Discouragement

[flemmings]

I've had a nagging feeling for several months that puzzling through Chinese sentences was somehow having a bad effect on my Japanese. Didn't really seem to affect how I read manga, so dismissed it as an illusion. Until today when I tried reading a fan novel- one of the Goujun x Kenren ones avalonjones sent me- and discovered I was right. Basic problem: I don't read hanzi as Chinese, I read them as English. Give me the same character in Japanese and though I know what it means, my mind now struggles to remember the Japanese word-- since it lacks the not quite seen but definitely *there* furigana of the manga. 'Kobamu-- yodomu-- no, *hasamu* what-the-hey-does-that-mean-in-this-contxt?'

It's a bitter struggle, I tell you.

Comments

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

LOL! I have resolved to make flash cards and study my hanzi. Too often I know what a character must mean in context but don't know now to pronounce it or what it means stand alone.

Meant to ask ... there's a new seasonal allergy pill that just went over the counter and have you tried it? But can't pull the name of it out of the cesspit that is my brain. Will have to ask later when I'm home.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Eternal study is the price of hanzi literacy. This goes double for kanji and their multiple readings, which I'm inclined to curse today.

I generally don't use brand-name seasonal allergy pills. If I get tickly throats and sneezes the generic handles it well. As for the sinus infection of Doom that's currently going the rounds... that's why God made antibiotics.