on typing

I have learned how to type Japanese fairly quickly, and a knowledge of Chinese is again particularly useful - I have started limited experiments with kanji in my homework, and although it is complex, I feel very able to handle everything - ku-ji, Honkon, yuubinnkyoku, rainen - and will continue to balance hiragana and katakana with a judicious use of kanji.

I'm finding prior knowledge of Chinese to make the process of learning Japanese tolerable and even pleasant despite the huge volume of work...

onward!

As with many beginner language classes, we have progressed from fun, easy, novelty to the serious stuff: the transition to the sheer memorization and brute force that is the unavoidable part acquiring any language so different from my own. The volume of work is difficult but by no means impossible - it is inevitable that one will spend this much time outside of class reviewing if classtime is to be worthwhile.

I think maybe in the second half of the semester we could progress to more regular tests - for the time being, the barrage of quizzes and homework is sufficient to move us into hiragana, and later on katakana.

Right now, the challenge is finding the sheer amount of time needed to complete all the work - once I can devote the time, it's not too difficult.