Trying Something New

I'm pretty excited with a new development in our Japanese language studies. There are two parts to what we do. One is that I try to use Japanese around the house as much as I am able, and encourage my kids to use what they know as well. This, my gut tells me is the more important of the two things, but the second is that we have some kind of instruction on grammar and vocabulary. Only, finding something that works for Hero(8) has been tough. He didn't like Mango, and he *really* doesn't like the podcast lessons that work so well for me; they're just too fast-paced for him. So, yesterday, when I was at Half-Priced Books, I grabbed a book about learning to read Japanese.

It's pretty cool; teaches things very incrementally. And we sat down and started writing. With my fancy brush pens that we haven't used in a long time. And both boys were totally on board with the idea, but Hero was really liking it. Instant success. A small enough amount of information - he controlled how far he went in the lesson - that he could handle integrating it. They had arranged it so that, with only 2 letters, he could write 3 words. He liked that. Even Dragon could do that, though he keeps writing the one letter sideways.

So, I got to thinking about it. I have been really resistant to the idea of getting a textbook and learning lists and doing things that way. But. This looks really promising. Only, when I read in the front of the book, this one is light on grammar, and recommends getting another to shore that up, so that you can really understand the sentences, once we have enough letters to start writing phrases and sentences. So I dusted off my first textbook that I used to use in college. Really, I don't like it. It's dry, and some of the dialogs have always struck me as being just plain dumb. (Are these socks nylon? Cotton? I'll take it.) But he doesn't have to learn the way I do, and he is much happier using the texts than he is with the podcasts; their pace is just too fast for him. And I prayed about it - it was in praying that I remembered that I have it, because I haven't looked at it in ages - and I think it's going to work. And that's pretty exciting.