ダニーの日本語

Hooray!  Today I completed part 2 of Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji 1, hitting 508 Kanji.  That seemed like a reasonable enough landmark to note here, so here it is.

I’ve really slowed in the past few weeks, when it comes to learning new Kanji.  When I first started, forty Kanji per day was easy, because there were hardly any that needed reviewing.  Now I’m further in, I’m getting 70-90 reviews per day on top of any new ones!  Because of this, I’ve had to reduce the number of new Kanji Anki introduces each day to 20, though I can knock it up again over the weekend if I feel like I’m on a roll.

Inspired by Kanji Poster, I’ve put my targets where I can see them — on my desktop as the desktop wallpaper! I’ve arranged all 2,042 Kanji from RTK1 in the most optimal fashion for my 1440×900 resolution screen, and used a multi-layer image file so that I can easily mark off those I’ve learned. I may yet get the physical poster as well, but for now, this is quite a nice system. You can have a copy of my Kanji desktops, but if your screen hasn’t the same aspect ratio as mine, you may find that making your own is the best bet.

[caption id="attachment_49" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Inverse Colour Listing"][/caption]

Please note that in order to use the XCF file you will need The GIMP, Seashore, or something else that can read the GIMP’s native format.

I’ve also been improving my immersion environment recently.  I set up a Japanese PSN account so that I can download demos on my PlayStation 3 (acquiring funds for my PSN wallet is unfortunately a little trickier).  I’ve been browsing Amazon JP and adding all sorts of great stuff to my wishlist.  I can’t wait to send out for my first shipment!

I’ve also spent a while today reading AntiMoon, the site that inspired Khatzumoto’s All Japanese All The Time project, which in turn is what inspired mine.  Very good!  Lots of really interesting stuff on there.

Anyway, 18 days and 508 Kanji in isn’t bad going.  I don’t think I’ll be finished by February any more but that doesn’t matter – the important thing is to cover them all so that I can get onto actually reading stuff!