Session 1 - Part 1

Genki 1 - Chapter 4

Today I covered Chapter 4 from the Genki 1 textbook which aims to teach you what to say when you are:

• looking for a place (how to get to...)
• meeting up with friends (where you went and what you did) 
• waiting for someone and how long you waited for. 

I will take you through the notes I took this evening; however my review session notes + methods will be included in "Session 1 - Part 2" which will be uploaded tomorrow.

Hope you find this helpful! :) 

This is what I used today to take all my notes! Muji pens, Stabilo pens and highlighter, pencil from Artbox, a red Mildliner and yellow post-it notes. 

Grammar Notes Pages 1 & 2 

Grammar Notes Pages 3 & 4 

Four pages of grammar notes including three dialogues. 

I find it very useful to write down the dialogues without the English translation because when I come back to my notes I can then test not only my reading skills but also my memory. I use a red pen to circle any words or phrases I don't understand (and write the meaning somewhere on the side) and intentionally leave the rest of the text in Japanese.  

The yellow post-it notes are for very important points I need to know in order to avoid making mistakes - given that I already highlight the title of each grammar point, I thought the post-it notes would make those additional points stand out a bit more. 

Flashcards (Grammar)

Afterwards, I make a note of each new grammar point on a flashcard. This will be great reference for me when I revise for the JLPT exam. I try to minimise the number of words I use to make the explanations as short as possible. These flashcards are only supposed to remind me of the grammar points - not explain what they are (the explanations will be in my grammar notebook!) 

Vocabulary book (focus on Kana)

I have two notebooks for vocabulary - one for Kanji and one that focuses on Kana alone (even though I still write the Kanji in brackets) 

Why do I have two notebooks for vocabulary? In order to be competent in any language, you want to be able to not only read and write but also speak the language and understand it when listening to it. 

The kana notebook I will use to test my knowledge of Japanese words and phrases from each chapter - for this you don't need to worry about the Kanji, you just test yourself if you can say the word and understand the meaning when hearing it. 

When I do a review tomorrow morning, I will cover the translation and reveal each word one by one by as I say the meaning out loud. I will make a note of all the words I didn't remember on a separate sheet of paper and upload them onto Memrise and review them until I'm happy with the result. 

Vocabulary book (focus on Kanji)

This is my second notebook where I make a note of all the Kanji from the chapter. I start off by writing out all the Kanji included in the dialogues and then the sentence where each Kanji can be found. You will notice that some Kanji don't have a sentence next to them and that's only because they had already been mentioned in one of the sentences above or below. 

"Additional Kanji" are all the other Kanji listen in the vocabulary section of the textbook. I will also use the empty space below to practice some of the more complicated Kanji like I did at the top of the left page. 

Kana Reference 

One of my main tips would be to keep a kana reference sheet either in your folder or glued somehwere in your notebook (there is a Hiragana sheet underneath) because it will make your life so much easier when you forget a Katakana character (and they are so much easier to forget than the Hiragana ones!)

This is all for now, but please come back tomorrow if you're interested to see how I review these notes :)

Any questions or comments, reach out to me on my Instagram tryingtoostudy

Best,

Daria x