Organization is important !

I am organizing all of the worksheets ( I have ALOT) as well as the phrase book and my notebook in a clear folder labeled NIHONGO. And I also have those smaller little plastic slips that I use to categorize all my worksheets according to their topic and then they all go into my folder. It is VERY important to keep all the notes that I made or little pieces of paper that I used to clarify questions when I go to either Mrs.Peak or Mr.Ball because I always use those later and they help when I make tips for the booklet. That is why I keep everything in the folder because small pieces of paper and worksheets can get lost or misplaced so I keep them all in one place.

Layout is done :D

After drawing and redrawing over and over a layout example of what I want for each character set in the booklet I have finally decided on this:

All I have to do is to get this on the computer so that it is neater and then replace the characters for every different character/letter set.

EG:

A I U E O

KA KI KU KE KO

SA SHI SU SE SO

For the first table and the for the second table to find a word that includes those letters. However it must keep in mind the letters the reader has learnt so for example the first page where the reader has only learnt A I U E O I can only use those characters, but for like the 3rd oage where they would have learnt all those characters A I U E O KA KI KU KE KO SA SHI SU SE SO I must include the S sound character but I can also include any of the previously learned characters. This way they can also pick up some Japanese words as well as revise the previous letters.

Japanese pen pals

Getting a Japanese pal was something I really wanted to get because last year I was helping a Chinese girl located in China with her english via email. And I really enjoyed that and wanted to get a Japanese pen pal that would help me with my Japanese. Thanks to a you tuber that recommended this website in which you can find pen pals from all over the world and you can specify age or gender but I only narrowed it down to the country. This is the website:
www.japan-guide.com
 Although I have sent out over messages to 15 people I only got a few replies and then even less re-replies from those people until I had only 2 pen pals Mao Mao and Sasaki a girl and a boy both 15 years old.

Quizzes I use :)

I found that quizzing your self is really helpful and what I used to do was have my mother read out the sound of the character and then I would on a separate paper simply write down the japanese character equivelent. Then at the end I would go through and correct myself. Because of doing this I am now also thinking of adding a CD to the booklet in which I test the learners or users of my booklet and basically doing what my mom did for me. This is just a brief idea I am thinking of this and I will ask my advisor Mrs.Peak on her thoughts so I will go back to this.
Something else I have found recently are those online quizzes and even games and although there are plenty the one I really like is:
http://www.easyjapanese.org/kanaquiz.html

Helpful virtual keyboard

I found this website recently though and it has two virtual keyboards the first one would be one I would like to apply to my own keyboard eventually so I think I might just use the website until I find what I am looking for. This is because the first keyboard is entirely in Hiragana which is what I have been using lately because it is much better for typing in acctual hiragana characters rather than writing the romanji (english letter pronounciation) equivelant to it and then getting the japanese character for it.

http://www.linguanaut.com/japanese_keyboard.htm

This is just an update to the last two entries on something that I have found later on...

Typing in Hiragana

Entry 3
October 6th
I really wanted to add japanese to my actual keyboard but I wouldnt find the letters that could be added to my keyboard so instead I added Hiragana to my languages and so whenever I clicked on that I could type japanese directly without having to  use the sites I used before. Plus it types straight onto things like word documents and websites and email etc. And You get to see all the characters on the kana table and if you want you can type with that instead to make things more challenging to see if I remember the characters or not.

I use this feature when I am typing up my own personal japanese phrases or notes that are not necessarily for this actual product. This is also useful because it is a much faster and easier way to type in Hiragana without having to resort to the internet or websites. This is better and more accessible especially when trying to type something into a word document and even searching for files and saving them and searching the dictionary it all turns up in Japanese
eg:

Entry 2

Entry 2

October 5th 

Today I thought about a way to enhance my hiragana skills and I thought about how I use my laptop a lot and if I could type in Japanese I would do a lot better. So I looked for Japanese keyboards that I could possibly download. Although I used to use an online keyboard in which I could just write the pronunciation in english and it would type it up in Hiragana for me.http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/hiragana.htm

This was no longer a useful tool as it did not aid in my learning anymore however it was a useful tool when I was first learning and I used to to clarify how certain words should be written one of those words was yoroshikuよろしく. I was not sure wether I should have used ro(ろ ) or ru (る ).

Entry 1

Entry
Written prior to being published.
 I have looked through several Hiragana Learning practice sheets found on:
https://sites.google.com/site/qatarelc/about-us
Which is a Japanese learning center in Qatar which I visited in the summer of 2011 however I did not end up registering because I wanted to teach myself and go through the trial and error so that I would have a better understanding of the Japanese alphabet and language.

I used to refer to an old hiragana Chart when I first started learning Japanese but then I found out thanks to Mrs.Peak that it was actually in calligraphy and that was why I was having difficulty in matching the letters so I went and found a new chart.
This is a picture of my old chart:

This is my new chart:

Tip: Always print out two copies of the chart place one on the wall infront of your desk or on a table or even in the bathroom to aid in the learning of the characters. 

Another tip would be to circle the letters that you need to revise just as I have done and this way I go back to those and do extra practice.

I now use a different chart and you can find many online, although this is not the chart I use this one is a much more helpful one as the letters are all separate into three parts and there is also an introduction so I thought that this would be more useful for other that are interested in learning.

http://www.learnjapanesefree.com/japanese-hiragana.html

Some thing I used to do when I first started learning was whenever I learnt a new letter I would write it on a large piece of A3 paper however I stopped doing that after a while. Here is a picture: 

Introduction

I have started learning Japanese recently and tried doing so by learning phrases, however I thought that if I could learn how to read and write in one of the the Japanese alphabets I would learn a lot faster. However I started learning Hiragana on and off since around June of 2012 and didn't really learn much as I was not consistent and ended up forgetting most of what I learnt. I then really committed to learning Hiragana in order to make a booklet for my personal project. I started learning a little in the Summer and have so far learned most of the alphabet with the exception of some letter which I need to go over and revise. I will use this journal to track my progress of making that booklet I can not however write any journal entries for when I was learning the alphabet as that was a while ago and I do not remember the dates. Below is my official goal statement.

Goal

My goal is to fully learn Hiragana one of the three Japanese alphabets and then create a booklet in order to help other people that might share the same interest as me in learning this alphabet. The reason I am creating this booklet is it will not only help me to better ensure that I have a full understanding of the alphabet but will also help others in Qatar Academy if they are interested in learning Hiragana. I also have a goal for the future which is the reason I am ensuring that I learn the alphabet now. By the time I graduate from high school I want to have fully learned Japanese and by learning Hiragana I will improve my pronunciation as well as help me pick up words and phrases a lot faster and easier if I could read them and write them.

It all started in 6^th grade when a friend of mine introduced me to anime which is Japanese animation and I really liked However I wanted to learn more about the country from which it originated from. That country was Japan I was absolutely captivated by Japanese culture and Japanese technology and because of my intrest in global politics I definitely understood how huge of a country Japan is and the importance of its technological advancements are to the rest of the world. Slowly I got dragged into wanting to learn more about Japan and understand it better and I think the best way to do that is from the people themselves and I could connect with them across the globe with the help of their beautiful language. And that Summarizes exactly why I decided to use the personal project as a stepping stone to help me achieve my larger goal in the future.

         I have selected this topic because I want to share my interest with the students with me in Qatar Academy I want them to see the beauty I see in the Japanese language, culture, advancements. I want them to be able to see how wonderful it is. One way to accomplish that would be to introduce them to the language and keeping in mind my own skill level, I will create this booklet and hope to have it displayed in the library as well as have an E-copy so that everyone and anyone can access it.

         This project will best be developed within the context of Approaches to Learning. Approaches to learning are all about the methods we use to learn and how we learn something that is why for my project in which I create a booklet. My product the booklet will be based on my own tips and knowledge and how I learned, as well as methods and practice sheets that I feel are more efficient than the ones I used when I myself was learning Hiragana.