What I've learned so far

I started learning the Nihongo quite a while ago. If I can remember clearly it was in 2005. I would be fluent by now but I got involved in so many projects that I did not have the time to study. Actually I did have the time, but I was thought that if I can't study a subject several hours per day I would not learn it. How wrong I was!

For the last six months I have taken the subject seriously. If you are a beginner I highly suggest you create an account at www.livemocha.com. Livemocha is free and is excellent website. There you will have lessons, basically flash cards, and your exercises will be checked by other users who are native or fluent in the Nihongo. It is a nice place to learn and make nice friends. Exercises include speech and composition. The Livemocha website worked really nice for me. I still did not finish the whole course. What I like the most is that I can make question in the spoken exercises and people will kindly teach me. Oh, and you will have the chance to help someone who is learning your first language.

Also, I listened to the Pimsleur audio course. It is a collection of audio lessons, 90 total, including the most basic and practical Nihongo expressions. However, Pimsleur is not free. But do not get sad, there are excellent audio lessons at NHK's website http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/ and they are available in different languages. As we talk I will present you (and hopefully vice-versa) some other audio learning material. We will look for free stuff whenever possible.

I studied some Kanji already and some grammar. There is this famous collection Minna no Nihongo which helped a lot. Due to copyright issues I cannot publish several lines from book's lessons, so what you will find here are my own personal notes and I will create the examples on my own. This way we can keep free information for you.

Our ultimate goals are the JLPT. We are aiming for that, so let's keep our eyes on our target and do our bet, ok? We start tomorrow with character study!

またあとでね、
Gustavo.