Tag: lifelong education

Kanji, Phew!

Learning, Poetic, This Person
Lines, curves and dots drawn
Convey meanings and stories.
Quaintly logical—

I thought learning Kanji would be a mission impossible, it turned out to be a fun game. Thanks to my good teacher who has always encouraged me to practice, practice, practice. ありがとう ございます、先生。Also thanks to the supplementary books I found in Kino today!

According to the book Kanji is ideographic, not phonetic, which means that each character represents a concept or an idea rather than a sound.

There is a group of Kanji called Joyo Kanji (Kanji for daily use) that are normally learnt by Japanese during their 9 years of compulsory education. It means I’m in that teenage stage of learning and so need fun way of learning to keep motivated in a consistent concentration span.

And don’t be afraid to make mistakes! —- Ok, just don’t repeat too many ‘coz repeated mistakes are equal to planned crimes 😁

page one of Kanji book drilled by Sensei Hanny
new lethal weapons!

Twisting Logic

Poetic, This Person
Wanna twist logic?
Learn foreign languages or
Backpack with no cash.

While the Arabic won’t twist my logic so much, the Japanese is a bit of a challenge ‘coz it is a brand new thing. Arabic has been a background play since I was young although I am only good at reading and writing. In fact, Japanese is totally a logic twist and takes some resource commitment if I want to achieve my target: intermediate level in all 4 skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking).

As electronic learning sources are not suitable for my eyes, I decided to boost my effort through traditional way: all paper-based. Books, cue cards, dictionary, etc…

Among all those tools, there is one that I am most impressed of: the karuta card. Not the uniqueness of the cards itself as cue cards are used in all language classes but more about the age of its existence that amazes me. It is a deck of playing cards aged back to 16th century, brought by the Portuguese sailors to Japan. Since then it has been a tool for fun game, fun learning and even competitive game.

Go search “karuta” that means card in Portuguese (in Bahasa Indonesia it is kartu), and you’ll find various webs explaining about karuta from its history up to how to play it.

Found two decks in Kinokuniya bookstore today together with dictionaries that will be a company for all children books in the reading list. Fun study yay!

Let’s get the ball rolling!