sure why not

[rivendellrose]

Because I didn't have enough to be doing I decided that I wanted to start learning Japanese. Ha. Sure, why not? I'm using Duolingo, which is... interesting, as this is my first time using it for its intended purpose (learning a new language) rather than for the purpose of trying desperately not to forget absolutely everything I ever learned in high school and college French. I'm not sure I love their system, and for my purposes (potential travel) it would be more useful to learn verbal language only and use Romanized spellings rather than making me learn hiragana, but I an enjoying learning hiragana even though it slows down my intention, so... whatever!

The "everything else" that I'm doing at the moment is fact-checking clean-up ("Did they really mean this? Did they specify that? Can you get this person who it was nearly impossible to pin down last time to email you again to confirm this?"), transcription (oh god so many meetings), fertility appointments (catheters of personal fluids being stuck up places you really don't want to hear about, I'm sure), and theoretically doing some writing of my own again at some point, although probably not for NaNoWriMo this year. Unless I panic and sign up in the next week because I can't stand the thought of not doing it for the first time since 2002. And, of course, keeping up with whatever the retainer clients need from me (right now not too much, but that could change at any moment).

I'm also trying to set up my character for a new tabletop campaign set in the Fallout universe. Oh, and I have readings for docent training next week, but that's not until next week. I can deal with that.

I'd like to make some new icons, as well, and I should get back to work on my next set of Christmas socks. But those are kind of lower priority than all the stuff that's more immediate. At least they are until I crash and desperately need knitting time. ...If you just recently added me, I swear most of my posts are fandom-related, lately. But for some reason (avoiding transcription...) I felt chatty tonight.

Comments

[annofowlshire]

*hugs*

I saw the announcement for Japanese on DuoLingo and was like OOOOOOH, but if I were to embark on such an endeavor, it would be more practical to start with French or another European language. XD

I'm glad work is keeping you busy, and I hope the treatments pans out for you two ♥

I'm with you on NaNo--both not doing it, and reserving the right to change my mind! RPGs and socks--sounds like a great way to spend free time ^_^

I'm glad you're feeling chatty. I've missed hearing from you. ♥

[rivendellrose]

*Hugs*

Totally understood! Duolingo's pretty good for French, it would definitely be worth your time if you wanted to mess with it. Even for trying to keep things from falling totally off-board I've found it entertaining, though it's often frustrating to be like "Yes, I KNOW parapluie is masculine, I just FORGOT, OKAY?" or whatever. It's lowering for someone who used to be conversational, I think is what I'm saying. :P

Thank you! ♥ We'll see what happens, it's all kind of "wait and see." There's nothing obviously wrong, so it's all a matter of trying to raise our chances at this point.

I know, I've been super quiet over here lately apart from Star Trek natter. Going to try to improve on that so that we can keep in touch more!

[annofowlshire]

I mean, it's not like I've been on top of communication the last couple of months myself XD

[mimerki]

I'm not sure how I feel about Duolingo's system either, but it's one of the better options at the moment for casual Japanese study. (I'm also using bunpro.jp, which is a lot of grammar rules, and Wanikani, which is all kanji all the time.)

And like you and PTA both, I'm not planning to do NaNoWriMo this year, but I might freak out and sign up and write a couple thousand words anyway.

[rivendellrose]

Agreed. The new flashcard thing seems like it might be useful as well, since memorizing hiragana is so far the bulk of my learning focus. Soooo many little symbols to learn!

Also, I don't know if it's just me but it feels like their hiragana graphics are strangely small?

I'm already doing Get Your Words Out for the year here on DW, so I'm hoping that'll be enough for me. Particularly since I've been pretty crap at that the last few months. There's a lot of room for improvement this time around, and I feel like beating myself up for 1,667 words a day when I haven't even picked a project would be a poor choice.

[umadoshi]

Good luck with the hiragana! ^_^ (And the Japanese in general.) I'm quite fond of hiragana, although the flip side of that seems to be my hatred of katakana. (Katakana is awfully useful when in Japan, though, based on my one visit there several years ago--SO MANY English loanwords, and being able to work many of them out was handy.)

But for some reason (avoiding transcription...) I felt chatty tonight.

Chatty posts are lovely!