Learning Japanese

A little while back I was going manga shopping with someone who wouldn’t have the greatest interest in manga or anime. This particular person (let’s call them G) still flicks through my blog and at times this person can be a valuable wealth of constructive criticism. When I was buying manga and G tagged along I was able to prattle on about the different series and explain the appeal of some and the utter hopelessness of some others. If I knew any information at all about a series, I spouted it all out like a hot kettle. Going so far as to explain the history behind some of the more abstract manga publishing companies. While I thought G had a glazed expression in a complete tuned-out state, G was slowly soaking it up. Later that evening G suggested the idea that perhaps I could try to expand my blogging capacity a bit and write a big about the companies behind the anime and manga, if I knew about them.

Now I bet your thinking, “What has this got to do with learning Japanese…?” To be truthful, G also commented that if I loved the culture  so much, perhaps I should try to pick up the language a bit. Little did G know that I actually tried to learn Japanese two years ago but I was completely put off by the book I took out from the library. It was overwhelming stuff. Something along the lines of “Argh! Why did I even think about doing this!” So confusing in fact, I gently closed the book and shuffled back to the library to return it a week later. I would have described as putting a toddler in tank, “Here’s the clutch, the pedals and over there is the big red button for shooting things.” Me being the toddler and Japanese language being the tank, I couldn’t even reach the big red button, never mind shooting things. I didn’t know that this book only had kanji symbols, which would be the most difficult aspects of Japanese language to grasp.

So yesterday was my epiphany. The equivalent of a toddler with a slingshot and endless supply of rocks, I’m gonna learn Japanese and be awesome at it. So let’s take a look at the basic’s so far. Japanese can be divided into three different sections as a language, but even worse all three types can be used in a single sentence.

Hiragana- This is the most basic of kana (plural kanji) learned by young Japanese children. (hence, why I’m a toddler) It has 46 basic kana and overall has 101. At the moment, I’m trying to focus on the basic 46 before even looking at the entire list.

Katakana-This used to describe foreign names or places. Personally, I think that katakana looks a bit easier then the Hiragana kana but knowing both lists are a requirement. There are 110 kana in total for katakana.

Kanji-Now this is the motherload of Japanese language. It’s a lot more complicated than either of the other two systems. Over ten thousand different symbols, but someone is thought to be in fluent in the language when they can understand the everyday two thousand kanji used.

Sounds like fun but it’s gonna be a challenge.