No post yesterday? Your *#$%^% right there wasn't... and Japanese I COMPLETE!!!

There was no post yesterday because, put simply, I didn't study. I started Pimsleur, but stopped. I started Remembering the Kanji, but stopped. I totally skipped Rosetta Stone Why?

After my realization Tuesday night that I was about to finish Japanese I of both Rosetta Stone & Pimsleur and freaking out about not having much in the way of advanced self-learning I did some research yesterday. To my surprise, no one had anything good to say about either. In fact, everyone was pretty much calling them crap and a waste of time. This made me second guess what I was doing.

I studied Japanesepod101.com for a bit instead. Many people said it was a better alternative to Pimsleur. I checked it out and It has its merits, but it just spits info at you in my opinion. Pimsleur, if you do it right, makes you repeat things over and over and recalls previous lessons right when you are about to forget them. I decided that they both have their ups and downs and since I'm already almost done, I would stick with Pimsleur. The gripes against it don't out weight the value I see in it.

Most are of the opinion that Rosetta Stone is a huge waste of time. Complaints range from no explanations and lack of cultural sensitivity (what??). Rosetta Stone teaches languages like you are a child growing up with out people who speak English around to explain things to you. The idea is that is how we are meant to learn languages. I'm no language learning expert. but my fluency in reading, writing, and listening have increased greatly as a result of using it. I get my knowledge of the why from my independent research. You can see in my previous post where I have looked up things I had questions on and linked to the answers. I kinda like it that way.

The complaint about cultural sensitivity... ok... Many of the pronunciation sections are filled with English loaner words. And why not? A TON of modern Japanese nouns are loaner words (not all of them from English). The complaints about the lack of Japanese people in the pictures? Well, this is a PLATFORM (singular) for learning LANGUAGES (plural). I think the images are fairly diverse as far as races go. I don't think there are too many white people, but I might be seeing through the filter of being a white male. I dunno. I don't think that makes the platform any less valuable for learning the language. There are 6 voice actors (3 male and 3 female) who are all native Japanese Speakers. It's a good system for learning how it should sound.

In the end, I decided NOT to modify my curriculum at this time. And, as a result:

Today I finished both Rosetta Stone Japanese I and Pimsleur Japanese I!

I'm excited about this milestone. I plan on taking a few days off from both. I will continue on with Remembering the Kanji tomorrow (2 days off is going to hurt on those Anki cards.. eek). I believe gaps in learning are essential and healthy. I value practice and that's why I will continue with my Kanji learning in the meantime plus, I have a ton of Anime to catch up on so it's not like I will be devoid of Japanese. I will resume my normal schedule on Monday or Tuesday (I think I'm catching a cold and that may make speaking difficult so an extra day may be needed).

For now...

私におめでとう！