Day 71 (Osaka) : [Insert witty title here]

Not much to report today. Went out for some eats with people and came home to study. The only thing I feel really confident about right now is the kanji that I'm reviewing. The funny part is that the average Japanese person automatically assumes that learning kanji is the most difficult part about studying the Japanese language. From my perspective kanji is the easiest part of the language to study. It only takes a few minutes each day to drill out some writing practice before characters and their meaning become locked into muscle memory and the brain takes care of the rest.

The really difficult obstacle to over come is the grammar and sentence structure since it is so different from English. The style of instruction at the school is what I like to call the "hit and run" method. Each day we cover six kanji, about ten minutes of pronunciation practice, and then on to the text book to review some new grammar or sentence structure. Since there is zero review, you pretty much have to commit everything to memory in a 24 - 48 hour window before you move on to the next lesson. I think they would be much better off including a separate work book, answer key, and audio tracks like any of the other major text books in circulation.