Chapter 3

We have just started Chapter 3, and dang if it isn't complicated. The verb conjugation seems not so bad, I think I will get a handle on it with practice, and even the new particles are okay and pretty much make sense. Kanji, however, is a different story. Most of the kanji this time aren't so bad, but the kanji for tokei bodes ill for the future. It is so many tiny lines that have such specific placement, and it seems like this is more typical of kanji. I know for sure I will be asking the Chinese speakers in our class for help with that... I'm sure it will make sense with time, but for now I am utterly bamboozled.

This week was extra tough because I had a Sociology exam on the same day as the Japanese chapter test. But I made it through okay... In a few hours I am headed to Richmond to visit my friend Katie at VCU and go to a concert there, which will be fun. The girl who i am going with is taking a night Japanese course at UVA and it's interesting to see the different method her teacher is using - (they only meet once a week,) they are mainly learning complete sentences and phrases and such. I guess if you can afford to meet every day you can go more in depth as to what you are learning.

Anyway, as hard as it is, I am really glad that I took this class, I feel like I have already learned so much, and while it can be hard to keep up, I am confident I will make it to the end.

Katakana! Yikes!

So continuing on in the whimsical world of JAPN 101 is turning out to be in some ways more difficult than I expected, but in many other ways, much simpler. It is difficult in the sense that I spend lots of time on it, hours every day, and it is very troubling to remember all the rules and such, and drills and quizzes can be stressful and I sometimes just blank out on the answers - but I am amazed at how much I have learned in a few short weeks! I have learned a whole new alphabet entirely, and most of a third! In a few days I am sure I will have completely memorized katakana. Two whole new alphabets, and many many grammar rules have been impressed upon me, and even though we are only in week 4 (I think) I remember them all. I don't remember ever learning anything this fast, much less a totally abstract thing which I basically have no frame of reference for (another language which is totally unrelated to english).

Anyway, I plan to spend alot of my weekend studying katakana - I feel like the rules for katakana-izing foreign words is mainly guessing based on pronunciation. Most of the rules are pretty logical - just kind of approximate a word and usually it is correct. I still can't figure out typing in hiragana though; I can read it on my computer now, but when I went to regional/language settings, japanese was not an option. I guess I can use the lab computers if i need to, but it would be nice to be able to type on my own computer.

Here is the website of my Japanese class:
http://uvajapanese102.blogspot.com/
Look at all the other blogs of my classmates!

Hajimemashite! Watashi wa Max Dreyer desu. Baajinia daigaku no ninensee desu. Senmon wa Ongaku desu. Baajinia no Charlottesville kara kimashita.

Welcome to my Japanese 101 blog! I will try to do most of it in Japanese but since we have only just started my vocabulary is quite limited. Currently I am trying to figure out using hiragana on the computer so I can write this properly! Can anybody help me with that? I tried to go to microsoft.com but they say I have to use microsoft office to download the 'japan pack'. Sore wa takai desu ne!

Doozo, yoroshiku onegaishimasu!