Sometimes I Feel Like...

I don't know, maybe a Almond Joy :)

Really, I feel like I've been trying out languages for a few months apiece and their not working. I'm thinking it's me that's not really working. The few I've tried out seriously, Mandarin and Japanese, I would really like to learn. I think that they may be too hard for me right now,  for a lack of better words. I've tried Spanish, because everyone has in high school. I thought about French and Italian and a few others. Then I stumbled upon Esperanto. I've been at it for a few weeks and I have a good feeling about it. Maybe because it's cuts out all the harsh conjugations. There don't appear to be any complex rules out in Timbuktu. It's a pretty much cut and dry language. I'm really thinking I can stay with Esperanto. Otherwise, I'll be the one who knows how to say 10 words in 30 languages.

Read the Kanji

Awesome site I have found!!
I was worried about learning the kanji just because it looks so hard to learn the kanji and the vocabulary and learn how to put them in sentences. Well this site helps with that.

Katakana

I was trying to avoid putting this into words, but I still haven't learned all of the Katakana. I can really only recall about 20 of them.

Hiragana

So I'm pretty confident that I can recognize the hiragana when I see them. I can produce most of them at this point too.

Guess I should start out by saying that I am very interested in learning Japanese. I think my interest started from watching anime (maybe a little too much). What am I saying? You can never watch too much anime. From there it went on to watching movies and now it's going further.

Ok, so I can produce most of the hiragana at this point. I went through Heisig's Remembering the Kana, part 1 and have been practicing for the last week. I made up my own stories for some of the ones in the book that didn't really make sense to me.

My main problem is remembering the following 6: か　　　き　　　み　　　も　　　ら　　　な
I don't know why those are the hardest for me to remember. So I'm practicing producing them everyday, but now I'm moving to part 2 for the katakana.

I Come With the Rain

I've been looking around for some movies to watch to take a break from the many animes that I am watching. I found one that I think I want to see when it comes out. I found the following on Japan Zone.

I Come With the Rain Premieres

May 28, 2009

Local heartthrob Kimura Takuya (36) joined Hollywood counterpart Josh Hartnett (30) and Korean star Lee Byung Hun (38) last night for the world premiere of "I Come With the Rain" in Tokyo. The actors were in Roppongi at the Tokyo Midtown complex for the event, also enjoyed by an invited audience of about 1,000. The movie is directed by Vietnamese-born French director Tran Anh Hung, who is currently working on the eagerly awaited movie version of Murakami Haruki's cult novel "Noruwei no Mori" (Norwegian Wood). It is scheduled to open in theaters on June 6. SMAP's Kimura talked about the tensions of filming in one of the more unsavory areas of the Philippines under the watchful eye of the local military. The movie was also filmed on location in Los Angeles and Hong Kong.
I Come With the Rain official website (Japanese)

The trailer on the movie site looks awesome! Can't wait to see this.

Eden of The East

I receive updates from AnimeCrazy.net, because I am, of course, crazy about anime. My favorite is Bleach. But a couple days ago I got an email about a new show called Eden of the East. The alternate names are: Higashi no Eden (Japanese), 東のエデン (Japanese).

Synopsis:

"On November 22, 2010 ten missiles strike Japan. However, this unprecedented terrorist act, later to be called as "Careless Monday," does not result in any apparent victims, and is soon forgotten by almost everyone. Then, 3 months later... Saki Morimi is a young woman currently in the United States of America on her graduation trip. But just when she is in front of the White House, Washington DC, she gets into trouble, and only the unexpected intervention of one of her fellow countrymen saves her. However, this man, who introduces himself as Akira Takizawa, is a complete mystery. He appears to have lost his memory. and he is stark naked, except for the gun he holds in one hand, and the mobile phone he's holding with the other hand. A phone that is charged with 8,200,000,000 yen in digital cash."

I've only seen the first episode so far but it looks very promising and I'm going to keep watching.

Anki

While readingAlex's blog, ExploreAsiaNow, he mentioned a program called Anki. It's like a flash card program that helps you remember better. I like it better than actually writing out flashcard because I type faster.

"Anki is a spaced repetition system (SRS). It helps you remember things by intelligently scheduling flashcards, so that you can learn a lot of information with the minimum amount of effort."

So far I love it, especially the fact that audio can be added or recorded to practice pronunciation.

Holding...

I'm holding this domain for when I start studying Japanese. Until then, check out my other blog, My Chinese Journey!