#✖ ❛ —— try to keep up ( season three ).

[tokidokitokyo]

Photo by Atul Vinayak on Unsplash

2024年6月30日

June is already gone, it's official summertime, and here I am still studying Japanese! I wish I were better at old Japanese so that I could compose a haiku or waka about studying Japanese throughout the changing of the seasons... but then I've been watching too much 光る君へ (an NHK taiga drama).

もう6月は過ぎ、夏がやってきて、私はまだこのまま日本語の勉強を続いている。古文がもっと上手だったら、季節が変わりながら自分がまだまだ日本語の勉強を続くについて俳句や和歌を詠めるかもしれないけど…光る君へを観過ぎるかもしれませんね（^.^）

June Progress

The areas of study that I focused on the most in June included Reading (22%), Listening (18%), and Writing (16%). Usually I neglect writing a lot so I am glad it was in my top three study areas. Vocabulary (10%) and Speaking (10%) were the areas I focused on the least, but learning vocab usually goes hand in hand with reading and listening for me so I definitely had more exposure than I recorded. Also, I speak Japanese daily at home with my husband and son so even though I don't record it, I am getting that extra practice. (My husband has even started correcting me since he wants my son to learn correct Japanese, so I'm not getting away with my little bad habits anymore).

My studying in June looked a little bit different than the rest of the year so far because I focused on one area of study each day

For a refresher my schedule was (approximately):

I still continued my previous study habits that have become a part of my routine, but just made a point of focusing on each study area at least one day out of the week.

What did this end up looking like? Most days I would check my schedule, and then pull out a textbook or the renshuu app or something else to take 10 minutes to dedicate to whichever study area was the focus of the day. I will continue this into July because it worked well this month.

Study Habit Check-In:

〇 = Great, △ = Decent, ✖ = Not Great

Read daily - read almost every day 〇

Write sentences 4 times a week - I didn't keep track of how often I wrote sentences, but I did pay more attention to composition △

Review kanji and vocabulary flash cards daily - I reviewed kanji flash cards but not vocabulary △

Review 1-2 N3 grammar points weekly - did at least 1 review/wk 〇

Learn 1-2 N2 grammar points weekly - learned 1 grammar point every other week △

Listen to 1 podcast a week - yes! 〇

Continue to work on hiragana with my son - we have come to the characters like ちゃ and じ and his mind is blown; need to work on な、は、ま、や、ら (he has わ、を、ん down!) 〇

July Goals

I hope to continue building on my previous progress (that's what it's all about, after all) and to try at least one new thing in my study routine for July. I have added an app called Kanji Garden (which many of you may already know about) and I want to work it into my study routine.

What do your summer plans look like? Are you going to study more or take a break? Either choice is valid, you do what works best for you!

皆さんの夏の予定はどうですか？勉強を増やすつもり？それとも休みを取るつもり？どれでも応援しています！皆さんは自分なりにした方がいいと思います。