Yesterday Eiji and I started crossing over! 
What I mean by that of course is that we started changing parts of our daily lives that would normally be in English into Japanese. Sure, we’ve been watching Japanese TV and listening to Japanese Radio, but what about the internet? And how about the way we navigate around our computers? We were hoping to be able to change the entire system language over to Japanese, but we’re both running a version of Windows 7 that is not the ultimate-beyond-professional-amazing-you-paid-out-the-nose-for-only-a-few-more-features version, so that’s not an option for us. But, no excuses! (This is becoming our motto, I think.) So we renamed most of our folders, with the intention of renaming all we can, and spent the day with our noses in Japanese dictionaries. Having already installed the Japanese keyboard, we made sure to type in each word ( no copy/pasting 
How does that help you learn?!) and in the end we felt pretty proud of ourselves. We’re not even sure if the words we chose are accurate, but that’s the excitement in learning. As we go we’ll pick up words and if they need to be changed, we’ll change them.
Momo’s Laptop
Momo’s Desktop
Eiji’s Laptop & Desktop
I know what you’re thinking, right?! 
すごい！ Where can I get me some of those RAD icons?!
The icons and wallpaper I used are by Raindrop Memory, and the icon set I used for my laptop can be found here, and the second icon set can be found here! But his general icon set gallery (with stuff I didn’t use) is really awesome too, and it’s here!
Eiji’s icons set, for you sophisticated types, 
can be found here.
And yes, I just used the word “rad”.
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6 Responses to Crossing Over & Making Do
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Learning Japanese At Home
Our goal for Kanji & Tea, aside from sharing our struggles and successes, is to help provide the everyday person with all the tools necessary to learn Japanese on their own through everyday immersion.
Such a good idea! Glad you’ve got it out to the world (and with such cute icons and backgrounds!). I did something similar a month or so ago, and at first I was realllly slow at navigating my folders, but in a few weeks, I’m nearly at English-folder-reading-and-clicking speed!
Your blog is great, can’t wait to see how it develops and read all about your adventures and ideas ^^
ありがとう！I’m hoping I get used to it really soon because what used to take me three minutes is now taking me six or seven! =]
Okay, you have the cutest computer I think I’ve ever seen. Where did you get all those adorable graphics?? And props on spending the time to rename everything – always a great idea to insert Japanese wherever you can.
Thank you! Gosh, I didn’t think to include a link! The icons and wallpaper for my laptop are by Raindrop Memory. The icons I used for my laptop can be found here and the second icon set can be found here! (So you don’t have to dig!) I think they’re great because I open my laptop and am already feeling my immersion.
Thanks so much for the links! I’m excited to get these icons all over the place ^-^ Although… I’m having just a bit of trouble with them… They all have a black background when I use them for some reason. Did you ever have this problem? If not no worries, it’s probably because I have a Mac haha XD
Oh dear, no I didn’t have that issue (but I’m on PC) but it’s funny because I thought he had Mac ready icons for download as well. Did you check and see if there was another link for Mac specific?