There's an App for that.

I downloaded a ‘Learn Japanese!’ app recently of which I’ve completed the first four lessons. The CDs we’ve been listening to are good up to a point, but seem to move too quickly when you don’t have any visual reference points. It’s difficult to even pick out the pronunciation sometimes, without being able to actually see the word and get a feel for how things are put together. Knowing how to say a full sentence by rote is very different to understanding how the sentence is put together and how the words work individually within it. The App is good for this – I now understand about sentence particles, and how the Japanese avoid pronouns. Instead of saying ‘I eat’ or ‘he eats’ or ‘they eat’, you just say ‘eat’ and then use context to figure out who you mean. Sounds a bit weird but I guess it works.

Our big coast trek from Bundeena to Otford was supposed to be this weekend, but after all the coordination there were no campsites left when I called to book. Of course. I feel a bit stupid for having left it so late but it was a backhanded blessing, in a way, what with the weather being so unbearable. The main problem is that we can’t find another weekend to do it until April at the earliest, so we’ll need to get it sorted out quickly otherwise we’ll have the other extreme and it’ll be too cold.

Next weekend, however, is Tasmania. Tasmania!