For those of you that don't know, JLPT is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It's a good gauge of how proficient one's Japanese reading, writing, and comprehension skills are. The purpose of this blog is to document my process learning Japanese with aim for passing marks on the JLPT Level 4 (easiest). While I may not officially confirm my proficiency by taking the exam, I will take practice tests to see how far I've progressed.
This blog is purely for my own documentation purposes. If you, as a reader of the blog, happen to find it helpful, that will be a bonus. I will gladly answer any questions you may have concerning my process in learning Japanese. If you have questions about Japanese grammar or vocabulary, I will answer to the best of my ability. However, please understand that I am only a beginner and that you should consider asking someone more fluent in the language.
Please note that this will be one of the few posts about myself. This post is for anyone who stumbles upon this blog and wants to know why it was created or what it's about.
A Little Bit About Myself
As with many students new to Japanese, I started out with anime and manga about five years ago. I was exploring manga on the internet and got frustrated with having to wait for the scans to be translated and released. So I thought the easiest way to gain access to a whole new world of manga would be to learn the native language.
At the time, I wasn't seriously trying to learn the language as I was very young and it was more of a hobby and I hadn't even mastered the kana until a few months ago. My interest in learning the language had died down as I had my schoolwork to focus on. I continued to read manga and watch anime, but only on rare occasion. Instead, I moved toward the Jdrama scene where I encountered similar frustration with waiting for new fansubs to be released.
So that's where I am now! I sort of officially decided to self-study a few days ago. There are many reasons why I want to study it, but mainly I love to learn new languages and understand foreign cultures (I had studied a tad bit of Russian and a fair amount of French) and it would be nice to understand what I'm hearing in Japanese dramas. Not to mention that I have three friends who are essentially fluent in Japanese and it would be a shame not to utilize their abilities to help me in my journey.
I would also like to say something about my background. I am American by nationality but my parents are both immigrants from Taiwan. When I was young I was sent to Chinese school to study mandarin Chinese. Although my Chinese is quite poor, I still retained my listening skills as well as some reading skills, so many Japanese kanji are easy for me to pick up.
Alright, so enough of my ranting. I'll try to make an entry for each day that I study. I'll be including which resources I used and a summary of what I learned from each resource as well as different kanji that I learn each day. The next post will be about my classroom regiment--a study plan for the rest of the summer.
じゃあまたね！
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