Hello

This week was luckily a week with only 4 working days for me, meaning that I had days off yesterday and today (which is actually quite funny, because this week was "Silver Week", so most people had their days off from Saturday to Wednesday while my days off were Thursday and Friday).
Anyway .... as I don't know what to write about at all this time, I decided to post a rather random entry with recommendations .... I'm not even sure if it's something I recommend, though.
Maybe I should just say I'm introducing stuff to you and you can decide what to do with it or think about it, deal? XD [/baka]

First I want to introduce "Poupéegirl (プーぺガール)":



Actually it's nothing new. I can't remember when I first heard about it, but I was so busy that I decided to ignore it .... until a few days ago (；´∀｀)>
I don't know why and how I stumbled across it again, but I suddenly felt the urge to join and play around a little bit.
I don't wanna be mean, but it's nothing more than a fashion addict website. If you're not interested in fashion at all, then this site might be quite boring for you!

..... on the other hand, I'm really not that interested into fashion .... NOT AT ALL!!! But "Poupéegirl" is just so cute and fun, so I can't stop going there from time to time and play around (^-^)> ......



Actually it reminded me of those Yahoo blog thingies that you could dress up and all ... I remember I enjoyed them a lot a few years ago.
Just that the poupéegirls seem to be way cuter (^_~)~<3
As you can see in the picture you can dress up your own poupéegirl with whatever you want ... or rather with whatever you HAVE!!!
As beginner you don't have many clothes, so you have to earn "ribbons" (= money there) in order to be able to buy more clothes, make-up and stuff.
Also if you want to change your hairstyle, hair color etc. you have to earn "ribbons" first. That's why my poupéegirl still looks like that (^^'')>



You also can chat with other users (^-^)
Oh, and don't worry! The page was Japanese only at first (I think), but now everything is explained in English as well and there are many users from all over the world :)



That's what your own "page" will look like :)

You can earn ribbons in various ways, e.g. by posting a snapshot daily, posting real photos of your fashion, writing comments etc.
With ribbons you then can buy more clothes and stuff. There's also some other interesting things such as contests and events.
If you decide to join now, please let me know before you do so, because if you do it via me I'll get a little something for each user XDDDD Not that I care much, though ;P


Other than that I spent my 2 days off (yesterday and today) with mainly studying Japanese (as always).
I rarely write about how I study here, because I think it's not really interesting at all.
I'm gonna share a little bit of what I'm currently doing today, though. I hope it's not too boring :)

I've already studied so much and used many different methods, focussing on different aspects of the Japanese language, so I'm not gonna list up all that, but focus on what I'm currently doing.

What I've always been doing is "sentences". Some of you might have heard of that method. Again, I don't wanna go into details.
In short: It's a method where you read sentences in Japanese and that way you'll finally be able to read and understand real Japanese. Before I started doing sentences I learned all Jouyou kanji, though (= writing + on-yomi). With the sentences I learned compounds, vocab and kun-yomi in context. You can find sentences EVERYWHERE! You can use textbooks, dramas, video games, Japanese novels etc. Just make sure it's natural (aka real) Japanese written/said/made by Japanese native speakers.

Lately I've been switching to a "Japanese only" mode which means I don't use any English/German/language1 translation anymore for the sentences.
I just pick up the words I want to learn and look their definition up in J-J dictionaries:



And that's what it looks like (upper half: Question side / lower half: Answer side) I marked the words/compounds/kanji readings I want to learn.
Usually it shouldn't be more than ONE new thing, so everything is always "+1".
I sometimes don't follow that rule and add more than one thing. I've never had any problems with that (^^)>
Just be careful that you don't have a long sentence with only words you don't really understand in the end. That can be very frustrating, I guess.



The sentences I currently use I have encoutered in 2 different recources:
One is a book focusing on JLPT 2 vocab and kanji (also using quite a lot of JLPT1 stuff as well) - the book is in Japanese only as well.
The other one is a Japanese novel written by 乙一 (Otsu Ichi) "Calling you (きみにしか聞こえない)" which I recently bought and am reading now:



So far it's really a nice novel. Not too difficult, but I still can't understand everything perfectly :/
When there is something I consider worth remembering, I mark it and later put it into my flashcard program as one of my "sentences".
This way I just learned 睡魔 (sandman as well as sleepiness) something I wouldn't have come across somewhere else so fast, I guess ;P

Although I just started that "project" yesterday and only added a little bit over 60 sentences, the stats already look like that:



I was like: WOAH!! Where do all those kanji come from? XD *lol*

I'm not one to talk, I guess. I started studying Japanese for real in 2002 on and off. Because of those long breaks my efforts were almost in vain. I never really progressed much.
Of course listening to Japanese music and watching Japanese media almost DAILY since 1998! (wow, over 11 years now) helped a lot with my listening comprehension and my knowledge of conversational Japanese, but that's about it.
When I finally moved to Japan I became serious about studying for real this time (not that I wasn't serious before that, I just REALLY didn't have the time to do so ...).
That was last year somewhere in May~July, I guess. Ever since then I've studied on a daily basis (with a few short breaks when I was on vacation or very busy, but never longer than 1-2 weeks).
I changed the way I studied completely as well.
Although I get easily frustrated and especially when I read easy novels or Japanese websites I still think I can't do anything or I think about all the things I still can't do. I guess that's normal.
I should focus on what I've achieved in that 1,5 years instead! I rarely do that, so here we go:

I managed to:

Learn the meaning of over 2000 kanji and how to write them
Learn all the on-yomi of those 2000 kanji
Learn the kun-yomi of about 1100 of those kanji as well as compounds + vocab using those kanji
Learn some basic grammar
Learn how to speak and respond faster in Japanese as I have to do so often in Japan

That's why:

I can read short stories and novels to some degree now.
Most of the time I can read all the kanji and understand their single meaning (I just come across compounds I don't know yet)
I'm able to transfer my English LJ entries into Japanese LJ entries (although my grammar sucks big time)
I can translate the Japanese speeches of my students into English (something I couldn't do last year!)

I want to:

Be able to read magazines, novels for adults and Japanese (news) websites without any problems
Understand at least basic Japanese grammar rules (but of course intermediate and advanced as well) (x___X)/
Pass 2級 in July and maybe １級 in 2 years from now?! (haha .. ha ...)
Watch dramas without subs (which I'm already doing) AND understand even complicated long sentences or dramas with difficult vocab like "Voice"
Be able to have a conversation about almost everything in Japanese (that's probably the last step ever as I consider this to be the most difficult part for me right now)


(ノ_-;)ハア…
I actually started to go back doing sentences again (although I had planned to do them way later) because I'm mainly studying Japanese grammar right now and it's boring and gives me headaches, so I needed something else for a change (^^')> .....

Last but not least, I want to recommend 2 websites that are very useful (I think):


I think most of you might have already heard of lang-8, but if not, here you go!
It's really an awesome website and no matter what language you're learning, that's the place to go! You write blog entries just like here in LJ, but in your target language (e.g. Japanese). Native speakers will correct that entry for you! In return you can correct the entries of people that wrote something in your native language! It really helps a lot, I think, and I also enjoy talking to the people there a lot :)
Usually I only add Japanese people who want to learn English or German or people who want to learn German as it doesn't make sense to add other people that also study Japanese (in my opinion).


Smart.fm, formerly known as iKnow is really an extremely helpful website as well (again not only for Japanese learners!).
I haven't been using that website in over 6 months, but mainly because I use other methods to study right now.
In general it's a really good method, though, and especially if you lack motivation I highly recommend this website!! You study your target language while reading a sentence in that language, containing a target vocab. The sentences are also available as audio, so you will listen to a native speaker reading the sentence while looking at the sentence. It's a lot of fun and many skills are trained at the same time. It's not only recognition as you also have to type the words (-> output / production).
I might go back there once I've finished everything else I want to do right now (= in 10 years?! -__-; .....)
There are also audio rips of sentences that appear in famous Japanese dramas for example. So you can learn Japanese with your fav. jdrama, anime or whatever ;P




I cooked again tonight. Most of it were leftovers from the last time I cooked.
I think it was too much! First of all the roasted potatoes + bacon + onions would have been enough, I guess, but I wanted to have fresh vegetables in there as well.
I love carrots and broccoli :3 .... I think I should have cooked both of them longer, they were still so hard, but I was impatient and hungry and so ....　ε=(。・д・。)フー
It was good and tasty nevertheless. Not as good as last time's dinner, though.
I suck at cooking. I really do! So I shouldn't cook without a recipe when I can't even cook properly with one (^^')> ...... oh well~

If anybody knows a site in English (or German) with easy and healthy cooking recipes, please share them with us here! (*__*)v
Everything including broccoli, carrots, potatoes and vegetables in general is appreciated (*_*)
nighstar, maikeru_desu and a little bit amvn as well: You can all feel guilty as it's because of you guys that I feel like cooking lately (and I don't have time, Jesus!!) So please take responsibility and provide me with some good recipes and stuff!! Will ya? (*・人・*) オ・ネ・ガ・イ♪

Talking about healthy stuff .... ups, I did it again:



I just can't resist Pepsi Shiso (ノ◇≦。)！It's really damn good! o(*≧д≦)o


GAH!!! Busy, busy!!!~
See you again desuぅぅ～ヾ(´▽｀;)ゝ