Personal Growth

I have seen the future! My future, and it’s glorious.  Better than I had ever thought possible, truly.  And I will, as my favorite starship captain always says, “make it so.”

Ways to learn and memorize Kanji

As a long-time student of Japanese one ever present aspect of my study is that of kanji.  For my generation the word kanji is fairly well known, for older generations it means Chinese character or glyph.  Though called Chinese characters the word kanji is Japanese.  The reason for this is that the Japanese language adopted the Chinese writing system some centuries ago.  

Free time problem? I don’t think so…

So you say you have too much free time?  You say it’s a problem?  I say you are losing a battle with creativity!

It’s not always easier to speak in my native language

私は母国語が英語です。ということは英語で話すことは楽です。。。か？

実は、かならずそういうわけではない。

もちろん、日本語より英語のほうがうまく使える。日本語はまだ勉強中なんだけど、会話では二人が必要。私は一人だけ。もう一人の大事な人がいる。それはもちろん相手のことだ。

Teaching with real examples

Teaching is easy.  You just tell people stuff.  Teaching all of your students effectively on the other hand can be a monumentally difficult task.  As a relatively uneducated, unseasoned teacher I find teaching people that learn fast to be the most satisfying, but that’s because it’s easy.  Teaching the slower learners and those that aren’t as adept at taking on new ideas is very challenging and sometimes frustrating.

Mnemonics for Japanese

I recently mentioned my intent to write a book about Teaching Yourself Japanese, well, I’m making progress already.

I’ve been writing mnemonics for making memorizing the Japanese phonetic syllabary (syllabic alphabet) easy.  I’m focusing the mnemonics on the American English dialect because that’s my native dialect and I can’t claim any expertise on any others.  I figure by making that clear in the text that is the least biased way I can write and it still be effective.

Teach Yourself Japanese

I’m thinking about writing a book to sell.

The topic would be about teaching yourself Japanese, with both language content and methodology inside.

It would guide you through the difficulties in literacy, grammatical structure, and linguistic-culture.

Mnemonics

I’m convinced that mnemonics and similar learning techniques are the key to effective learning.

I’m not just talking about Roy G. Biv, Thirty days hath September, or the look at your knuckles and count the humps to remember the length of the months of the year.  But yes, those are included.

Description of my Japanese Office

I’m going to try to give a neutral descriptive analysis of my Japanese office because I think it might provide useful insight into a culture many westerners are unfamiliar with.  I should preface this with the fact that my own work experience is limited and I have not worked in a business office or government office other than the one I’m describing.

Facing Forward: Teaching Japanese

Since I wrote down my goal of teaching Japanese, and thereby set it in burnable, erasable, rip-up and throw away-able, yet tangible paper, I have seen the world around me with new eyes.