Character Study 01

For the first post on characters I would like to present you the Anki. It is one of those flashcards programs. Anki has become quite popular and there is an extensive database of flashcards decks which are available for free.

I highly recommend you to install Anki, because we are going to use it a lot here. Its official website is http://ichi2.net/anki/ and all you need to know is there. But if you have any doubt feel free to ask me, ok?

Today we will train some words and characters. For that I will use one of Anki's JLPT4 decks. For those who still do not know what is the JLPT please read this.

風　かぜ wind
池　いけ a pond
意味　いみ meaning
撮る　とる to take a picture, photo
靴　くつ shoes
勤める　つとめる to work at
歯　は tooth
妹　いもうと　younger sister
教える　おしえる to teach/ to inform/ to instruct
台所　だいどころ kitchen
行く　いく to go
学校　がっこう school
たくさん (too) much/many
家内　かない my wife
大変　たいへん serious, grave, dreadful, terrible
一番　いちばん first
大きい　おおきい big, enormous
お兄さん　おにいさん elder brother
高い　たかい high, expensive, tall
お手洗い　おてあらい restroom
痛い　いたい painful (to the body)
建物　たてもの a building
静か　しずか quiet

I am assuming here that you are familiar with hiragana. If you are not, please google "hiragana table" and learn every character, ok?

Anki works on our memory using the Spaced Repetition Learning System (SRS) method. If you want more information about this try the Wikipedia. This method will show us the characters/words which we did not memorize strongly more often than those we have already fixed in our head. By doing so it stimulates the right connections in your brain.

I studied this list in the morning and I will study it once again before I go to sleep. Try to write the above words with you pencil. The muscular memory will help you to learn the above words faster than if you only read it.

That's it for today, study that set twice today, tomorrow we try to construct phrases using these characters. Ok?

またね、お友達さん
Gustavo