#basic kanji book

[the-bibrarian]

天気がいいのでもうしばらく外で勉強できます。素敵ですよねー？みんなさんの週末はいいですか？☀️😌✏️

[the-bibrarian]

復習：長い漢字の言葉 (aka: long-ass kanji words)

Now I know what 学校教育問題研究会 means 👍🏻

[the-bibrarian]

The harder the 練習, the messier the 漢字。

今週末、ちゃんと勉強することができましたから、嬉しいですよ！

Hope you all had a nice weekend! ✨

[the-bibrarian]

Please make a post about your stationery and pens (if you haven't already). I'm in love with that blue inked pen that you always use. And if you have extra time, a post about your Japanese textbook/s. Merci! :)

Hi there! Sorry it took me so long to answer! (the last two weeks were kind of hectic!)

To answer your question, here’s what I use to study (there’s a bit more, because I tried different things, but those are the things I use daily)

notebooks: the one at the top is for kanji exercises and is filled with little squares (I bought it on amazon, the brand is Showa note), the one in the middle is a simple lined Muji notebook, and my favourite. I plan to go back to one like this when I’m finished filling the last one, a Leuchttrum notebook. (I don’t like that one as much. I bought it on vacation, and it’s great to carry around, but is not as comfortable to write in.) 

(In French we’d call the first two “cahiers” and the last one “carnet,” and I think a cahier is much more suitable for writing exercises, since it’s thinner and offers more space.)

The routine goes like this: I practice writing the new kanji it the Showa notebook until I can write it confidently, then I take notes on it in the Muji notebooks and do exercices.

pens: 

a white-out from Muji

the perfect mechanical pencil from Zebra, it has an eraser which appears when you put it upside-down (a gift from the loveliest person)

little film fusen from Pentone, super useful to create writable tabs in my notebooks (also a gift 😘)

OK, so I use mildliners, just like everyone else, and why wouldn’t I? 😌 The colours are nice, the two tips are super useful, they’re much slimmer than other highlighters, and they look super pretty. 

my fountain pen, which is the one you asked about, I think. It’s actually a cheap one from Waterman. The ink you like is called “bleu mystère” and I love it too! It’s not available everywhere, though, and you can’t erase it (hence the white-out). There’s a lot of reasons why I use a fountain pen, but the main ones are that I learned to write using one (yes, that is still happening in France—is it the case elsewhere?) and never quite managed to trade for a ball-pen (my writing is way too loopy and tends to spread out), and simply that I really like it. I tried other pens and pencils to write kanji, since my teacher told us fountain pens are the exception in Japan, but ended up coming back to it. 

a bold black Uni sign pen, for page titles 

(and I’ve just realised that every single item on this list, apart from the fountain pen, comes from Japan 😅)

books: 

the Kanji Book series. I’m about two thirds into vol. 2 but I often come back to vol. 1. They’re a holistic Kanji learning method, and I love how they work, with plenty of examples and exercices, and revisions. Great if you like to learn with pen and paper rather than an app. You need to keep up with the grammar, though, which complexifies fairly quickly. 

A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. I love it, it’s clear and well-organised. There’s a great review by Tofugu here.

And this is what I use for self-study. The class I go to once a week provides booklets and binders, created for the school. I’m not going to post about these, since they aren’t available for sale and wouldn’t be very useful without the live lessons to go with it (and also they’re in French), but I mention them because the ones above are not enough on their own (you’d also need to either enrol in classes, follow a lesson plan of your own design, or use another, more comprehensive textbook)

Sorry again for the delay, and for the photo quality. I hope this answers your questions, and gave you some study ideas! 

頑張ってね！

[the-bibrarian]

今でもテラスで勉強ができている。天気はちょっと寒いけど、日なたはポカポカする。 Even now, I can still study on the terrace. The weather turned slightly colder, but it’s warm in the sun.

漢字の勉強は本当に面白いのに、時々数の多さに圧倒される。まだまだいくらでもあるよねー！ Studying kanji is really interesting, but the sheer number is a little overwhelming sometimes. There are always so many more!

とにかく、外で勉強、ひなた、秋など、楽しんでいる。☀️🍁🍂✏️ Anyway, I’m enjoying it, studying outside, the sunshine, autumn, etc.

[the-bibrarian]

接辞の漢字：仕事 (せつじのかんじ：しごと） Kanji as affixes: activities/work (or, how to make a new word by sticking a kanji at the end of another: jobs edition)

〜者 (しゃ) 

医者 (いしゃ) → doctor 

記者 (きしゃ) → reporter

学者 (がくしゃ) → scholar

研究者 (けんきゅうしゃ) → researcher

教育者 (きょういくしゃ) → educator

 〜手 (しゅ)

歌手 (かしゅ) → singer

投手 (とうしゅ) → pitcher

選手 (せんしゅ) → player

運転手 (うんてんしゅ) → driver

 〜員 (いん) 

議員 (ぎいん) → member of an assembly

駅員 (えきいん ) → station employee

店員 (てんいん) → salesperson (shop’s employee)

船員 (せんいん) → sailor

会社員 (かいしゃいん) → company employee

銀行員 (ぎんこういん) → bank clerk

図書館員 (としょかんいん) → librarian

〜家 (か) 

画家 (がか) → painter

小説家 (しょうせつか) → novelist

政治家 (せいじか) → politician

音楽家 (おんがくか) → musician

写真家 (しゃしんか) → photographer

〜屋 (や) 

本屋 (ほんや) → bookshop

米屋 (こめや) → rice store

花屋 (はなや) → flower shop

肉屋 (にくや) → butcher

魚屋 (さかなや) → fish shop

酒屋 (さかや) → liquor shop

薬屋 (くすりや) → drugstore

写真屋 (しゃしんや) → photo shop

〜業 (ぎょう) 

工業 (こうぎょう) → industry

商業 (しょうぎょう) → commerce

農業 (のうぎょう) → agriculture

林業 (りんぎょう) → forestry

漁業 (ぎょぎょう) → fishery

観光業 (かんこうぎょう) → tourism industry

サービス業 (サービスぎょう) → service industry

[the-bibrarian]

読み物：working on translating a text from Basic Kanji Book. (feat. pretty autumn leaves) 紅葉（こうよう）: (noun/suru verb) autumn colours, leaves changing colours.

[the-bibrarian]

Is my Japanese textbook trying to teach me about economics?? Because I’m not having any of it!

フランスの南で暖かい天気が続いています。日向ぼっこしながら、勉強しています。秋は、夕方近くの光は美しいですね。