Well, I got an iPhone...

...and it has CHANGED MY LIFE. And sucked up a lot of time that I should have spent studying... ^_^;;

My drive to work, which under normal conditions would take ~20 minutes, takes a full hour. So now, I use the Anki iPhone app to study during my ~30 minutes of being at a dead stop. Of course, I don't use it when in motion. :D

I will be reviewing it later. Thus far, I get some sort of error every morning that prevents me from finishing each deck (and I have 3 right now - Heisig Kanji, Reading Vocab & Unicom Vocab). It's a little frustrating when the app costs a premium $24.99.

So, I'm more than halfway finished with よつばと! Vol. 7. It is something I really look forward to reading, and I'm gleaning a lot of new vocab (or new kanji for vocab words I am familiar with). Some pages are very easy to understand, and fly right by (as *cough* in the picture at left). But some exchanges between Fuuka and her friend, "Shimau," or Asagi use more complex diction/structure. So there are some pages that take me a while to get through, as I laboriously add flashcards for every little thing that isn't second-nature.




I am also continuing with the Heisig method of learning kanji, where you learn the meaning of the character only, and none (or in my case, few) of the readings. I use the Reviewing the Kanji site to share and find interesting stories for each character, then add it to my Anki deck. I am practicing writing each character to cement them in my mind.

I was going to discontinue the Heisig learning, but in just a few short days I have seen how easy it makes studying vocab for characters I have already learned the meaning of. Smooth like butter! So I am continuing with this, but trying to hurry it up... I know I don't have much time.


Right now, out of my study books, the Unicom Jitsuryouku Up! N2 book is my focus. The words are divided up by their sounds, and a number of compounds for each kanji are presented. I started off adding both the words and the sentences to my flashcard deck, but realized it was taking an inordinate amount of time. So my plan now is to whiz through and add all the words, then make a second pass through the book, adding all the sentences. Translating all of those sentences should reinforce the vocab that I will already have a jump start on studying.

In non-study news, we attended an amazing tea ceremony last week courtesy of the Urasenke Birmingham club. We will be going again this weekend, and I am very much looking forward to it. I would like to give learning the complexities of 茶道 a try!