Happy New Year!

Welcome back to school everyone. It is the start of a New Year. 2018 is the year of the Dog in the Zodiac Calendar. Quickly, what 12 animals are on the Zodiac… GO!

Finished? China and Japan use almost the same animals, but there are a couple differences. See the animal on the bottom, second from the left? In Japan we would say it is a sheep, but in some parts of China they say goat. Also, the bottom right animal is a pig, but Japan uses a Japanese boar (イノシシ).

At New Years, many people make a New Year’s Resolution. Usually people want to stop doing something bad, or start doing something good. Many popular ones are to stop smoking, or to start exercising. For me, I am going to use my train time to study kanji, rather than listening to music or sleeping. How about you? Is there something you want to change this year?

Check out this video. In the video, it says that if you really want a new habit to continue you need to do it for at least 30 days. After that it becomes easier to do. So, give it a try!