Welcome! ようこそ!

Welcome! ようこそ!
Peters Hall

Aug 19, 2009

勉強の仕方- How to study?!

みなさんは、日本語をどうやって勉強していますか?このアイデアはどうですか?
Here are some learning strategies to study Japanese. Please share them with us if you have any other ideas!

1. Find your goals:
What is your goals for Japanese study? Let's find (a) specific goal(s) - Speak like a native? Read a novel in Japanese? Be a Kanji master?

2. The ways you pursue your goals:
a) Keep journal or blog
b) Write letters and e-mails to your friends
c) Read books in Japanese
d) Find conversation partners
e) Listen to music
f) Watch Japanese dramas and movies
g) Monologue in Japanese.... "Oops" → おっと!うわっ!etc. Your own questions becomes your power. "What is "Microwave" in Japanese????" → use dictionary!!!
i) Explain something in Japanese - Can you explain "Thanksgiving" in Japanese?
....or anyway you like!!!!! :D

Pace yourself. Don’t cram everything in one day! Language cannot be learned in one day…

3. Good books to read...

a) Giles Murray, Breaking Into Japanese Literature, Kodansha, 2003
b) Janet Ashby, Read Real Japanese: All You Need to Enjoy Eight Contemporary Writers, Kodansha, 2003.
c) 「ショート・ショート」星新一(ほししんいち)
d) 吉本ばなな(よしもとばなな)
e) 村上春樹(むらかみはるき)
f) 「ぼっちゃん」夏目漱石(なつめそうせき)
g) 安部公房(あべこうぼう)
h) 三島由紀夫(みしまゆきお)
i) 宮部みゆき (みやべみゆき)
j) 松本清張(まつもとせいちょう)mysteries!
k) 天声人語 (てんせいじんご) 朝日新聞 Short essays
l) まんがで日本語 

Bookstores can be found under "Honya-san" in this blog.

4. Japanese radio, on-line news…

1. NHK Radio (You can choose your speed : Slow, Normal, Fast)
2. NHK On-line news (Click the video screen, and you will access more news!)
3. TBS-i (On-line news with video and script)

5. Japanese dramas access here

1. Mysojo.com
2. Pandora Box

6. Japanese dramas (not sure if these titles suits your taste, but popular)

ごくせん Gokusen
絶対彼氏 Zettai Kareshi
花より男子 Hanayori Dango
Voice
ノダメ・カンタービレNodame Cantabile
ラスト・フレンズ Last Friends
婚カツ Konkatsu
ハケンの品格 Haken no Hinkaku

1 comment:

Siena said...

こんにちは、先生!
I made a blog post while I was in Japan about some of my favorite tools I use frequently or have used in the past for studying Japanese.

http://shiena-kun.blogspot.com/2009/02/my-secrets-of-japanese-study.html

Of those, I'll just talk about Anki a little bit... Anki is a spaced-repetition flashcard program with special support for Japanese learners. It's the most effective if you do it a little bit every day (spaced-repetition means it remembers the ones you're bad/good at answering), but of course I also use it to study vocab/kanji for quizzes/tests. I use it during the school year, and this summer I've been using it to remember vocab I encounter in the book of short stories I'm reading and using it every day, which I have to say is really effective.

You can download the program for free at http://ichi2.net/anki/ Unfortunately, the creator of the program has recently made it so that if you want Japanese support (automatic kanji reading generation), you have to install it separately. After installing, go to File -> Download -> Shared Plugin -> Japanese Support and follow the rest of the instructions.

またね!