私の事情、今

 ６？９？月（ぐらい）、Ankiと読書（大東京ビンボー生活マニュアル、日本語Graded Readers、レシピ）で、勉強と練習をしました、から、そのポーストを書くことができますよ。

Facebookの日本語グループ、ありがとうございました。多分手伝いました。

読書がまだ難しい、そして聞くことがあまりできません。でも、嬉しい、去年よりかんたんの方がだよ。

So Anki + reading things I enjoy at long last is working. May it do the same for you.

An old-fashioned way to say "no."

Got some help from the FB group 日本語, understanding this panel from 大東京ビンボ―生活マニュアル. They say drop the -u at the end of a verb; replace with -a and add ず, and you have an old-fashioned but still used way of saying ないで ("don't" or "without...").

I tried all the different verb endings, both -ru and -iru/-eru, plus the two irregulars する and 来る, and Google Translate agrees they mean what's predicted. I'd say we're good.

食べらず。
買あず。帰らず。待たず。書かず。泳がず。死なず。飛ばず。飲まず。話さず。
来らず。しらず。

Fits 彼女's personality: she is competent and polite, and she's at a traditional event, so it makes sense she'd go a little retro in her speech.

(Mostly) automated construction of Anki flashcards

So I have a new method, and it's not terrible. :)

Get the text in. If it's a web page, I cut and paste. If it's a printed page, I use the Google Translate app. (As you can see, it struggles sometimes, but it's better than digging it all out myself.)

Put it in the Takoboto app. This picks out keywords. I select the ones and put them in a list.

Then I send that list to AnkiDroid. (Don't send each card -- the rest of this won't work.)

Problem was that it gave me a card that either was English->Japanese; or if Japanese->English, shows the furigana on the front with the kanji. But I want to have to provide the pronunciation, so I want it on the back.

I went into Anki on the PC (it's too hard to edit on the tablet), Tools > Manage Note Types > jp.takoboto > Cards, made sure Japanese > English was selected, and edited appropriately (the cards are written in HTML).

It's working for now at least.

私のレシピ：砂糖なしのきんぴら

材料
にんじん 2本
茸の出汁 1/2 杯分
酒             1 大さじ
醤油         1/2 大さじ
ごま油     1小さじ
米酢         1小さじ

作り方
にんじんを千切りになる。鍋の中に全部を入れる，弱火する、20分少くなくとも、にんじんが柔らかくまで。かんたんね！

単語 (vocabulary)

Trying a new trick; not done with it.

First, I've been able to get Anki to stop being so hard I can't learn (I tend to forget the word as soon as I'm no longer looking at the flashcard). Bury enough cards that you've only got like 3; then learn them.

I want to automate the process.  Looks like someone's gone a long way toward it:

https://nihongo-e-na.com/eng/hint/id750_1.html

This gets you an Excel spreadsheet with the word; the ふりがな; and the English meaning.

This page looks like it has a way to convert Excel to Anki by way of a .csv file:

https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-make-my-Excel-list-turn-into-a-Anki-deck

I haven't tested it yet, but will soon.

精進料理

精進料理 (Shoujin ryouri, Japanese Buddhist monk cuisine) is vegan, healthy, simple, and...maybe too simple. I've been looking through the "Look inside!" excerpt on Amazon Japan. Carrot soup: carrots, butter, salt, water. Yeah, I think I see that. But I'm spoiled.

Still, I'm getting a lot from these recipes. にんじん、ばたー、塩、水．材料；作りの方.

来週ポテトサラダを作りますよ：パセリとマスタードをいれます。ごぼう(burdocks)のご飯ーーたぶん；にんじんを使います、でも、ごぼうがバージニアにあります。英語の料理本と、カレーのカリフアワーのタコス、「秋のボール」（日本の文化であること、わかりません）、昼ご飯の作ります。最近(these days)、料理が大好きです！

レシピたち

一年ぐらいがありました。忙しかったーとても！本を書きました。違うことたちありました。
一こと：exercise, good health, healthy調理. と楽しかったね。でもー日本語にconnect withできますか？[If all that's too garbled... One thing: exercise, good health, healthy cooking [I guess that's one thing]. It's been lots of fun. But--can I connect it with Japanese?
はい、すごい。ウェブサイトがfound.  ここ少しがあります：

https://cookpad.com/
https://www.oishiiamerica.com/
https://www.orangepage.net/

I figure the small subject area will make me able to handle vocabulary (I hope!) in this limited area.

I forget words almost as soon as I read them, I'm afraid. But I already got 小さじand大さじ(teaspoon and tablespoon -- how happy I am to not have to learn metric for everything!).

I'm back in Kanji Study and have reinstalled Anki. Maybe I'll post the Anki deck I'm creating for cooking later.

And I am very excited to have found and ordered Grandma's Shojin Ryori -- a book on how to do the shoujin ryouri, Buddhist/vegan style of cooking, which is rare, mostly I just see picture books (!) -- and I got it in Japanese -- and I ordered it from the U.S. so it won't cost my firstborn in shipping.