Day 174

Well...I am getting better at my hiragana and katakana. I printed out a sheet with both set of characters on it so I could study it while waiting for customers. I figured they couldn't get me in trouble for looking at a piece of paper. It wasn't proving to be very affective though, because even though I tried to black out the part of the print out that showed the sound of each character, I could still see them.

I also realized that while I can identify most of the character by sight, I can't write them down from memory. So I started with one set of five syllables, hiragana and katakana for each, making ten characters to memorize and write. Then I went on to the second set, then added the second to the first. When those were decently memorized I moved on to the third set. I got to about five sets, fifty characters, before I went home today.

The last set isn't very strong in my head, either, but I was getting tired of looking at a piece of paper and not remembering what are essentially a formation of lines in a fairly basic style. It was getting annoying and I wasn't letting myself have it easy by reasoning that it was hot and I was being interrupted by customers. Then again, the longer it takes to perfect, the longer I can use it as a distraction.