Stop, Grammar Time!

I finished memorizing hiragana, and have moved on to very slowly learning katakana. My main focus lately though has been grammar, since that is where I am in TextFugu.

So far, I've learned that です means "it is" (sort of, the textbook promised we would understand it better later on), and that か at the end of a sentence makes it a question. I can ask　さるですか？ and answer はい、さるです。 (assuming we are talking about my little brother, of course ;)).

Now I'm supposed to read the first 3 kanji learning chapters. Whoa. I didn't expect to be touching kanji for a while, until I had more grammar under my belt at least. It sounds scary and overwhelming from reading what people say about it. O_O;;

Update: Definitely not scared of kanji anymore. It is still overwhelming, but TextFugu explained learning kanji in a way that makes it actually seem possible (I've never been good at memorization, so just the thought of just rote-memorizing thousands of complex kanji made me dizzy).

I knew there was a list of 2,000 kanji commonly used, now I know it named the Joyo Kanji List. :) Also, I think I have an idea of what radicals are, and have started learning 1 and 2-stroke radicals! This whole on-yomi versus kun-yomi thing is a little complicated.

がんばれ、にほん。

More Hiragana Memorization

I haven't posted lately, but that definitely doesn't mean I haven't been studying! I'm still enjoying studying Japanese, both the language and the culture. I have all of the main hiragana down, and pretty much have the dakuten and combination hiragana.

Within a couple more days, I'll start studying katakana! That will open up a huge world of study materials. I have 3 Japanese manga (Sailor Moon, Cardcaptors, and Marmalade Boy, which were recommended as fairly easy reads), and a nice furigana dictionary. I also picked up a couple more textbooks to supplement TextFugu, because I like having the option to read different explanations on a single subject.

Now, my hand is not cramped anymore, so I'll head back to my combo hiragana worksheet.