I haven't been productive this month, I was mainly fighting the heat, sleeping badly because the temperature would hardly go down during the night. That's okay, because I know I will be filled with new energy in September! Japanese I haven't done much apart from reading, studying Anki and making one type of exercise per..
Japanese immersion: July week 4
Introduction: a word on immersion I will enlarge my Friday post's definition (if it had any...) and call it "Japanese immersion". In other words, I will write every Friday about the things I did to get immersed in Japanese. We all know that immersion is a key factor to language learning, but it is easy..
Book Review: 「私のクラスの生徒が、一晩で24人死にました。」by 日向奈くらら
The book 「私のクラスの生徒が、一晩で24人死にました。」by 日向奈くらら (ひむかな・くらら) reminded me how much I like horror stories and thrillers. I have a taste for thrillers and psycho-thrillers with horror elements but I always find that half of the books I read in these areas are disappointing. It was not the case with Himukana's book that I found very entertaining. Strangely..
Organising my studies
For some time now, I come up with things that I want to do every day. I want to write in Japanese every day, I want to do listening exercise every day, write lines of kanji, read the news and take notes, read my book on Japanese history, revise N3 grammar, study Anki, and so..
I am watching 孤独のグルメ!
As I announced last week, I won't be posting any more about Japanese news on Friday. I want to diversify the way I learn Japanese and find other materials (that is, not books) to improve my listening and get to know more different aspects of Japanese culture. I find that my Japanese learning has become..
Currently Reading: 「それでも、日本人は戦争を選んだ」by 加藤陽子
I have finally given up reading 「朝鮮開国と日清戦争」by Soki WATANABE because the more I read, the more difficult the book becomes. I was unlucky in my choice when I picked a History book, I should have bought a popular book written for a large public. Watanabe's book was maybe too specialised for me. As I don't..
New Anki deck, old goals
I have started a new Anki deck... and I am not using anymore the one I started on the very first day of my learning Japanese. I have realised that my Anki deck was not fitting my goals anymore. When I created my deck, I had in mind a strategy to learn vocabulary as thoroughly..
Japanese News: July week 2 (終)
Introduction This week's post is very short, only two topics, and it will be the last post in the section "Japanese News"... The reason why I stop is that I think this exercise already bore its fruits. I started it to help me read the news, and it worked better than I could say: Studying..
Currently reading: 「私のクラスの生徒が、一晩で24人死にました。」by 日向奈くらら
Even if I still haven't finished the novel 「光」, I started a new book of my reading challenge: 「私のクラスの生徒が、一晩で24人死にました。」by 日向奈くらら (ひむかな くらら). It has an English title, which is "24 students in my class died overnight". To be frank, when I returned from my haul in Kyoto and listed up all the 13 books I had..
My listening exercise for the second half of 2018
In my checkpoint about how good I was doing in 2018, I had to admit that I hadn't work much on listening. I regularly come up with a renewed motivation to listen to more Japanese, but as long as it does not find a concrete plan and schedule, it often remains at the stage of..
Japanese News: July week 1
The topics I studied this week are: The labour reform: a recap Post-Abe: a list of the 5 candidates who could succeed Abe Football: Politicians' reactions to the last match and a Korean digression The execution of Aum Leader Matsumoto. Labour reform On Friday 29th, the Diet enacted the Labour Reform bill. Despite many criticisms,..
Book review: 『虚ろな十字架』by Keigo Higashino
「虚ろな十字架」is both a typical Keigo Higashino and a surprising one. Typical in its setting, its characters and the way the story unfolds. From the very beginning, I felt that I was on familiar grounds, reading an author that I appreciate and whose writing style seems to be unchanging throughout the years. The novelty of this..