Still Chugging Along

I took a day of yesterday from Pimsleur which I resumed today. I'm at a break in TextFugu because I need to get my katakana skill sup a bit before going on. I just don't get the chance to see katakana as often besides loaner words, which I already know a bunch anyway. Once i feel I'm ok with my katakana I will continue on with TextFugu.

Speaking of textFugu, I started using their WaniKani site to learn and practice Kanji in addition to the Anki decks from the TextFugu site. I also picked up the Ultimate Vocab deck from the site which is free when you are a member and have been learning new things from that as well. Right now I'm having trouble with 事. It just eludes me every time I see it. But, between what I had already gleaned with my previous Kanji studies and with what all i have learned in the past few weeks, I seeing that i can read a lot of signs and such in Anime.

Anyway, WaniKani is addictive... like crack cocaine levels of addictive. And it is working. I remember the 音読み for just about everything and I make it a habit of learning it for new Kanji i look up. Maybe this weekend I will explain 音読み and 訓読み this weekend, since I now understand what the hell they are and kind of when to use them. the 訓読み for numbers has helped a lot with those strange counters. I found out they use a form of the numbers 訓読み so it's just a matter of remembering that and then adapting. The 音読み has helped me read and understand more multi-kanji words.

Here is a side effect: I can understand some written Chinese now even though I cannot pronounce it in Chinese. I realized this when I was watching a YouTube video of a strange Chinese commercial. I knew a good percentage of the Hanzi so even though I didn't know exactly what they were saying I did have an idea without looking at the subtitles.

 The last few days have been kind of tough outside of the Japanese learning. I did learn one more form of condolence:

ご冥福を祈ります。(ごめいふくをいのります)

It can be translated as "rest in peace".  It translates literally as I pray for your happiness in the next world. The kanji for 冥福 are made up of "dark" and "fortune." I think it has a kind of macabre beauty to it.  In any case: ご冥福を祈ります、エミリー様。