I thought I might occasionally write about how my Japanese language learning is going.
My thoughts so far:
1. I have realised that I want to know much more than conversational Japanese. I want to be able to read things properly. It has become clear to me in a way that I hadn't thought about before that it is quite important that I learn Japanese as neither my sister nor I (or my cousin) can speak or read Japanese and there are still so many of our family matters in Japan.
2. I am finding it hard to discover a suitable course to follow. At the moment I am using NHK for conversation and I am using a Kana workbook and CD in the Oxford University Language Library for writing and reading.
3. It is weird that there seems to be no proper selection of interactive Japanese courses – language learning games and so on. There are loads for people to learn English but I can't find many that go the other way – for people to learn Japanese. I guess perhaps the demand is not so high?
4. In reading and writing I have learned:
あ い う え お
which is: a i u e o
It is very pleasing that I can now recognise these symbols. I keep seeing them everywhere in Japanese text and thinking to myself 'ah ha! I know what that is, it is an 'a'' or whatever. It is a very different feeling from learning something like German which has the same alphabet as English.
5. I do actually feel I am making progress every day. I study for half an hour at lunch and then try to remember what I have learned on my cycle home after work.
6. It would be good if I could speed up my rate of learning.
7. Practicing the writing is very helpful in remembering the letters.
8. My father loaned me one of his textbooks (picture above) that he had found from when he
was a kiddie in Japan learning at school. This is so advanced from
where I am now!
9. I have this goal in my mind of being able to pick up a Japanese book or magazine and be able to read it straight through.
10. またね (that says 'bye!' in a casual way… well I think so anyway! :D)
