Learning Japanese: Part One (This Might Only Be A One Part Series, So Don't Get Too Excited)

That's right. Japanese. Written by ME.

So as part of diving into the culture, I decided to learn a little (note: tiny, minuscule amount, because who am I kidding?) Japanese. Why not dabble?

I've always been disappointed that I'm not multilingual. I've often griped to my family that I should have at least learned some Danish, but that didn't happen. My grandfather knows it, but the only time I ever hear him use it is when he's hanging out with his girlfriend.

My Bilingual Grandfather and his girlfriend, Cora

Since the age of twelve, I have made several attempts to learn Spanish, mostly because the public school system said, "Rachel, you will take a foreign language or else!" Learning the vocabulary was fairly easy, but when it got time to figuring out where accent marks went and which verb forms to us... it got a little disastrous. I swear, the only reason I got through sophomore year of high school with a good grade was because I made a flamingo piñata. And I don't have artsy-crafsty skills, so if was some kind of crafty miracle.

When I was in college, I had a couple of friends who took Japanese in college. I heard rumors of a writing system that included things called kanji. I heard rumors that there are 8 million (my approximation) kanji characters. I reasoned that I was was too lazy to learn a language that asks that much of me.

And now we reach the present. So my boyfriend started learning Japanese via this angry drunk guy named Namasensei (called so because of his profound love of alcohol) on Youtube. He told me I should learn along with him, but I was still convinced that I was too lazy to learn. But then Japan class happened and gave me that little push I needed. Here's a taste of Namasensei's teaching methods. For your viewing pleasure:

Take that Rosetta Stone!

So I listened to Namasensei and practiced writing hiragana (not kanji, they're different, oh look! I learned something!) As I wrote the hiragana, I felt my body physically revolt. I don't draw or anything, the only thing that comes out of a pen/cil via my hand via my brain are English letters, and on a very rare occasion, numbers. I feel like my reaction to the hiragana is happening due to: 1. My unfamiliarity with the characters 2. Anxiety that I'm not writing anything correctly. But after some very methodical practice (writing the same hiragana character 50 times) it hasn't been that bad.

For some reason, my brain's having even more trouble memorizing the vocabulary. I only just realized that I haven't had to do any rote memorization for several years. The being creative section of my brain has taken over territory that rote memorization once claimed. Hey brain, why can't you remember simple words. I guess it would help if I got super hardcore and made flashcards, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.