Hail to the Hive!

We are now halfway through our three month return to Jamaica and while staying at @millycf1976’s parents house I have fallen into a bit of a morning routine. This routine consists mostly of brewing Jamaican High Mountain Coffee and consuming it (I don’t really eat breakfast usually) and doom scrolling on the internet while sat on the veranda. I have decided in the last days to try and use this time more productively so I have resumed my much neglected Japanese studies.

It is a pleasant setting and after an update on one of the apps I am using, as I use several, I was pleasantly surprised at the improvements and also how much I had remembered from before. As it had been a while I had gone back to the basics and started with the Hiragana and Katakana Alphabets. The Kanji will enter later. Yup thats right there are 3 alphabets! This will call for more coffee to help me focus ( which for me it does ).

The screen shots shown are from the Duo Lingo app I am using.

It’s a warm morning but sitting on the cool tiles on the veranda while I sip coffee and listen to the prompts is really very pleasant.

Whereas before I had a pen and paper handy to write the aplhabet characters to help retain them, this app also has a writing lesson section which helps solidify it in the memory.

This was something I either didn’t realise was there before or was recently added as an update. I’m not entirely sure but I am finding it useful.

The coffee is equally as useful to me as well during these morning study sessions. After each little lesson a sip, or large gulp, of the black golden focus juice helps tune in the mind to the next task at hand.

The lessons are a mix of listening comprehension, writing, reviews and stories.

Making you use the characters and words you hear, identify them and put them together on screen.

After a couple of hours of these sessions and a pot of black gold I then, with my last cup, fire up youtube and relax and just listen to a compilation of general Japanese words and phrases with relaxing music. I find these generally cover a lot of the same ground I am currently studying at my level and it’s quite nice to let it wash over my brain as I sip my last morning cup and listen.

Source : This Screen shot is taken from Japanese Pod 101 on youtube.

I generally listen this for about 20 to 30 mins and sometimes again in the evening as well but it kind of rounds off my morning coffee Japanese session nicely. It’s also a very pleasant classroom don’t you think?

And this, ladies and gentlemen of #hive, is my morning coffee routine while at the in laws.