A Letter to My Host

So this was an exercise we did in class, and also my first time writing vertically.

Sorry if I have bad handwriting! (⌒-⌒; )

センクスギビングの休み

こんばんは。

先週の週末は　センクスギビングの休みでした。　

私は　ひこうきで おばのうちに　いきました。テキサスに　あります。　b(⌒o⌒)d

私は　少し　べんきゅしました。　そした　たくさん　ねました。　

私のかぞくと　いっしょに　センクスギビング　りょうりを　しました。たいへんなが　たのしかったです。

先週の二曜日は　プリンストン大学に　かえりました。　

そして　しゅくだいを　しました。(￣、￣;)

さようなら。　~(=^‥^)ノ

Reflection and Revised Yearly Goals

ヾ(＠⌒ー⌒＠)ノこんばんわ

Now that we're midway through the fall semester it's time to look back on my goals and activities and to make adjustments where necessary..


Goals:

• To achieve basic conversational fluency
• I'm still working on this (slowly...)
• Natural pronunciation
• My pronunciation has definitely improved but I still have a ways to go.
• To be able to read hiragana and katakana at a reasonable pace (I read super slowly right now)
• My hiragana reading is infinitely better but I need to devote some more time to Katakana
• To familiarize myself with the sounds of the Japanese language
• I guess? Honestly don't remember what I meant by this. Maybe long vowels and doubled consonants, which I have an easier time with now.

Activities:

• Practice pronunciation at least once a week with friends who know more Japanese than I do
• This hasn't been happening as often as I'd hoped (mostly because it's hard to coordinate schedules)
• Pick a new Japanese song every week to listen to repeatedly and attempt to learn some (if not all) of the lyrics
• Haha no... I haven't tried this at all >.< I really would like to but I have no idea where to start looking for simple songs. Especially since I don't really like JPop and a lot of the music I've found is way too fast for me to attempt. Any suggestions?
• At least 30 minutes of daily vocab study
• This really needs to be happening more. I'm probably getting a couple hours a week (maybe 20 minutes a day?) but it isn't enough. Definitely need to improve on this.
• Practice reading passages of hiragana and katakana at least twice a week for 15 minutes
• Haven't done this >_<

For the rest of the semester I'd like to devote more time to vocab study and reading. I think I'm definitely on the right track to achieve my goals (even though I have been lax about the activities) so I guess this is just me recommitting myself to trying harder to work towards it everyday. Here's to hoping that things only get better.


じゃ・また ~~~ヾ(＾∇＾)

Goals for the Year!

ヾ(＠⌒ー⌒＠)ノおはよう


Goals:

• To achieve basic conversational fluency
• Natural pronunciation
• To be able to read hiragana and katakana at a reasonable pace (I read super slowly right now)
• To familiarize myself with the sounds of the Japanese language

Activities:

• Practice pronunciation at least once a week with friends who know more Japanese than I do
• Pick a new Japanese song every week to listen to repeatedly and attempt to learn some (if not all) of the lyrics
• At least 30 minutes of daily vocab study
• Practice reading passages of hiragana and katakana at least twice a week for 15 minutes

じゃ・また ~~~ヾ(＾∇＾)

はじめまして

はじめまして。Garciaです。どうぞ　よろしく。
わたしはプリンストンだいがくの　にねんせいです。
せんこうは　あじあけんきょうです。アメリカじんです。
さようなら。

Week 1

My name is Faith Garcia and I am currently a sophomore at Princeton University. I haven't yet settled on a major but I am considering East Asian Studies. I decided to take Japanese at the end of my freshman year after finishing up my first year of studying Korean. I knew that I wanted to start studying a second language and was torn between Chinese and Japanese. Both seemed interesting to me but I decided on Japanese due to the similarities it has to Korean.

I'm excited to learn all I can this year!

ありがとうございます