4 posts tagged “books”

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Some more stuff I ordered came in!!
How awesome! The books are in Japanese and one day I will be able to actually read them but the larger book has some nice pictures. My goal is to have every Orange Range single available.Mmmm..not every single, but the singles with B-sides I haven't heard...yeah, that seems like a better idea..

Today I am better. My head is not as foggy but I am still very sore.
Ummm...I totally forgot what I was about to post about...

Oh well, I have received by second order from JList.
But I haven't received the first one yet. I know they got the order because they got my money!!
I sent them an email and I have been waiting for a response.
If something is on backorder just let me know. It is called communication.
In any case, here is my latest purchase:

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So, I was just getting into the groove of my French major which was difficult because I had never taken a French course before. My peers thought  I was nuts. I didn't care, I love a challenge.
Loving a challenge wasn't enough to keep me in the major. You see, there were certain required classes that never ran because enrollment was so low. I floundered around taking all sorts of classes. That is when I decided to take Russian. I knew a Russian major and few folks from Russia and he seemed like a good idea. I two semesters of that language, and I enjoyed. I had great classmates, great teachers...it was really fun. But I knew none of this was aiming me towards any particular degree. That is when I decided to step back and take break from school. I still remember a lot of what I learned. As with the French, I need a good warm up immersion period before I can hold a basic conversation.  Here is what I use to keep the Russian fresh in my mind:

Langbooks_russ

Now for my new language: there is a long backstory (I'll tell that story tomorrow) on the hows and whys of my  decision to learn this next language. To be honest, I wanted to take a class or two back in my early collegiate years. Oddly enough I was discouraged by people I considered friends. They told me stuff like, "oh, you don't want to do that! It is so hard" or "That language is so different, you wouldn't like it."  Yeah, I don't talk to those folks anymore.
Right, so I have decided to self  teach myself Japanese!   I have always wanted to learn and now I have particular motivations for learning, so why not?  My method is rough and it isn't pretty. I listen to Japanese pop music, watch Japanese news feeds and TV programs. I have an audio learning CD (you typical learn Japanese for when you go on vacation...basic stuff). I have several books and with a few more on the way and a keyboard and mousepad!
Here my learnings tools so far:

Langbooks_jap

It is true. I am totally a language whore. I don't need much of reason to attempt to learn a new language. If i could, I would learn them all so I can communicate with everyone! Sure, we can communicate through pictures and music and stuff, but language can be tricky (so can culture).

I had Spanish in high school and more in college. It never really stuck. I always forget that I know some Spanish. It is like, "oh yeah, and Spanish..." You would think living in country where the Spanish speaking population is constantly growing that I would take it more seriously. And not all Spanish is the same. I can normally understand most of what someone is saying to me in Spanish, I just don't have the vocabulary to respond properly in Spanish. That happened at one of my jobs. This woman comes in to ask a question and she asks in Spanish. I understood what she said but had to respond in English. These are my Spanish study tools:

Langbooks_span

In my early collegiate years, I decided I wanted to study French. Of all the foreign languages trapped in my head, French is the one that comes the easiest. I am not very fluent. By that I mean I cannot switch to French from English easily. I need at least an immersion time of 15 to 20 minutes before I am capable of holding conversations fluently in French. To help me keep up the language, I held on to most of my textbooks. I have lots of other study books too, see:

Langbooks_fren