The last 2.75 years........ o_O

Wow. It has been quite some time hasn't it?

So since I was here last... almost exactly which is comical in a way... I reconnected with an old friend from school. We cliqued. We had a strange attempt at a relationship and that is over now. I totally fucked off my Japanese studies for this one. I was willing to give up my dream for this one. It kind of boggles my brain to think about honestly. It always did really. So moral of the story I hope is that my detour is over and I've got to get back to Japan. To do this, I have to STUDY JAPANESE!! LOL. I'm demotivated right now but (also unfortunately) I've been through worse already. Cheers to dreams that are resurrected. Fingers crossed that someday still I will get to fill in my daruma's eye...

またね。

P.S. I love him by the way....he's my very best friend. His kids. OMG. 💟💟. Didn't end the way I wanted but happy for the experience. Love always has a way of kicking you in the teeth. At least for me. 💀

State of affairs

今日は。So I've been back from Japan for months now and I haven't posted anything. I didn't post anything while I was there. I was too busy taking it all in. It was the most amazing thing I've ever done. I was so elated. My studies have really suffered since I got back however. It's this mixture of increased desire to learn so that I can actually fulfill my dream of living there but being so damn bummed out that I had to leave. :(

As of today, I'm on an upswing with the study factor but need to be working harder still. Up to
レベル二十四、七百八十四漢字 and 二千二百十 vocab words. (Level 24, 784 kanjis and 2210 vocab words) I'm trying to do grammar work with Rosetta Stone in addition to the kanji.

I've recently come to the realization that with a recent job change I won't have enough vacation time to get to Japan in 2015. :(  Right now the goal is 2016 with the ability to converse with ease. I had a difficult time communicating in Japan and solidified the fact that I have an insane amount of work to do. I could ask simple questions all day but was easily overwhelmed by the answers I got. So much so that I really stopped asking questions. It was a very isolated existence for me. I think this would definitely continue to be the case for the duration of living there but this has not changed my mind. I feel extremely validated having finally visited and now I want a Japanese address even more than I did before.

Kyoto has my heart and I can't wait to see her again.

Until next time, またね。

29 more days!

Yea, so it's been awhile... again. Haha.

Well, I'm officially under 30 days until I leave for Japan. I've been keeping up with WaniKani studies (level 19 -- up to 六百二十八 漢字 and 一千六百九十五 単語 now) and I also enrolled and completed an online course in Conversational Japanese. I learned a lot of really handy things I think will be extremely useful on my upcoming trip! Things like how to buy things while shopping, how to travel by train, how to handle emergencies, how to find places and how to order and pay at a restaurant for example.

I'm so elated to get my ゆめ underway. Just wanted to get a post in about it. I plan to blog here during my travels as well.

Woohoo and またね!

Catch-up post - TextFugu update for week of 5/26

So, I've been hitting TextFugu pretty hard this last week in addition to my usual 毎日 WaniKani studies.
I need to put all the written notes I've compiled here in my language log so here goes!
Oh btw to continue the tradition, I'm up to 四百八十四 漢字 and freaking 一千二百九十四 vocabulary words! Gyeah!! Oh and now level 十五 on WK! I'm gonna be a second grade level kanji learner in no-time. Haha. :)

OK so for real, here goes:

５月２６日

• Reviewed section ニ.五
• Did some Anki reviews (I recently learned that anki means memorization. Haha it's one of those click into place little victory things. ^_^)
• Started section 二.六 - covered the first particle - は (important thing to note is that when used as a particle, は is actually pronounced "wa"
• Got some new vocab (I already knew most of them from WK but hey, now they're in my Anki decks so more avenues to study them. I'm going to include the kanji next to the ones I know from WK.)
• rain - あめ　（雨）
• snow - ゆき　（雪）
• summer - なつ　（夏）
• winter - ふゆ (冬）
• autumn - あき (秋)
• spring - はる (春)
• textbook - きょうかしょ
• job/work - しごと (仕事)
• medicine - くすり
• hospital - びょういん (病院)

５月２７日

• Finished up section 二.六
• Imported and studied new Anki decks for new vocab, kanji, kanji vocab and sentences

 ５月２８日

• Started section 二.七 - sense of identity
• Covered the various ways to say "I" and "you", as well as name-enders. Here's the breakdown:
• Always humble yourself and elevate others
• "I"
• わたし （私） - all-around way to express "I" - it's not too formal or rude
• わたくし (私) - same kanji (dammit), very formal when used by males, normal/formal for females
• あたし - very feminine, males shouldn't use, women shouldn't even use this one until they're more versed/comfortable with 日本語
• ぼく (僕) - really only need to worry about learning/using this one if you're a male. Slightly masculine and primarily used by (younger) guys
• おれ (俺) - very informal, sometimes considered vulgar, primarily used by men
• じぶん (自分) - almost never used today, very masculine, sounds 'militaristic', no need to use within TextFugu
• "You"
• あなた - "standard" way of saying "you" in 日本語 but the word "you" isn't the same as it is in 英語 - nor does it work the same. This is the best direct translation but it's much more natural to use the person's name in place of this guy.
• おまえ (お前) - can be considered rude though commonly used amongst ともだち's when joking around. Literally means "(my) front." The お makes it honorific (yea...) and 前 just means 'front.'
• きみ (君) - very affectionate, often used between boyfriends/girlfriends, sometimes used between people who are very close but not in a relationship
• てまえ - old fashioned and pretty rude, good to use when you're angry at someone. Literally means 'this side' so it's like referring to someone as an inanimate side of something. Seen often in anime/shows when someone is really pissed off at someone else. Usually pronounced more like てめえ
• こいつ - literally means "this person", used to talk down to someone
• Again, always best to refer to the person by name + さん, even if talking directly to the person. (Like third person in 英語 - which is totally weird when compared to 英語)
• Introduce yourself! - 私はBuritaniです. ;)
• Name-enders
• ～さん - "standard" name ender. You basically can't go wrong with this guy. When in doubt use ～さん.
• ～くん (君) - mostly used on younger men (even younger adults.) When you're equal with someone or a higher rank, ～くん is a viable option. Better to stick with ～さん when just meeting someone/when you don't know someone well. ～くん is often thrown around to kids or boyfriends too.
• ～ちゃん - mainly for girls or young children. Affectionate in a 'you're my kid/little sis' kind of way. Used too with people who have known each other for a long time or know each other really well. When using ～ちゃん, lots of names will be shortened. As a rule of thumb, shorten to one or two syllables. For example, こいちい would become こちゃん. Choose something that sounds good.
• ～せんせい (先生) - means "teacher" - when talking to your teacher, attach to their (preferably) last name. Sometimes also used with いしゃ's.
• ～せんぱい (先輩) - somewhat similar to せんせい, but instead it's for "peers" who are a higher level. You might add to someone's name who is a grade or two ahead of you in school or more skilled in a trade. Don't confuse with せんせい. This is more hierarchy between students/people who are not the teacher.

５月２９日

• Continued section 二.七 - Job Board Part 1 & 2
• New vocab relative to jobs (又, I knew almost all of these dudes thanks to prior 日本語 endeavors/WK)
• いしゃ (医者) - doctor
• せんせい (先生) - teacher
• しょうがくせい (小学生) - elementary school student
• ちゅうがくせい (中学生) - middle school student
• あかちゃん (赤ちゃん) - baby
• さっか (作家) - author/writer
• かしゅ (歌手) - singer
• こうこうせい (高校生) - high school student
• うんてんしゅ (運転手) - driver
• せいじか - politician
• けいさつかん - police officer
• べんごし - lawyer
• てんいん (店員) - shop assistant
• かいしゃいん (会社員) - company employee
• Imported and studied Anki jobs and occupations deck
• Practice describing people's jobs/asking questions about people's current/past jobs re: Job Board 2 exercise
• New set of common noun vocab (You know the drill by now. ;) )
• くうこう (空港) - airport
• ひこうき - airplane
• たてもの - building, structure
• とり (鳥) - bird
• さかな (魚) - fish
• にく (肉) - meat
• やさい - vegetables
• がくせい (学生) - student
• かぞく (家族) - family
• いしゃ (医者) - doctor

So this concludes all my efforts with TextFugu this week. I feel like I've busted my ass. Gotta keep it going all the way up until I get on that ひこうき in a few months!! It feels nice that things are falling into place. Hopefully they continue to stay that way. Goodnight!!

Oh and またね!

I'm going to きょうと!!!

Shit has gotten real. I'm scheduled to step foot in the land of the rising 日 on 9月11日. In only 六 months, I'll be living my ゆめ, at least for a few days. So so stoked. Lots of work to do with my
日本語 to prepare. Sitting at 三百八十一 漢字 and 九百二十四 vocab words as of right now. Gotta put the pedal to the metal on the grammar/conjugation piece now. Anyway, just putting it on "paper." Almost doesn't seem real. Viva la ゆめ!!

に.三 review and に.四 - Past Tense nouns

Tonight I finally got back in touch with TextFugu.

Have been meaning to for awhile. I am still avidly continuing WaniKani (level 八 今!!)

So 夜, I re-read the last completed lesson (に.三) to get a refresher and then continued into the following lesson on past-tense nouns.

Basically, the past-tense form of です is でした. I learned that this is really pronounced 'deshta' because you should drop the i from the し hiragana.

This was really pretty easy, except for when you try to combine it with a word like でんしゃ and ask a question! (でんしゃでしたか?) That was so hard for me. Kept seeming like I had a 口 full of mush.

Anyway, I created a new Anki deck for Vocab which contained these common nouns and studied them:

    ともだち (friend)
    みず (water)
    でんしゃ (train)
    せんせい (teacher)
    ねこ (cat)
    いぬ (dog)
    じてんしゃ (bicycle)
    くるま (car)
    りんご (apple)
     しんぶん (newspaper)

Then こういち-さん introduced some two stroke kanji that I was already familiar with both through previous TextFugu studies and WaniKani. I created a couple of Anki decks for these (the kanji themselves and the associated vocab):

一    (一人, 一つ)
二    (二人, 二つ)
七    (七人, 七つ)
九    (九人, 九つ)

Then did a lot of practicing with でした with the nouns above and also with some previous vocab both just on screen and with a new sentences Anki deck.

All in all, it was a very productive evening, despite Blogger's new post interface pissing me off royal.

I still have a little bit of に.四 to finish up but it's getting late so that's for another time.

またね!

Let's try this 又

OK, so I'm trying to get my shit together when it comes to this damned b-log. LOL.

I took 一年 off from 日本語 while I was studying for and obtaining my CCNA certification.

I resumed my WaniKani studies the day after I passed my test (9/28) and have been playing catch up / moving forward ever since. I had nearly 八百 reviews when I signed back in!!

So, I'm caught up and currently working through level 七.

So far I've learned 二百十四 漢字 and 四百八十五 vocabulary words using those 漢字.

So again, although I haven't posted here in 近い 百万年 so to speak, I have been taking care of business since frying the cisco 魚.

I am going to try very hard to get TextFugu going again alongside the WaniKani studies, because although I can recognize a bunch of 漢字, I still need a ton of work to read sentences.

Anyway, that's where I'm at. Hopefully posting here going forward will feel less like a chore and more like a 火 under my arse.

またね!