Planning my trip to Japan

After getting over the initial shock of suddenly going to Japan I set about planning my trip. My fascination with Japan has mostly been with the language, and my knowledge of Japan is not very extensive. I'll be going on my own and apart from one tour guided day trip all my days are self-planned!

I started searching the internet for information on where to stay and what to see when in Japan. I knew I wanted to go to Tokyo, Kyoto and Yokohama. From my research I added a day trip to Nikko and a day trip to Kanagawa.

I will be staying at two hotels in Tokyo, one near Shinjuku Station, one near Shinagawa Station. The idea was to be near a station so I could quickly get to the Yamanote line. Hopefully I'll learn quickly and not spend ages getting through the stations! When I booked I had now idea how huge these stations are!!
My first shock came when I discovered that over 3 million people pass through Shinjuku station (新宿駅) every day. I considered changing hotel.  But I love a challenge, so I studied a map of the station,  know that I have to find the East exit (東口) then turn left, and hopefully I'll find my hotel:-) 

Kotoba dictionary for iPhone recognizes my handwriting

One of my favourite Japanese English dictionaries for my iPhone is the Kotoba dictionary.

One great feature  is the ability to input  handwritten kanji via the traditional Chinese keyboard.

Under settings – general – keyboard – Chinese traditional choose handwriting

Now when using the dictionary use the Chinese keyboard to input a “handwritten” kanji.

If your kanji skills are a bit poor, as mine are, it might take a few attempts, but finally the kanji you are looking for will pop up on the right(1)

Click the correct kanji which then appears in the search box (2), click the blue search button, and you can look up your kanji (3) :-)

楽しいですね！

Kanjibox and kanji look alikes

Favourite kanji app of the moment and kanji look alikes

One of my favourite iPhone apps of the moment is  Kanjibox .

This app ties in well with one of  my goals for the next few months, to learn the jlpt level 3 kanji (new level 4?).

 I really fight with kanji look alikes, and am trying all sorts of different ways to remember which kanji is which. With this app I have one little method, which, together with several others, might help me get there in the end.

Studying Kanjibox in Kanji mode one is presented with  4 kanjis and one meaning. Very often the kanji presented are look alikes . Quite often I get answer wrong and and an angry red box at the bottom of the screen blinks back at me.

If I know the meaning of the kanji presented but not the look alike, I press the look alike.  I am, ofcourse, wrong, but both the kanjis are presented at the bottom of the screen and I can take the screen shot.

I download the screenshot to my computer, edit the picture.  and am gradually building up a  list of look alikes.

I've named each look alike set with a short phrase from the definition presented so it helps me remember the two look alikes.

Because counterfeit

Blow song

Family trip

Learn the following

Change work

New parent

Responsible official

Stretch building

Take along luck

Testing inaccessible place

Weekday laundry

Kairo and Kotatsu - staying warm the Japanese way

Two ways to stay warm - Kairo and Kotatsu

With the big chill making most of North Europe a frozen hell these past few weeks, I have been thinking about the perfect way to stay warm when its minus 20 outside and everything inside including keyboard and mouse feels cold. Two Japanese products come to mind, one I've tried and one I dream of.

懐炉　　Kairo

These are small pouches filled with some sort of chemical . Shaking the pouch starts a chemical reaction and the pouch heats up. Then either stick inside clothes, if the back is adhesive, or stick in your pocket. For the past two winters a Japanese friend of mine has sent me these and they are brilliant. They stay warm for hours and make waiting for trains and buses bearable in artic conditions. I understand that in Japan they are quite cheap and easy to get, and am wondering why they are not available everywhere in Norway.

炬燵  Kotatsu

Next Christmas I am going to ask Santa to bring me a kotatsu. Or I could try and make one. A kotatsu is a low wooden table covered with a duvet type blanket. Underneath is a small electric heater. I have never tried one but I think it would be the perfect place to sit, drink warm tea and study Japanese. I'd probably end up living under it from November to March.

(image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kotatsu-tastefulTN.jpg)

My kanji learning plan

I need to concentrate on learning more kanji. I know maybe 200 -250 – that's just not enough!!

I  think the key to learning Kanji is exposure and repetition, but it can become very tedious after a while. So using a variety of learning tools makes it almost always fun. As I study by myself I need to set myself certain goals.  The next few months I plan on completing the text books mentioned below, and have all kanji grade 3 learned.

1. 
   
   
   絵でわかるかんたんかんじ２００
   

This is the 3^rd book in a series, teaching kanjis grade 1 through 3. A great book, aimed at non Japanese children, that teaches kanji through pictures, exercises and quizzes.

It's hard work at first as everything is in Japanese, so you need a dictionary when working with it.

There are 33 lessons, each introducing 6 or 7 new kanji with a picture and a short sentence. A diagram shows the stroke order for each kanji. The lesson continues with an exercise quiz or puzzle and a reading section where you have to choose the correct kanji in the sentences.

I take notes, often copying whole reading sections.

Example exercises include grouping these kanjis together according to radicals

rQ　NP

休 室 酒 葉 字 草 実 油 根 寒 海 植 泳 花 校 薬

and telling these kanjis apart.

遊ぶ 道 　透る　近い 遠い 速い送る

Hopefully I'll be able to do that in the not too distant future:-)

2.

1日15分の漢字練習

2 books with altogether 555 kanji. Each book is divided into 2 parts, the first part lists kanjis with diagrams of stroke order, plus some vocabulary and example sentences for each kanji. The second part has exercises testing how much you have learned. 

I use the book as a work book,

copying the kanjis and the sentences, before going on to the exercises in the back of the book.

I find work books a great learning tool, as I think it's important to write kanjis over and over again to remember them, but it gets very tedious just to write pages and pages of kanji out of context.

The mail man is due to bring a few more books soon. I especially look forward to the Genki Kanji look and learn book and work book .

I do  have notebooks where I do write kanjis out of context, page after page of them, repeating the onyomi and kunyomi  to myself as I write, and trying to memorize one or two words for each one.

When I am unsure of the stroke order of a kanji I turn to my kanji stroke order font. Just input the kanji using the font and it will show you the stroke order.

家

The kanji stroke order font can be downloaded here .

I've also started to copy kanjis from my kanji dictionary after reading this blog post. Thanks NihonShock

SOFTWARE

I don't really use my computer a lot for learning kanji, prefering reading and pencil and paper. But sometimes its fun to sit and test my what I've learned. As I just recently switched from PC to MAC I only have one kanji study tool on my Imac.

Ikanji

"Contains 2230 kanji, 16000 example words, flash card mode and multiple choice test modules". It's not free but well worth the money. Reviewing and drilling kanjis is a great way to keep from forgetting them.

Also this program is not as stressful as some spaced repetition programs. I've tried Anki and smart. fm and got a bit flustered. I am studying for fun and don't want to feel I have a certain number of cards due every day.

IPHONE APPS

If you own an iPhone there are so many apps available for learning kanji. I spend most of my commuting time using some kind of Japanese learning app on my iPhone. All the apps on the picture below are good for reviewing kanji.

I am going to concentrate on two of these in the near future:-

Ikanji Touch This is iKanji for the iPhone. 

Kanjipop A little bit of stress is fun once in a while and this game provides it .  Great game reviewed very well  by zonjineko.

READING


I try to read a little Japanese every day using my various Japanese readers . I especially love the Graded Readers, as they are short and some have wonderful illustrations.

Anzumoji free かわいい handwritten font - How to get it (for MAC)

I was looking for Japanese handwritten fonts for my mac, and found  a great free font called Anzumoji at http://www8.plala.or.jp/p_dolce/index.html.

But it took a while  for me to find the actual font, fighting as I did to understand the Japanese!

So I made a little download guide . .. getting the font from the download site and into the font library on your Mac.

1. Go to the site http://www8.plala.or.jp/p_dolce/index.html and click on fonts in the right menu. :-)) (Easy part!)

2. Click on ◆フォントダウンロードページへ◆

3. On the next page click on ◆あんずもじ等幅をダウンロード◆.

This starts your download and apjfont.lzh appears in your download folder. (You can also click the link to the left. .. I dont know what the difference is. )

I had no idea what a lzh file was, so after a quick google I found ZIPEG , a free extractor, and extracted the lzh file. A folder called apjfont appeared on my desktop.

All I had to do now was drag the APJapanesefont.ttf into my fonts library et voila:-)
このフォントはかわいいですね。ありがとう

あげる、くれる、もらう

Giving and Receiving in Japanese (notes from A dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar and other sources that I don't remember)

あげる くれる もらう

To Give

あげる to give seen from speakers point of view

Use あげるwhen you are giving something, or when someone is giving something to someone (but not to you.)

(A)は(B)に(something)をあげます

examples:

私は母に本をあげました

父が山田さんに本をあげました

くれる to give from receivers point of view

Use くれるwhen you are being given something

(A)は(私)に(something)をくれます

examples:

母が私に本をくれました

To receive

Use もらう

(B) は(A) に(or　から)をもらいます

examples:

母に本をもらいました