The New Year is approaching, and I wish everyone a Happy 2013! I hope you’re excited for the New Year and not worrying about any silly apocalypse-type situation:
As for me? I have two New Year’s resolutions:
- Finish the Heisig method for all 2200 kanji. I am 10% complete after 2 months. :p
- Lose 40 pounds in a year, as my doctor strongly recommended.
- Finish all 100 poems in my other blog: the Hyakunin Isshu. Thankfully I am more than halfway done there.
We’ll see if I can complete all three. 
Optionally, I am also debating about taking the JLPT N1 exam, but that requires a lot of preparation, and I am not sure I can commit to that yet.
Also, sorry for all those who got a few extra posts in the mail recently. I was writing those posts for January 2013, but wrote 2012 instead. :-p
Anyway……for those who are curious, here’s how you can say Happy New Year in Japanese and/or Korean:
- Japanese: あけまして おめでとうございます。 (akemashite omedetō gozaimasu)
- Korean: 새해 복 많이 받으세요. (saehae bog manhi padeuseyo)
Happy New Year!
P.S. For you young kids, the video above is from the original Ghostbusters movie. I watched it when I was 8 years old, and it scared the hell out of me. ;p I love it now though.
P.P.S. Depending on where you live, I posted this early to catch readers in Asian time-zones (the first ones to reach 2013).
Love you.
Happy New Year, Doug.
Happy New Year, Doug!
Thank you for everything! Keep up the good work!
From the heart,
Petru
Hey Doug, Happy New Year.
I know you’re well into the Heisig method now so you won’t want to change part way through but I just thought I’d mention a tool I’ve found super useful for remembering the kanji. It’s called Slime Forest, and is available from:
http://lrnj.com/
Have you heard of it? It uses a similar story-telling system as Heisig but in a spaced-repetition-system (SRS) within a vintage-style computer game. I know you’re into vintage games so I thought you might like to at least look at it. In addition to teaching individual kanji, it also teaches the readings of kanji in real vocabulary (some more useful than others I have to say – I can’t ever imagine having to use the Japanese for “Imperial investiture” for example).
Anyhow, I wish you and your family a wonderful 2013,
Sarah
Hi Everyone! Wow, quite a lot of replies. Thanks for the happy new year wishes.
@Sarah: welcome to the JKLLR. I’ll check out Slime Forest; it looks interesting.
btw Doug, I’ve been here before! ;o) I posted on your “High Blood Pressure” entry. I should have mentioned Slime Forest sooner but I didn’t think of it until now. I enjoy your blog. Keep up the good work.
Good heavens you’re right! Sorry about that. I’d like to believe its because I have lots of readers to keep track of, but really it’s just bad memory. ;-p
No problem Doug, I only posted once so it’s a bit much to expect you to remember.
You can download a free version of Slime Forest (308 kanji in the recognition tests) just to try it out. Have fun.
あけまして おめでとうございます! I have also started Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji and have it as my New Year’s resolution to master it in 2013!
Nice! Good luck! I hope we both finish in 2013.
Thank you! Good luck to you too ^.^