I’ve been practicing on smart.fm the incomplete goals that I had. After that, I started on Season 2 of Textfugu (which btw, I finished today).

Why am I going so fast? I can explain it: After reaching the real Kanji lesson in Textfugu, I realized something, and that is that I am learning on rails. And for some that might be a good thing, but not for me.

Some think I am trying to speed through learning Japanese. In a way, that is true, but in another it is not. I like being efficient and to the point. Learning “on rails” just takes me through places that I consider “not to the point”. So I’ve decided that I will most likely not renovate my monthly subscription with Textfugu. I am going to read all of it before my subscription goes out, and then I will continue to learn with other resources.

You might be asking how I’m gonna be learning now. I haven’t completely made up my mind, but it’ll basically be something like reading a lot of Japanese websites, reading manga, and playing video games. I will build vocabulary as I find it in context, not in “pointless” bulks of Kanji.

I want to have a good collection of base resources. A language is split into Grammar & Vocabulary, basically.

For vocabulary it’s easy: as I find vocab, I make my own lists in Anki (more on this later) and, parallel to those vocabulary decks, I will study with the different JLTP lists.

Now, for grammar is the part that I am not so sure about. Basically, I want to find the best book/online resource for this. A bible of Japanese Grammar. I learn very systematically, so I think this would be a good choice. It’s just that I can’t seem to find a good one. Actually, I did find one, but… it’s all in Romanji and I don’t like that idea. Another book that I am looking at is this one, but it looks as if it was a little too much of a dictionary.

Anyway, I’ve dropped smart.fm because it’s too buggy. I want to focus on learning, not getting around pesky bugs. I found Anki and realized how good it is. You create “Decks” which are formed by “Facts” those facts can have many different fields, and you can show them in any way you want. If you want to create a “Model” that will help you learn from Hiragana to Kanji, you can do so, or from Kanji to Hiragana. If you’re learning Kanjis, you can make it so it shows the Kanji and on the “other side” of the card it shows anything you’d want (its onyomi, its kunyomi, its number in the dictionary, you name it).

Websites worth noting:

• http://kanjidamage.com/
  This  is hands down the most learning-friendly Kanji dictionary of them all.
• http://jisho.org/
  This is the best Japanese dictionary for general lookups.
• http://www.yamasa.cc/members/ocjs/kanjidic.nsf/SortedByKanji2THEnglish?OpenView
  If you want to learn Kanji stroke orders, this is where you go.
• http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar
  Excellent grammar guide, haven’t found anything close to it

On top of those resources: all of those websites have active forums.

For the rest of the week, I plan on getting to a 100% all the smart.fm goals that I have, and then move on to the next season in TextFugu.

I found out the other day that there’s a store in town that actually sells Japanese textbooks. Probably the same stock as Amazon’s and a little more expensive.. but whatever, I’ll still go take a look and browse <.<.

TextFugu
Season 1: Lessons 1~13 done.
Kanji 1: 1~5 stroke radicals learned.

My head’s gonna explode. I am going to spend the rest of the day reviewing over old material. I will most likely finish Season 1 tomorrow and take a couple days off to review.

Well, I pretty much have done like 3 lessons in TextFugu. I also started a couple new goals in smart.fm.

I love チョコチョコ’s blog (http://chokochoko.wordpress.com/). He seems to be addicted to buying books… just like me. I wanna buy a lot of Japanese books… I wish there was an actual foreign language bookstore where I live. Unfortunately there isn’t. Amazon and White Rabbit Press for me!

Like I said, I wanna buy Japanese books. But what kind? I figured that Kanji/Vocabulary drilling would be a good idea to do it with free internet tools (smart.fm & dictionaries). So what kind of books to buy? I was thinking that probably mangas and specialized books would be good.

I am actually tempted to try to study to take on the JLPT in the future… it’d be fun!

I did the past tense lesson over at TextFugu and its worksheet. Easy stuff. I also studied 10 more nouns and 4-stroke radicals.

I feel like smart.fm has turned very buggy overnight, and it made me feel like I should code a website similar to it, but better…

Contrary to what you would think (if you have been reading my blog), I like doing worksheets, and I wish I knew of websites with additional worksheets and readable material based on my level. All I can find is Hiragana/Katakana/Kanji blank practice sheets.

For the rest of the day, I might do some more Hiragana practice. Or perhaps an extra lesson… but right now I feel like watching some Anime. I am VERY behind in Naruto and Full Metal Alchemist (♥Hulu).

I finished the Hiragana worksheets, as well. I did not however do the handwritten version of my passion list. Home tasks kept me busy for half day and I already had slept in… I really need to reboot my sleeping cycle.

Tomorrow I will finish the handwritten Passion list, I swear! I will also practice Hiragana on smart.fm, and do the next chapter or two in TextFugu.

Anyway, as I already did the free lessons a couple months ago, what I did today is a quick recap of them. I printed out some hiragana practice sheets and so far I’ve done 3 out of 9 exercises (don’t wanna do too much at once). I have also printed my passion list and will fill it out tomorrow by hand. When I’m done with the hiragana practice sheets, I will focus on finishing my Smart.fm hiragana goal.

Updates to the blog will come in more frequently then.

My Passion: Cooking.

That was quite annoying to deal with…