I am not a blogging type person, nor can I even keep a journal going so this will be interesting, lets see how long it holds shall we?
This blog was created to simply give me an outlet for some thoughts and feelings which I have recently been fighting through but don’t deem important enough to burden friends or family with. In addition to the emo-ness of the above I’ll also use this to chart my progress with learning Japanese.
Yes, that’s right, Japanese. My husband and I learned recently that the big guns have signed off on his next duty in Japan so I have less than a year to learn as much Japanese language, writing and culture as I possibly can without taking college type courses. Of course, we don’t have actual orders yet and the U.S. military is notorious for making changes at the last minute, so nothing is set in stone yet. Still, learning Japanese will be worth the effort whether we go there or not. If not, we may end up in Hawaii where the language will also be useful.
The first effort was purchasing Japanese For Dummies, I know, this sounds ridiculous however, the book actually goes through the language process fairly well from what I have seen so far. You don’t just learn the common sentences to get you through a holiday in Japan. So far I can count to 99, have learned time words such as ashita – tomorrow, some verbs such as nomimasu – to drink, some vocabulary and sentence forming. Yep, I can speak a complete sentence in Japanese.
The second thing I did was mention Japanese on my Facebook and a friend quietly told me he is also studying it and sent me a couple of GREAT websites to help. Thanks Jamesie!
The third was to purchase an app for my iphone to use in helping me to pronounce the words and letters correctly. I listen to these lessons while I workout. The others in the gym probably think I’m a bit nuts but this has been helpful in forming words. Japanese close their vowels differently.
I’ll make a separate post for the emo portion of why I created this diary of sorts.
So, are you up for being my therapist ? Here we go!
Life Notes 