Day "2", futsuka kan I call this entry "Day 2" because it is the second day I have made an entry. It is not the second day since I started though. It has been almost two months since my first entry. My admonition (request) to practice every day was prophetic (predicted the future). I picked up a book that seems like it will be very helpful for an English speaker to learn Japanese. "Remembering the Kanji". In short, it teaches the meanings of the Kanji in English. It does not use hiragana or romaji at all. This lets the brain learn the ideograph/picture in its native language. The theory is that it is easier to learn to associate pictures with words you know than to learn BOTH pictures and new words. Let's see how well I execute (perform) based on that theory. The first (and incorrect) translation was futsuka kan. Kan, meaning length of time and futsuka... meaning two I guess? I'm still new at this. But it means "2 days" not an "ordinal" number like first, second, third... Back to the title of this post "Day 2" or "The second day". Google translate says: the second day 2日目 2-Nichi-me My Kanji book calls those Day and Eye. Google calls the triple box (think of an eye drawn tall with straight lines) "me", but calls the two box (sun smiling, again drawn in boxy right angles) kanji "Hi" I will research these later this week, but for now I will associate them as "2 day eye... today I... and think of tomorrow as the second day. Because we are always going to be productive tomorrow, the second day from today. What do you think of those associations? I hope they will help me learn Japanese well over the next year. I am optimistic that I make go from zero to N1 by next December, but I will be happy even if I only manage to get to N2. That is still a major accomplishment for only one year. Remember, a little practice each day is better than a lot of practice every two months!