Learning Japanese with DS

This afternoon, I spent some time practicing my Japanese kanji using my DS Lite. The DS is perfect for learning how to write in a language because of its touch screen. The game I use for practicing kanji is called “200 man nin no kanken” and is only available in Japanese. The menus take some time to figure out but it’s not difficult. However, some background in Japanese is required to do the training materials. I was able to successfully learn all of the lowest level kanjis and I’m starting to do the next level. Anyway, it’s a great tool for learning and retaining what you learned.

This is my cute DS:

I got the skin from eBay.

My Japanese Study?

I just read a lot of posts at this awesome site about learning Japanese:

http://chokochoko.wordpress.com/

Seeing other people study Japanese makes me want to study too. It is contagious!

I’d still consider myself a beginner… I know some kanji but I don’t really know the count of how many I know…

The textbook we used in the college Japanese classes was “Learn Japanese” by John Young and Kimiko Nakajima-Okano.

I have 3 volumes but, if I remember correctly, only a small part of #3 was covered in class. (#2 has been taped to keep the cover on ^_^;)

Not required for the class, I also bought kanji flash cards for level 3 & 4, but sadly, they were hardly touched.

Written Japanese looks really cool to me, but I feel like I enjoy reading and conversational Japanese more.

The main reason I vacationed in Japan alone was so that I’d only use Japanese. Staying with a Japanese family gave me a nice glimpse of daily life in Japan. I don’t mean to say that all Japanese families are the same but they do have many similarities. Too bad it was only 2 weeks but I learned a lot.

The hardest time I had was when I was looking in Tokyu Hands for a static-absorbing keychain. The dictionary was useful but it still took a while for the staff person to figure out what I wanted.

In the summertime I always get shocked when I get out of my car and close the door. So I would touch the rubber part of this keychain to the door before I close it and it gives me a happy face symbol in the center when it absorbs static.

Japan has the coolest gadgets!

I *heart* Japanese Manga

Lately I’ve been practicing reading Japanese. I don’t really know why but I just really like learning Japanese. I’m not planning to move to Japan or anything. I just think it’s a cool language.

After shopping at Nijiya yesterday I stopped by Kinokuniya Japanese bookstore. I browsed for a long time and I noticed I was the only one looking at the manga in Japanese. Manga is quite popular in America. I always see kids reading them in Barnes and Noble. It’s probably not good for business to let people read entire volumes without buying it… That’s why they put shrink wrap on the Japanese ones.

The comics I got to practice on are:

Crayon Shin-chan – funny comic about a mischievous 5 yr old boy, like the Bart Simpson of Japan. He tends to use slang and imitate adults but other than that, it’s pretty easy to read.

Naisho no Tsubomi – girly comic about the daily life of fifth grade girls. Good story and fairly easy to read.

Lastly, I got the Prince of Tennis Tribute. I’m a huge fan of Prince of Tennis and this book is hilarious. Even though it was nearly $9, it was worth it.

Next time I go to Japan (hopefully the exhange rate is better than it is now) I’ll buy as much manga there as I can. It’s really expensive here in the US.

Japanese Market

Yesterday I went to Nijiya Japanese market. It’s not a big bulding but it has so much stuff.

I got:

Onigiri (I snacked on these a lot when I went to Japan. Love how crispy the nori is.)

Pocky for men (because I like the darker chocolates)

Milk tea (I also had these a lot in Japan. It’s so tasty)

Strawberry mochi (never seen it in this form before so I just wanted to try it. Not my favorite but not bad.)