Hello! I haven't posted anything in AGES!

I have been so busy writing. But I plan on coming back.

Stay tuned if my content is of interest for you :)

Thank you.

A little tip for learning a new language is to watch television without subtitles.
I'm actually watching right now a cooking show on Youtube, and I've learned some new words already. :)

(This is for the Japanese language.)

I want to share with you three words I learned today:

1) 折る - Oru - To fold, to bend
2) 小麦 - Komugi - Wheat
3) とろとろ - Torotoro - simmering; brimming, sticky

This is very short, I know, but hopefully you can learn something.
I want to update more often, but bare with me for a few days >,<
Thank you for reading! Until next time :)

I haven't updated! I'm sorry >,<
I'll make sure I do today. It's been quite a busy few days.

I'm considering making this page focus on Japanese, as well, since I mostly (or only, really) post about Japanese. It's the one Asian language I know best, despite loving so many others too, like Korean, Mandarin, and Hindi. I guess I haven't been motivated lately.

But I'll post today, I promise. >,<

Studying Mandarin and Korean language became a bit too much for me for some time, partly because I got too invested in studying Japanese. I do still love these languages, and also still have an interest in learning Hindi (which is why I named this page Iloveasianlanguages) but I admit I'm still a complete beginner in all of these. Well, not so much so about Korean, but still I know too little for it to count.

I think what I will do with these - which will motivate me too - is that I will begin studying with one of my old books, and share the whole experience here with you readers :)
I think that will be fun, and helpful to you as well.

Hopefully I will begin with this little experiment next week, and also come back with more Kanji to share.

Kanji Review

Hello everyone!
I meant to upload this sooner, but here it is! The review of all Kanji I've shared here.

1)　曜  you - Day of the week

2)　主  Shu, su, nushi - Master; omo(na) - Main

3)　筆  Fude, hitsu - Brush, writing　

4)　文  Bun, mon - Writing, letters; Fumi - letter

5)　仕  Shi, tsuka(eru) - Serve

6)　売  U(ru), Bai - Sell

7)　化  Ka, Ke, Ba(keru) - to change form; Ba(kasu) to bewitch

8)　工 Ku, Ko - Construction

9)　史 Shi - History

10)　代 Dai - Generation, price; Tai, Ka(waru) - Substitute; Yo - Age, generation; Shiro - Price, substitute

11)　交 Kou, Maji(ru) - Become mixed; Maji(eru) mix; Maji(waru) associate with, mingle with; Kawa(su) exchange (like talk).

12)　相 Sou - Aspect, phase; Shou - Government, minister; Ai - Mutual

13)　古 Ko, Furu(i) - old

14)　安 An - Peace; Yasu(i) cheap, easy to do

15)　軍 Gun - Military force, Army

16)　里 Ri, Sato - Village, natice place

17)　石 Ishi, Seki, Shaku - Stone; Koku - a unit of capacity

18)　玉 Tama, Gyoku - Jewel, orb

19)　理 Ri - Reason

20)　元 Moto, gen, gon - Origin

21)　取 To(ru), shu - Take

22)　用 You - Business, errand; Mochi(iru) Use

23)　糸 Ito, shi - Thread

24)　支 Shi - Branch; Sasa(eru) Support

I hope you find this useful, and helpful for your studies! Kanji is interesting and fun, but also quite hard to master! But that challenge is part of the fun for me. Be on the lookout for more Kanji here. Until next time! : )

This week's Kanji, set 2

Hello everyone! Here is the second set of Kanji for the week.

Like the others, all of these I had previously studied, so I'm still sort of reviewing stuff I had forgotten (mostly the readings, for most in this set).

1)　理　- ri - Reason, principle

2)　元 - gen, gan, moto - origin

3)　取 - shu, to(ru) - take

4)　用 - you - business, errand; mochi(iru) - use

5)　糸 - Ito, shi - thread

6)　支 - shi - branch; sasa(eru) - support


There you have them! I hope you are studying with me! Or at least revising some Kanji.

Next week there will not be new Kanji; instead, I'll review all the Kanji I've introduced here. I hope you enjoyed this little blog, and that you learned something with me. :)

Until next time!

I will soon be posting the Katakana syllabary here. Next week, though, I plan on posting about other Asian Languages as well, if I can.

Stay tuned if you want to learn a bit about Katakana, and learn the full syllabary :)

This Week's Kanji, first set

Hello everyone! I want to share the Kanji I'll be reviewing this week. Again I'll be looking at some Kanji I had previously studied, but for lack of practice I either forgot some of the meanings, or forgot how to write them!

This is the first set of two sets of six I'll be reviewing.

Here they are:

1) 古  Ko, Furu(i) - Old

(I cannot believe I forgot how to write this one lol)

2) 安  An - Peace, calm; Yasu(i) - Cheap; -yasu(i) easy to (do) (*suffix)

3) 軍  Gun - Army, military force

4) 里  Ri - an old linear unit; Sato - Village, birth place

5) 石  Seki, Shaku, Ishi - Stone; Koku - a unit of capacity

6) 玉  Tama, gyoku - Jewel

These are the Kanji! I'm studying with a (very) good book; it's called 'Essential Kanji' by P.G. O'Neill. I'm not affiliated with the publisher in any way, and this is not sponsored or connected to them in any way, this is just my personal recommendation as a student to other students who might be interested in knowing what I'm using to study. I do recommend this book, I think it's very helpful how it presents the Kanji, very organized.
I do, however, recommend that you get an additional dictionary for further reference, it's what I'm doing. I use the 'Kodansha Kanji Learners' Dictionary' in addition to this book; I used it alone for years, and it's very, very good. I think using them together will be more helpful in my learning.
(Again, I'm not affiliated with them or have any contact with them, even; it's just a recommendation from my experience to you).

I hope you like this post, and if you want to read more from me I have another Blog, dedicated to the Spanish language, and a Twitter Page.
Until next time! :)

I will be posting this week's Kanji later in the day! Come back to see, if you want to learn some Kanji with me :)

Update!
I researched a bit about Hindi Language, and yes, I think I will try to learn Hindi in the (possibly near) future.
I like it, the writing is gorgeous, the sounds are interesting, and it's spoken in many interesting places.
I think I was confusing Hindi with Urdu before, though; I thought for a moment that they were both different dialects of the same Language. (Though I didn't know the other language was Urdu; I though, as I said, it was a variation of Hindi language.)
There is so much I don't know Asian Languages, but I am very intrigued by them and that side of the world.
I might give the Hindi alphabet a try soon; learning the alphabet seems like the first step to take.

This week's Kanji, set 2

A little late, I know, but here is the second set of Kanji I've been looking at this week.

I had previously studied all of these, but some I had forgotten the meaning, while others I had forgotten how to write them. Kanji really it's something that you have to practice in order to retain the knowledge.

1-　史 - Shi - History
2-　化 - Ka, Ke, Ba(keru)(kasu) - To change into; to bewitch
3-　代 - Dai - Generation, price; Tai, Ka(waru) Substitute; Yo - Generation
4-　交 - Kou, Ma(jiru)(jieru)(jiwaru), Kawa(su) - Become mixed, mix; exchange, intercourse
5-　相 - Ai, Sou, Shou - Mutual, Phase, Minister, Aspect
6-　工 - Kou, Ku - Construction

They are all quite simple to write, hopefully their meaning will stick with me this time (lol)
We have to keep practicing, and we'll surely get it ;)

Until next time!

Is Hindi very difficult to learn?

I know I probably am being a little ambitious with Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin, and wanting to add yet another language to look at for studies, but I just really like this side of the world, and this language captured my attention. But I'm not sure whether or not the one I've heard (in music) is the same dialect, or if there are different dialects.

I will do some research, and make a follow up post. In that post I will tell you if there are many dialects, how many, and which one is more convenient to learn.

Who knows? I might embark on a Hindi learning adventure soon! Well, maybe :)

And you? Have you got an interest in Hindi? Have you studied this language? Is the writing hard?
Tell me in the comments.

Kanji I'm learning this week

Hello everyone!
Here I want to share with you a list of the Japanese Kanji I'm learning this week.

I will be giving a try to studying with a book that is arranged with the 2,000 common use Kanji, rather than just studying Kanji I find interesting.
I think a methodical approach like this one might work better for me, since I'm usually quite busy, but we'll see!

Here they are:

1-　曜　You - Day of the week
2-　売　Bai, u(ru) - To sell
3-　主    Shu, su, nushi, omo, aruji - Master, owner, main
4-　筆    Fude, hitsu - Writing brush
5-　文    Bun, mon, fumi - Writing, letters
6-　仕    Shi, ji, tsuka(eru) - Serve, do

This is the first set I will be practicing this week; I intend to practice two sets of six.
I have to mention that I had studied these before, so more than learning, this will be reviewing. I had forgotten how to write at least four of these, and the others, I didn't remember well the meaning, so I decided to start here.

I will update to tell you how it's going, and if I manage to practice the other six this same week.
I hope you can learn something with me, too!

Until next time!

The word 'Meccha' (めっちゃ)

This is a word I learned recently, and it surprises me that I would only learn it by now, since it's used a LOT in the Japanese language.

'Meccha' is short for 'mechakucha', and it means 'extremely', so when you add it to an expression, basically what you do is that you emphasize what you're trying to say, or more like, you exaggerate it.

Some equivalent translations can be: super, absurdly, extremely, mega, ridiculously, very, amazingly

Some examples on how to use this word:
めっちゃ寒い！-  Meccha samui! - It's extremely cold!
めっちゃあつい - Meccha atsui - It's ridiculously hot!
めちゃくちゃかわいい - Mechakucha kawaii - Super cute!
めちゃくちゃ小さい - Mechakucha chiisai - Extremely small

I hope you learned something with me today! This word is used all the time, and you can add it to enlarge pretty much anything you want to describe.
Today I can say it's meccha atsui over here! The heat is on where I live, and it's not even summer yet!

How will you use this word today? Make sure you practice!
Until next time!

I'm going to start this week a new method to learn Japanese Kanji.
Or more like, try out an old method that I didn't really dedicate myself to, before; this time, I will focus.
I might give a try to some Mandarin, too, but at the moment, I'm more focused on Japanese.
Japanese is the first Asian language I started learning, and the one I currently have more knowledge of, but not knowing the Kanji is holding me back.
I have to admit I've been very lazy. I have decided to be more focused, and sharing my experience through this blog, and helping readers study too, I think it will make a difference.
We can learn together :)

This coming week I will see if I can learn twelve Kanji, in two sets of 6.

Next post, I will share which ones I will start with!

By the way, did you check out my previous post? Are you studying your Hiragana?
You can start on the next set if you dominated the first one (あ，い，う，え，お) !

The next set is: か，き，く，け，こ  (ka, ki, ku, ke, ko)

Study!

The Hiragana Syllabary

As promised, here I bring you the full Hiragana syllabary!

As I told you in the previous post, the Hiragana is the first writing system you should learn when you start learning the Japanese language. It is composed of syllables that make every sound in Japanese.

I wrote the pronunciation in parenthesis to the side of each character.

First the vowels:

a　あ  (ah)
i　 い  (ee)
u　う   (oo)
e　え   (eh)
o　お   (oh)

Next, the characters that start with 'K'. Remember, this is a Syllabary, so the consonants will be paired with a vowel to make syllables:

ka　か  ('Kah')
ki　き   ('Kee')
ku　く   ('Koo')
ke　け  ('Keh')
ko　こ  ('Koh')

Now the characters that start with 'S':

sa　さ   (sah)
shi　し  (shee)
su　す  (soo)
se　せ  (seh)
so　そ   (soh)

The characters that start with 'T':

ta 　た   (tah)
chi　ち   (chee)
tsu　つ   (tsoo)
te　て     (teh)
to　と     (toh)

Notice that there is no 'ti' (tee) or 'tu' (too) character; instead, there is 'chi' and 'tsu'.

The characters that start with 'N':

na　な  (nah)
ni　に  (nee)
nu　ぬ  (noo)
ne　ね  (neh)
no　の  (noh)

The ones that start with 'H':

ha　は  (ha)
hi　ひ  (hee)
fu　ふ  (foo; hoo)
he　へ  (heh)
ho　ほ  (hoh)


The ones that start with 'M':

ma　ま  (mah)
mi　み  (me)
mu　む  (moo)
me　め  (meh)
mo　も  (moh)

The ones that start with 'r':

ra　ら  (rah)　
ri　り  (ree)
ru　る  (roo)
re　れ  (reh)
ro　ろ  (roh)

The 'r' sound in Japanese is a bit rolled, and sometimes may resemble an 'l' sound.

Now, the following ones are special, since they create more sounds by being combined with other characters, which you will see in a moment:

ya　や
yu　ゆ
yo　よ

And finally, the characters that start with 'w' and the consonant 'n', which is the only character that stands alone in the syllabary:

wa　わ
wo　を
n　   ん

There are additional sounds, created by adding diacritical marks to the Hiragana characters:

ga　が               pa　ぱ               da　だ              za　ざ               ba　ば
gi　ぎ                pi　ぴ                ji　ぢ                ji 　じ               bi　び
gu　ぐ               pu　ぷ               zu　づ              zu　ず              bu　ぶ
ge　げ               pe　ぺ               de　で 　         ze　ぜ              be　べ
go　ご               po　ぽ              do　ど               zo　ぞ              bo　ぼ

More sounds are created by combining や, ゆ, and よ  with other characters. They have to be written smaller:

kya　きゃ            sha　しゃ               cha　ちゃ           nya　にゃ              hya　ひゃ                
kyu　きゅ            shu　しゅ               chu　ちゅ          nyu　にゅ              hyu　ひゅ                  
kyo　きょ            sho　しょ                cho　ちょ           nyo　にょ              hyo　ひょ                  

rya　りゃ             mya　みゃ            pya　ぴゃ
ryu　りゅ             myu　みゅ           pyu　ぴゅ
ryo　りょ              myo　みょ           pyo　ぴょ

gya　ぎゃ             ja　じゃ                  bya　びゃ        
gyu　ぎゅ             ju　じゅ                 byu   びゅ    
gyo　ぎょ             jo　じょ                  byo　びょ      

If your don't write them smaller, and instead write them side by side, then the new sound is not created; for example, if you write しや instead of  しゃ, you are writing and saying 'Shiya' and not 'Sha'.

This is it for the Hiragana. Previously I told you that the best number of characters to learn at a time is five, and surely you can tell why now after seeing the Hiragana. You can practice each set of five and end with the six ones that are set apart, the や, ゆ, よ, わ, を, and ん characters.

Start today with the vowel sounds あ　い　う　え　お, and progress from there!

Here are five practice words with these characters so that you test yourself and learn some vocabulary on the way:

あい - Love
あお - Blue
おおい - Many, Much, Numerous
いう - To say
いいえ- No

I hope you enjoyed this post. Share with your friends!
Until next time!

Hiragana and Katakana: The Japanese Syllabaries

Hello everyone, and welcome to this Blog!
This is my first Blog post here, and so I thought I'd start by providing you with a nice little tip from my experience with learning the Japanese syllabaries Hiragana and Katakana, in addition to some information about these writing systems. Japanese is the first Asian language I decided to learn, and the one I have the most experience with among the other languages I study.

A syllabary is a writing system that consists of symbols that represent syllables. The Japanese language is written with two syllabaries, called Hiragana (ひらがな) and Katakana (カタカナ), in addition to characters from Chinese origin, called Kanji (漢字) in Japanese. These syllabaries contain all the sounds of the Japanese language.

The Hiragana syllabary is used in children's books, since it's the one children first learn, and in any word that isn't commonly written with Kanji. You will also see Hiragana for the function words or 'particles', and for other words that use uncommon or outdated Kanji.
The Katakana syllabary is used for writing some names, like vegetable, plant, and animal names, for example; it's also used for writing words borrowed from other languages, and names from other languages.

When I first became interested in learning Japanese, after doing a little research, I knew the first thing I had to do was to learn to write the syllabaries. And I had to start with the Hiragana.
The Hiragana is the first writing system taught to children in Japan, and so, it is the first one we learn when we start learning Japanese as a second language as well.
I went online and downloaded a chart that showed the Hiragana and Katakana characters, and decided on a daily goal to accomplish learning them. This was my first step in my introduction to the Japanese language.

I would take five Hiragana characters and get familiarized with them before proceeding to learn five more.
I didn't exactly learn five characters daily, but by setting the five at a time goal, I managed to learn in about a week. I did the same with the Katakana, and I have to admit the Katakana was a bit harder for me, since there are a couple characters that are almost identical! Like for example マ and ム ('ma' and 'mu'). At first I saw them as a sort of upside-down version of each other, and I kept getting them mixed up. (I have to admit I sometimes still do.)
But keeping a five at a time goal, I managed.

This is my little tip for you to learn the syllabaries: set a goal, a small one, and work for it day by day. Five characters a day is a good amount, perfect actually (and you'll see why on my next post) so this is what I recommend. For Kanji, I'm currently doing six at a time.

This is something I want to do with this Blog. I love helping others, and I love the process of learning new languages, so I want to provide my readers here with something they can find useful in their learning, sharing my experiences learning, giving them what has worked for me and what I'm trying new to continue learning. I'm going to be posting lesson type posts here, in which I not only talk about my experience learning, but also provide something to help readers learn. From student to student.

In my next Blog, I will provide you with the full Hiragana syllabary, and the five you should start with. I'll make follow up posts, and include some reading practice for you.

See you here!

Welcome to my Blog!

This little Blog was born out of my passion to learn languages, particularly Asian languages. I'm currently learning Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, and some Italian on the side! I know, Italian is not an Asian language, but it's my little challenge and it resembles my native language, Spanish.
As you can tell, I'm really into learning languages.
I've studied Japanese for years on my own, and recently started Korean after discovering Korean dramas (by the way, if you know some interesting ones, tell me in the comments!).
I've only studied very little Mandarin, but the language fascinates me.
I want to learn more about all of these languages, and help others learn on the way.

I will be posting the Japanese Kanji I'm currently studying, and what I'm doing to learn some Korean and Mandarin. You will also be seeing some tidbits of my Italian learning adventure, and some bits of info and tips about learning languages.

I hope you enjoy reading this Blog, and that there's useful and fun info here for you!

Until next time! The Blog will officially start next Tuesday. See you here!