Comments on: Why kata-can’t-I?

By: Twitted by HeadingForJapan

Twitted by HeadingForJapan — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:35:56 +0000

[...] This post was Twitted by HeadingForJapan [...]

By: caughtredhanded

caughtredhanded — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:15:16 +0000

Hi Nick, and thanks so much for your comments. You're right, it shouldn't become a massive barrier. Good on you for getting JLPT 2 though, that's an achievement in itself, I reckon. I'll get there one day..

By: caughtredhanded

caughtredhanded — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:18:49 +0000

Just read your post and left a comment; thanks for the link. You've got a pretty good point though, and I've heard this from a number of other people (including my Japanese teacher!) in the past. I'm sure I'll get there eventually, it's just a matter of time..

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:58:58 +0000

Couldn't find your trackback link. I think katakana are, fundamentally, no different from kanji. Treating them like phonetic characters, something easier to learn, is probably the main reason we all have problems with them. I definitely had my struggles early on. http://howtojaponese.com/2009/06/29/heres-why/

By: caughtredhanded

caughtredhanded — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:54:10 +0000

Hey Shibuya, many thanks for your comments, much appreciated. I'm glad you mention the title, I thought it was pretty nifty too, even if I do say so myself, hehe..

By: Shibuya246

Shibuya246 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:40:43 +0000

Sometimes you just cant measure the bottom. really nice post. catchy title. I like it

By: caughtredhanded

caughtredhanded — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:10:51 +0000

Thanks for the comments, Shiira, much appreciated! Good luck on the time scales – you are a very brave woman!

By: shiira

shiira — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:28:57 +0000

Great post. Seems a lot of us are in the same boat. I'm trying now, to figure out some ways to jumpstart my katakana leaning. My challenge is to master it (to some extent) in the next three weeks — in time enough for me to take an introductory Japanese class at a local University. Hopefully I can get to smart.fm and/or Dumbotaku's method fairly soon. Best of luck. Keep us posted.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 05:24:37 +0000

Thanks for the advice. I will get over to it as soon as I have a spare minute. I know I have to do more to nail it down, it’s just getting the time at the moment. Things are sure to quieten off soon, so I’ll be back to being able to devote a proper amount of time to areas where I’m stumbling.

Anywho, thanks for the comments. I’ll visit your site and see what you have to say also.

By: Dumb Otaku

Dumb Otaku — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 05:14:43 +0000

heh, I just did a post on this on my blog.

http://dumbotaku.com/2009/06/15/learn-katakana-an...

Honestly, if you know the Katakana already. Hit smart.fm as soon as read this and start doing the katakana right now. I used the method i posted about to learn katakana and hirigana in about 2 to 3 weeks then used smart.fm to solidify my katakana skills and now I can read katakana almost as good as hirigana and that is pretty good now. I don't quite understand all the words I read, but i can read hirigana at a reasonable clip. Smart.fm is a resource that is invaluable to learning japanese. I really really really recommend you go there without delay. If you don't do it now then when?

Keep up the good work though on learning. I will say it sounds like you are definitely on the right track if you are identifing a weakness and trying to deal with it. A blog post ranting about it is still trying to deal with it so good luck.