Japanese Magazine

I don't know how many of you read my previous blog, but today's blog is kind of an update on that.

I worked again today and I half expected to see the Japanese kids/mother again today. They did come in, but I think the kids went up to the children's class right as the other kids left so she left then. I didn't get to talk to her before hand. When class was over, she came back in and started talking to me.

In my nervousness I forgot to ask the mother her name. I kind of feel bad cause she's already calling me Danielle-chan. Anyway, she asked me if I could read Japanese and I admitted I could read some. Then she took out a Japanese magazine and asked if I would like to read it. I learned in Japan that it's basically impossible to tell a Japanese woman no, so I gladly accepted it.

It will probably take me a week to get through the first page alone.

Kanji is DIFFICULT and there is a whole hell of a lot of it. I only "learned" maybe...500-750 kanji characters out of 10,000+. I say "learned" because while I can remember much of what I learned at UCR, what I learned while I was in Japan only remained in my head for a day at the most. We covered a new chapter of kanji everyday - thats about 12 kanji every day. Most kanji have 2 or more reading, and it also helps to memorize the meaning. So needless to say, I don't remember much of that kanji.

Yet, this is exactly what I need. A lot of the kanji that I DO know came from constantly seeing them in the reading assignments I had in Japan. A long with kanji that was covered in a text book, these readings introduced me to several kanji that I never learned. But because they were repeated quite a bit, I know and understand them, even though I was never formally taught them. It should be the same with this magazine.

So it looks like I'll be breaking out my electronic dictionary that I bought in Japan. And a new notebook, which will probably be turned into a dictionary with all the kanji/vocab I haven't learned.