Now, me actually FINISHING a book (as opposed to starting) is an accomplishment in itself, usually I read about 1/5th to 1/3rd and get bored with it, but this book is special.
Its my first book in Japanese. ^^
Ok, its not a BOOK like er- Stephen King or Charles Dickens,(thx KoshNaranek for solving my brain fart on authors names) but its not See Spot Run either. Its a manga, a Japanese comic for the un-initiated, this particular one is Full Metal Alchemist #1.
It has furigana (pronunciation notes next to the kanji for kids and foreigners like me) and thru using my dictionary as sparingly as possible, and also knowing a fair amount of the story from watching the English dubbed anime on TV, I would say I understood about 70% of it.
Which is fine with me, I do hope that number grows.
At first it was slow going. I'm a slow reader even in English (high comprehension rate compensates for it) but even tho I study Japanese a lot, real world usage opportunities for me are quite low. It had lots of non-commonly used language (the story line is somewhat fantastic, having to do with Alchemy) but I trudged thru it.
Last night, I read an entire chapter (~40 pages) before bed, then woke up and read the last chapter (about the same) this morning. I can see my reading speed, accuracy and recognition increase already, so its quite fun.
On the other hand, I know I've said this before, but I really really really really really (etc etc) cant speak a friggin word of Japanese anymore. I get tongue tied and lost with the simplest things.
I think its a self inflicted curse, because I used to joke that I would rather be able to ask the cute girl what the sign said and understand her answer than learn 2000 kanji. But really, I have no chance to speak Japanese commonly, and the rare occasions it comes up I am WAY shy about it, even in class. There's no Japanese 4 next semester, so I will probably take the conversation class instead and work thru it, or get a private tutor.
For now I'm happy to be reading ^_^
On another note, the blog changed styles again, firefox and IE display the scrollbars different, but both do it well, and I like the look. Hope you do too, because if not, you'll be stuck with it for awhile.
Links of the day!
The perfect case If my friend Adam had an Ipod
Eliminating data securely This site is full of cool things I don't understand
Learn Khmer Long story short, I use ICQ and LONG time ago changed my details and picked funny sounding languages and claimed I spoke them. Literally 4 years later, I get tons of messages from people who can speak them who want to add me (its an Indonesian language I believe, but most people were from Canada for some reason) anyway, expand your horizons!
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