach region, some history, some random stuff and ECONOMY. For Japan it's easier, we have to know all the prefectures and their features.

Due to Geography my time is very limited to study both Chinese and Japanese, that should not happen since my course is a chinese major, so we should be studying much more chinese. And my course's director (a chinese) is not very happy with one of my japanese teachers because of that (the one that also teaches both geographies). Hell! We even have to know stuff about agriculture, oil fields, plains etc etc!

Well, last summer was spent on Remembering the Kanji. This summer will be spent on the Genki series and sentences. Just like last year, my morning will be spent working out, and my afternoons on japanese, using Genki and Minna no Nihongo (mostly Genki). In the evening I will workout too. During the night I'll mine sentences.
I'm really sad to say that during college I am not able to study japanese as I wished.


This course sucks. I'm not studying chinese as I wanted, nor Japanese. The chinese teaching methods are awful too (dictations, which we memorize, for a few days and then forget, mostly), we have no exercises to practice, etc. Japanese is great, but slow. I'm kin of happy with that because I prefer to study alone, but I'm aware that my japanese will skyrocket this summer, so it's a bit boring to learn what you already know. But at least you get solid at that. My japanese class has helped me a lot, speacilly with verbs, how to make the -て forms of some verbs.

Hopefully I'll update this more frequently.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Forgot about the blog!

I forgot I had one...I promised I'd come here everyday but I'm not doing that obviously. I'm sorry.

School started. In my very first class of japanese of this semester I had a review test.

Today I had my first class of geography of China and Japan.

I shall write more this week. I have no time! I have to study a lot of geography, in Japanese and in Chinese!

Saturday, February 20, 2010

悲しい・・・・

今日は日本語を少し勉強した。日本語は簡単だったり、楽しかったりします。でも、最近私は全然勉強しなかった、ばかよね。悲しくなりました。

Thursday, February 11, 2010

And the winner is...

...HTC Hero!

I finally bought an android phone! I was aiming for the Motorola Droid (the best one so far) but I had to buy it online, its price was 470€, ok, it's better than the Hero, but I want an android mostly for Ankidroid, and the Hero so far at least is more than enought.

I already downloaded Ankidroid (!) and already put some decks there, haha. It's awesome. Tomorrow I'll go to a shopping and will download a few more apps like dictionaries and games.

I shall take a pic of the phone soon. I love to post pics, I'm just too lazy to upload it.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Hiatus

I'm sorry for that.
I've been not having will to study (though sometimes I study). I have to.

The past week I've been doing some research on what android phone to buy, HTC Hero or LG GW620. HTC Hero is better, but it doesn't have a physical keyboard. I still don't know which to get... |:

Well, after this post I'll study japanese for a while (till "Ídolos" finish).

Tomorrow I might make a post on what I want to put on my SRS, and other stuff related.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Some news

First of all, let me explain why I did not post in the past few days.

The past week and the current week (till today, yay) I was full of tests. My head could't even handle to study a lot because it'd made me headaches.

The previous week I had:

-Japanese Written test (got 18.6)
-Japanese Oral Test
-Chinese fill-in-the-blanks test (got 20 and received a previous dictation, 19.5)
-Chinese fill-in-the-blanks test

This week I had:

-History test (yesterday)
-Chinese culture test (made it today, and got the previous test with some crappy 10.5)
-Chinese oral test (today, my grade was 16...only...)

Now I'm on vacations! For a whole month! I think classes start on February 22.
I intend to study a lot, A LOT, everyday, EVERYDAY. Today I won't because already studied for 2 subjects today, but I will continue with sentences (well, that's study :P), I have 100 sentences that I could not afford to study the past few days. I know I added quite a few with phoenix Wright vocabulary, but so far I'll take care of those 100. After they're finished (and I will not finished them all today) then yeah, I'll start addingnew ones again. Oh, though I had all these test, I kept up with RTK's deck.

Oh, my final japanese grade is 19 (out of 20, of course).

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Applying the sentence method to chinese too?

Well, I've been reviewing sentences for less than a week, so far I think I have no results, 1: due to already having some knowledge of japanese, 2: because I'm still beggining it. What I can say is that I'm able to read a few more words. I will stop adding sentences for one week, I'll have japanese tests and have to study through the book (...hum, ...though I might put the sentences on Anki too...!).

I forget chinese vocabulary fast, though when I'm in class I can sometimes remember o.o the tones, like that, from nothing, the teachers asks how to read and I pop out and say it. Well, I'll have 1 month vacations (end of semester), by that time I intend to get MUCH better at chinese and japanese, not like in the past 3 weeks where I learned zero. I have to study everyday (and at least through Anki I0ll be obliged to it haha).

Today I had a chinese dictation (with previous study) and tomorrow I'll have another, so I have to study it today. I only will learn one new sentence per day because my japanese big test is in the next tuesday (written) and Friday (not tomorrow, oral/auditive).

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

I really hope the "sentence method" works....

Despite being using it alongside with 2 other books :], and it's curious, in these 3 sources, I'm learning exactly the same thing at the same time. Though I already know it (から).
How do I know it works? Is there any thread talking about that in RevTK's forum? I'm sure there is...

As for Tae Kim's sentences, I'm now here. Still haven't started those. I added quite a few today, already read the grammar in a few days they shall appear on Anki.

And I should had started this a long time ago, it's so cool to learn new and interesting vocabulary, for example, with anki I was able to memorize a few words, that are quite, let's say, interesting, as I said earlier, 刑事、警察、銃、裁判 :]
I like soccer...it might be cool to learn a few words for that =D (I still have to make a list of the stuff I want to learn).

I'm thinking about applying to mandarin chinese, but...there are so many more characters...and sounds...that I think I rather stay with textbooks and school (I downloaded "Integrated Chinese" because my grammar basis learned in my course is almost none).

By the way, my DS One i arrived today! I'm not at home (I'm in the city of my university, 2 hours way from my city) so I still won't be able to use it till Friday. And probably won't till the end of the next week (when I'm again on vacations, due to being the end of the first semester).
I already downloaded "gyakuten 裁判"!! =DDDD

I can't wait to have my powerball too! Today I re-started working out again. It felt good, tomorrow I'll be full of pain, lol.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Goodbye my friend :(

Goodbye dear friend Tucha...
Shall you Rest In Peace. You will be remembered as the smartest dog I've ever met.



She died this morning, 04/January/2010. RIP.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Tae Kim's and not only...!

Post 200.

Yes! I have added about 35 sentences yesterday, from Tae Kim's and from Denshi Jisho's example sentences (because I want to increase my vocabulary).
I'm not sure how many sentences I should add,and learn per day. The number I defined to "Learn new" a day is 20, but I think I'll add a few more than that, as soon as my rythm increases and dayly routine gets back to normal (live away from my town, alone during the week).

This post is so empty, but I honestly don't know what to write more...I'll edit this later, after reviewing the sentences.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

I lost Tae Kim deck!

Today I had it, at luch it desappeared. I got so mad! It had given me so much confidence! I shall not worry though, you see, yesterday I was thinking that I should do the deck by myself because that would meke me read the grammar with attention, well, now I really have to do that.

Anki, don't know how, was able to download the deck a few days ago, today tried to download it agian and it wasn't possible. Dass! (You should read "duhss", lol).

I'll start doing that then. Damn it!

Friday, January 1, 2010

Happy new year!

新年快乐!
I was going to write it in japanese, but I don't know how... -_ -

So, new year's goals...

-Study MUCH MORE JAPANESE (sentences, textbook, listening, videogames, TV!!!!)
-Study MUCH MORE CHINESE (through textbooks, TV, listening...and maybe, just maybe, sentences)
-Get fit and confident
-Have good grades (If I'm one of the best 2 - already am! - I might go to China during Summer)
-Play more videogames (the ones I already own, which are a lot...I ould post a pic!)
-Dad getting a job

And I think that's it...


By the way! As you already know, I started srsing Tae Kim's. So far it's easy, 25 a day (2 days so far...:P), but it was already worth it. I learned a few new words, which I already don't remember, but hopefully will through the time.
I don't really know how Tae Kim's will work for me, let's see. I'll do some research on this.