Is keeping a Japanese blog a good way to hone skills?

[HeyItsBryan]

I've noticed a few people here do this, and was wondering if blogging has been a help to you guys. See, I've been teaching myself pretty diligently for the past two months, but I've only been focusing on vocab and not actually forming sentences. I know speaking Japanese in conversation is probably the best way to learn, but since I can't do that until the school year starts, I figured keeping a blog would be the next most helpful thing.

Here is my first entry:

こんばんはみんなーさん！ブラヤンですとわたしはアメリカージンです。にほんごのをべんきょうします。だから、これブログをつくりました。いつわたしのにほんごのがふかです、わたしをためなおすおねがいします！

じゃあ、はじめまして！またこんど。

Is it remotely coherent? My kanji knowledge is very, very limited so I figured starting out with kana might be a bit more manageable...

Any advice would be really appreciated. I need all the help I can get, heh.

Thanks guys!

[annie]

Keeping a Japanese blog is a great idea; you should find someone who will correct it for you. See if you can find a language exchange partner who is interested in that sort of thing, so that you can correct each other's written work.

I can work out what you're saying, but you'll probably want to focus on particle usage, specifically の.

And I think it's okay to use kanji, even when you're first learning. Don't necessarily take the time to learn how to write them yet, but if you're using the computer it's easy to convert from hiragana to kanji... and added bonus, you know you're spelling things correctly.... like アメリカ人

[gordonmac]

Hi,

I have been doing exactly that using Mixi. You can post diaries there, and you can also read native speaker's diaries too.

The best thing about Mixi is the interaction with other users. There are Japanese people learning English, there are native English speakers learning Japanese, and best of all there are many "communities" within Mixi that focus on learning languages and language exchange.

The small group of contacts I have acquired there are really very helpful. One person is a Japanese lady who teaches English to Japanese students.

If you're not already a member of Mixi you can PM me your e-mail address and I'll send you an invitation.

[rssol0420]

I think this is absolutely a good way to improve your japanese.

Hi Gordan could you send me an invitation of mixi? I have sent a pm to you with my email address

[TheProfessorOne]

One thing I can say from personal experience is that anything I do by way of visual or audio helps me.

Seeing the kanji, hiragana, katakana helps me big time. I am new to Japanese and have very little vocab, so keeping a full journal would be next to impossible right now. However, just practicing on my own personal website is fun and gives me an opportunity to learn.

I say go for it.

[fake_toshu]

I've actually been looking for a good way to work on my Japanese skills and this Mixi thing looks like a great idea.

Gordan-san, if I PM you my email address would you mind terribly sending me an invitation as well?

[jaypunkrawk]

Of course another great tool, especially for using mixi, is the Rikaichan plug-in for Mozilla Firefox...it's a must have!

http://polarcloud.com/rikaichan

Anyone else want to be my mixi friend? I don't know how to make friends on there. It's definitely not as easy as myspace or facebook.

[Fedgrub]

Mixi sounds great! I PM'd you Gordon. Thanks man.