Word of the Day 2

きがかつ (kigakatsu)

きがかつ means "to be determined or strong-willed."

私は、なるようにしようきがかつ。
(watashi wa, naru you ni shiyou kigakatsu.)
I will try to be determined/strong-willed. (general translation)

Once again, if I've made a mistake, please point it out to me! I appreciate it! :)

^^ Thank you for reading! ありがとうございます！
I'll see you again soon I hope! じゃね！

Word of the Day 1

おおせる (ooseru)

おおせる means "to succeed in doing."

みんなが日本語を勉強します。私たちがおおせるでしょう！
minna ga nihongo wo benkyou shimasu. watashitachi ga ooseru deshiyou!
Everyone is studying Japanese. We will succeed!

I really hope that this helps you in your studies! ^^
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As always, please feel free to correct my mistakes, I'm just learning as well and I appreciate the help!

Thank you for reading my blog, it's been so long since I've posted anything, things have been busy for me in a way.

Also, thank you Rosa, your comment recently reminded me of my blog and how I've neglected it for a while. どおもありがとうございます！

みんあさん、ありがとうございます！じゃね！^^

こんばんは (konbanwa)

みんなさん、こんばんは！
お元気ですか？あたし？あたしは元気です。
あたしはジョイです。これはあたしのブログ。いらっしゃい！

minna san, konbanwa!
ogenki desu ka? atashi? atashi wa genki desu.
atashi wa joi desu. kore wa atashi no burogu. irasshai!

Everyone, good evening!
How are you? (Are you well?) Me? I'm well.
I'm Joy. This is my blog. Welcome!

......................................................

So, I thought I'd try to introduce myself in 日本語(Japanese) today... I wonder how it is. Did I mess up? If you know, please tell me!

I'm going to try to start doing a "word of the day" tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes! ^-^

みんなさん、読んでくれてありがとう！(minna san, yonde kurete arigatou)
Thanks for reading!

Word of the day

For my own sake, I've been thinking of increasing my Japanese vocabulary by learning a few words a day, and then I thought that it might be good to post on my blog here as a way of keeping myself accountable.

Would a word a day help? Would you learn a word or two a day with me? Let me know! ^-^

Even if no one really cares for the idea, I may just do it for myself. But if other people could benefit from it as well, that would be great!

Listen

みんなさん、こんにちは。(minna san, konnichiwa)
Hello!

One of the things that I have heard everywhere I have looked for tips on how to learn a language is this:
Listen to real people speaking the language.

I've been trying to listen to spoken Japanese a lot more lately, so I'd like to share some of the things that I try to watch and listen to. (note, pretty much all of these are from Youtube. I was going to add another site that's not Youtube, but it had been I while since I went there and so I wasn't sure if they still had as much Japanese as I remembered them having.)

First is Twin Planet Channel. I found this because of DANCEROID's leader (Ikura-san) as well as their former member Kozue-san. The talking in the videos is really fast, and I can't understand a lot of what they say, but listening to how words are said and the pace of the language has helped me a lot and I can understand more now that I could when I first started watching.

Second, ジェット☆ダイスケ (jetdaisuke). I found his channel on Youtube a long time ago thanks to another Youtuber that I follow, Ciaela. When I started watching his videos, he talked about a lot of techie stuff (computers and such which I'm interested in) and also food. I haven't had a lot of time to watch many videos on Youtube lately because of school and homework, but I think he still does a lot of that.
Since he's a guy, I like to hear how he speaks because guys and girls have differences in some of the words they use and such. I don't want to be able to only understand what girls say, I want to understand what guys say as well.

You know, Jetdaisuke and Ciaela have a whole group of friends on Youtube that I follow, so if you look at the people they make videos with or who they subscribe to (in some cases) you'd be pretty well off for listening to Japanese for a while. Just in case you don't want to go looking through their videos though, I'll put a couple of them here:
Afternoon no Hirusagari, JyuusanKaidan, mimei, PDSKabushikiGaisha.

Outside of the circle of Youtubers in Japan that I follow, there's Grace and Hannah in England who speak in Japanese quite a bit. They really inspire me to study Japanese more because they're both younger than me and already they speak Japanese so much better than I do.

This post is a lot longer than I had intended, I'm sorry it's so long! And I know that there's a lot more good online sources out there for listening materials, these are just the places I go to listen to Japanese when I have time between going to classes and homework/studying and spending time with friends.

Thanks so much for reading this! I'll write again soon!

Say it out loud!

In learning a language, I've found that it's all well and good to be able to read the characters and understand what's written, but you'll never be able to communicate if you don't say the words.

Say the words out loud to a mirror or a stuffed animal (or if you're bolder than me to a friend or family member).

You'll never get any better if you don't use the words you are learning and say them out loud.

Failed Ambitions? Or a lesson learned.

One of my goals last year was to study Japanese as much as I could and become as fluent in the language as I could become in a year.

Unfortunately, I must admit that I did not study Japanese much at all last year. And I must admit that I feel like I'm still where I started at the beginning of last year.

Instead of deciding that I should rush in and study until my mind is numb, why is it that I do not simply enjoy the process of learning and discovery and take slower steps on my path to fluency. I think that the better goal in language learning is to go at the pace you are comfortable with and enjoy the journey as much as possible.