Slang, idioms and colloquialisms, they're all just kind of in a vacuum for foreigners. Even if we understand the meaning perfectly, knowing what feeling or image it evokes and when is proper to use it is a pretty nebulous thing to understand! For instance, the phrase, "fucked up." This is not something we'd usually use right off the bat with our boss or the grocery clerk. Or the phrase, "hotter than hell." For me, it makes me think of an older person from the South.
I got a new conversation partner recently, and he wrote in a message, "You ain't in Chicago now??" This is definitely English that gets said in America, but it's strongly associated with southerners and speakers of the "urban" dialect. It's pretty hard to list all these intricacies in each definition of slang!
Honestly, when I teach my conversation partners slang, especially something that might be a little stronger like "fucked up" or "tickets to the gun show" (LOL, yes, I've taught this), I try to get them to wait and hear how it's used instead of just barging into their next conversation and going, "That's FUCKED UP," to their little old lady neighbor or somebody.
What strategies do you have for learning and using slang, etc. in another language? Do you wait to hear it and get a feeling, or do you just find it online and immediately start trying it out? Let me know in the comments!
Chicago's new bagel spot, The Bagelers! シカゴの新しいベーグル所のザ・ベーガラーズ
My friend and I checked out this new spot on Lincoln in Lincoln Park. They have an interesting selection of bagels--I had never seen a sea salt bagel before. I found the menu a little hard to read--I thought they had smoked salmon, but it's actually a smoked salmon cream cheese. Also, I found out later that gardinara is actually supposed to be a spicy vegetable condiment, and the "gardinara" cream cheese was not spicy at all, which is a little confusing. They also do not yet have lettuce or tomato, which also seems like a must for a bagel joint. However, they must be doing something right because all the tables were full while we were there, and a ton of people drifted in an out in the 30 minutes or so that we were there. Worth checking out!
Lang-8: Have Your Writing Corrected By a Native Speaker... for free??
For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you probably already know about this website, or at least have seen links I've posted to there. For the rest of you, read on!
Lang-8.com is the writing equivalent of finding a conversation partner. It is a wonderful website where you write in the language(s) you're learning, and then native speakers will correct it for you. Of course, you are expected to do the same. Here's how it works:
Once you join, you're encouraged to write a self-introduction in the language you're learning. Users see your essay when they search for pieces to correct, and they carefully edit, delete, and add to your sentences! You can then thank these lovely people for taking the time to help you, and even send them a friend request and a private message.
After this, you're totally welcome to keep writing essays, journal entries, opinion pieces, start conversations, or just write a few sentences. OR you could go correct other users' entries. I have very strong tendencies toward teaching, so this is usually easier for me than writing. I generally try to correct entries only from Japanese people because it helps me to connect to others, and it's also helpful to see what mistakes they make over and over. Believe it or not, it will help you to understand how your target language works.
Lang-8 gives you points for each entry you correct. I know you get more points if a person's piece has yet to be corrected, but otherwise, I'm not sure how they figure it. I think the site also looks at how good of an explanation you gave for you corrections. It's fun to see your ranking go up with the more entries you correct.
I will also say that the users are very active and corrections come quickly. I was working on a large project for work at one time, and it probably took 20 minutes for me to get a response on a pretty long document. Nice!
This site is FREE and completely invaluable. Written language is often completely different from spoken, so it's important to pay attention to and practice. Check out the site and check out my entries!
Lang-8.com is the writing equivalent of finding a conversation partner. It is a wonderful website where you write in the language(s) you're learning, and then native speakers will correct it for you. Of course, you are expected to do the same. Here's how it works:
Once you join, you're encouraged to write a self-introduction in the language you're learning. Users see your essay when they search for pieces to correct, and they carefully edit, delete, and add to your sentences! You can then thank these lovely people for taking the time to help you, and even send them a friend request and a private message.
After this, you're totally welcome to keep writing essays, journal entries, opinion pieces, start conversations, or just write a few sentences. OR you could go correct other users' entries. I have very strong tendencies toward teaching, so this is usually easier for me than writing. I generally try to correct entries only from Japanese people because it helps me to connect to others, and it's also helpful to see what mistakes they make over and over. Believe it or not, it will help you to understand how your target language works.
Lang-8 gives you points for each entry you correct. I know you get more points if a person's piece has yet to be corrected, but otherwise, I'm not sure how they figure it. I think the site also looks at how good of an explanation you gave for you corrections. It's fun to see your ranking go up with the more entries you correct.
I will also say that the users are very active and corrections come quickly. I was working on a large project for work at one time, and it probably took 20 minutes for me to get a response on a pretty long document. Nice!
This site is FREE and completely invaluable. Written language is often completely different from spoken, so it's important to pay attention to and practice. Check out the site and check out my entries!
Becoming Bilingual: Is the BRAIN JUMBLE avoidable?
I still have a long way to go before I'm bilingual. At the immersion program I did this summer, my brain was halved from operating so long in Japanese. But since the immersion program, my brain has become scrambled. It makes sense to me because I still understand, even when the languages get mixed together in my thoughts. But, in my gen-ed multiculturalism class today, I almost started asking the teacher a question in Japanese. I started writing my name in Japanese today in my math class. I translate words and phrases that occur to me first in Japanese back to English.
As humans, we are naturally biased to think that others are like us, so there are times when it seems impossible to me that another person won't understand my other language. Those moments were much more common a few months ago, but with something as fundamental as language and communication, it's still a bizarre feeling to be able to say things no one around me will understand!
English communication has become jumbled for me. It's not an easy balance to strike, and I'm wondering what your experience, if you have one, with what the transition to bilingualism (or multilingualism) has been like. Are you multi-lingual? What are your thoughts and tips on balancing your brain traffic? Let me know in the comments!
As humans, we are naturally biased to think that others are like us, so there are times when it seems impossible to me that another person won't understand my other language. Those moments were much more common a few months ago, but with something as fundamental as language and communication, it's still a bizarre feeling to be able to say things no one around me will understand!
English communication has become jumbled for me. It's not an easy balance to strike, and I'm wondering what your experience, if you have one, with what the transition to bilingualism (or multilingualism) has been like. Are you multi-lingual? What are your thoughts and tips on balancing your brain traffic? Let me know in the comments!
The feeling of language
My conversation partner talked to me about how he has to get the "feeling" of words. He was specifically referencing the English verb, "to get." After he brought it up, I realized how many oodles of different meanings that word has. So he said he has to get a feeling for each one.
This has started a conversation in my head. I've learned French and Spanish before, but it was always very academically, by rote, and with an "A+B=C" mentality. Maybe it's just because Japanese works so differently from English, or maybe I just have a new approach to learning foreign languages now, but he is totally right. It is so much easier to associate a feeling with a word than the actual definition.
What this has translated to for me (no pun intended) is learning by feeling. I may never have learned this had I not confronted a culture so different from my own. In Spanish, for instance, it's pretty easy to say "stupid" and "estupido" are the same thing. But if you think about it, nothing ever directly translates. Yeah, the two words are nearly identical, but they don't use it the same way we do. I doubt that, in Mexico, they're calling Miley Cyrus or failing a test "estupida" like we would in America. Japanese, to me, is a very artistic language. They speak in concepts and short forms, and I think they leave a lot of room for concepts and artistic interpretation. We can't speak Japanese like we speak English. And some things you just can't translate. "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu" is usually translated as "please take care of me" or "nice to meet you," but the meaning goes further beyond that is a phrase you just have to absorb the feeling of after hearing it numerous times.
If you allow yourself to learn in this way, even if you can't directly translate everything in your head into English, you still know what the meaning is. And anyway, the goal shouldn't be to translate everything into English--the goal should be to understand. For instance, there's a line in a Kana Nishino song I like that goes 「遠い君を見えない君を想い続けて」, which I've roughly translated to mean "You're so distant I can't see you. You can't see my love carrying on." I see 「続けて」pretty often, and, although I don't usually remember the meaning of it, I remember that line and have some idea about persevering, about pushing through, and that feeling is what helps me to understand new material.
I hope this inspires you to let go a little and to learn Japanese how you learned English: from trying to understand, not from definitions.
This has started a conversation in my head. I've learned French and Spanish before, but it was always very academically, by rote, and with an "A+B=C" mentality. Maybe it's just because Japanese works so differently from English, or maybe I just have a new approach to learning foreign languages now, but he is totally right. It is so much easier to associate a feeling with a word than the actual definition.
What this has translated to for me (no pun intended) is learning by feeling. I may never have learned this had I not confronted a culture so different from my own. In Spanish, for instance, it's pretty easy to say "stupid" and "estupido" are the same thing. But if you think about it, nothing ever directly translates. Yeah, the two words are nearly identical, but they don't use it the same way we do. I doubt that, in Mexico, they're calling Miley Cyrus or failing a test "estupida" like we would in America. Japanese, to me, is a very artistic language. They speak in concepts and short forms, and I think they leave a lot of room for concepts and artistic interpretation. We can't speak Japanese like we speak English. And some things you just can't translate. "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu" is usually translated as "please take care of me" or "nice to meet you," but the meaning goes further beyond that is a phrase you just have to absorb the feeling of after hearing it numerous times.
If you allow yourself to learn in this way, even if you can't directly translate everything in your head into English, you still know what the meaning is. And anyway, the goal shouldn't be to translate everything into English--the goal should be to understand. For instance, there's a line in a Kana Nishino song I like that goes 「遠い君を見えない君を想い続けて」, which I've roughly translated to mean "You're so distant I can't see you. You can't see my love carrying on." I see 「続けて」pretty often, and, although I don't usually remember the meaning of it, I remember that line and have some idea about persevering, about pushing through, and that feeling is what helps me to understand new material.
I hope this inspires you to let go a little and to learn Japanese how you learned English: from trying to understand, not from definitions.
No Training Wheels
I'm currently studying at a Japanese immersion program. I'm now in the 4th week of it, and am doing a little language escape by writing this blog. Please forgive me, but I have a good reason.
I want to talk about the magic of riding without training wheels. When it comes to language, immersion is the most natural way for us to learn. It's the way we learned English, so why have we come to favor learning just in a classroom? To be sure, the classroom has its merits and shouldn't be downplayed, but I can speak from experience that "students" of language are often scholarly gifted in the language, but when it comes to actually using it to communicate, they're practically incapable.
Like I said, I've been here about three weeks now, and I've had a few instances of riding without training wheels. The experiences are exhilarating, and I'd recommend the feeling to anybody. During class and mealtimes, I'm surrounded by teachers who are aware of my immersion, so I'm sure they speak very differently from how they would if they were with natives. Therefore, when we have guests and I have chance to meet with them, I'm really on my own. It's a pretty sublime feeling to know that I am communicating with people as a result of all this work and study I've been doing.
My point in writing this post, I guess, is to encourage you to take risks. If you want to learn a language, don't just do the easy stuff (learning by rote, but never using). Go on conversationexchange.com and find a penpal. Find someone to get coffee with. Make videos to test out your language skill. Go to the country and resolve not to speak your mother tongue (except for occasionally talking to family and friends, and other reasonable accommodations). Push yourself. You obviously want to speak it, so don't just settle for coasting somewhere in the gray area of not really assimilating the information. You can do it!
If your fear is being embarrassed, it's a fear you'll have to overcome because you will be embarrassed from time to time. But native speakers of the language are, by and large, very supportive, encouraging, and enthusiastic toward people trying to learn. Maybe, instead of saying a fruit, you said a sexual body part. Maybe you invited someone to a parking garage when you wanted to tell them not to go there. There will be miscommunications, but I challenge you to remember a time when you were a child and you miscommunicated. We all did it, and we all got over it. You can do it!
Do something everyday to use your new skills and you will thank yourself for it. And then comment here and tell me about it!
I want to talk about the magic of riding without training wheels. When it comes to language, immersion is the most natural way for us to learn. It's the way we learned English, so why have we come to favor learning just in a classroom? To be sure, the classroom has its merits and shouldn't be downplayed, but I can speak from experience that "students" of language are often scholarly gifted in the language, but when it comes to actually using it to communicate, they're practically incapable.
Like I said, I've been here about three weeks now, and I've had a few instances of riding without training wheels. The experiences are exhilarating, and I'd recommend the feeling to anybody. During class and mealtimes, I'm surrounded by teachers who are aware of my immersion, so I'm sure they speak very differently from how they would if they were with natives. Therefore, when we have guests and I have chance to meet with them, I'm really on my own. It's a pretty sublime feeling to know that I am communicating with people as a result of all this work and study I've been doing.
My point in writing this post, I guess, is to encourage you to take risks. If you want to learn a language, don't just do the easy stuff (learning by rote, but never using). Go on conversationexchange.com and find a penpal. Find someone to get coffee with. Make videos to test out your language skill. Go to the country and resolve not to speak your mother tongue (except for occasionally talking to family and friends, and other reasonable accommodations). Push yourself. You obviously want to speak it, so don't just settle for coasting somewhere in the gray area of not really assimilating the information. You can do it!
If your fear is being embarrassed, it's a fear you'll have to overcome because you will be embarrassed from time to time. But native speakers of the language are, by and large, very supportive, encouraging, and enthusiastic toward people trying to learn. Maybe, instead of saying a fruit, you said a sexual body part. Maybe you invited someone to a parking garage when you wanted to tell them not to go there. There will be miscommunications, but I challenge you to remember a time when you were a child and you miscommunicated. We all did it, and we all got over it. You can do it!
Do something everyday to use your new skills and you will thank yourself for it. And then comment here and tell me about it!
Let's Begin! Speaking Only Japanese for TWO MONTHS
Greetings, faithful readers.
I'm writing to you from a beautiful campus where I will be learning Japanese over the next two months. At breakfast this morning, I learned that some, if not most, of the instructors came here from Japan specifically just to teach this program. Beginning tomorrow, I'm signing away my right to speak English, so I'm taking this opportunity to communicate in the best way I know how. Tomorrow, though, you better be Japanese or be a wizard with Google Translate (hint: Google Translate is not your friend when reading Japanese). To be clear, as this presents the proctors of the program as strict, marching, commandants, who will slap me with a ruler if I speak English, they do allow for it if we need to go to the bookstore, for instance, and just ask us to keep chat with family and close friends to a minimum. Myself, I'd like to speak as little English as possible, but I'm not yet sure how much outside support I'm going to need. I've already met some good people in the school, many of whom are in my level, so I think I've got the foundations for a support system out here. Counseling is included in the program fee. Because yeah, it's that intense.
This evening, we have an orientation and reception. Then, bright and early tomorrow morning, we're committing to living as close to Japanese as we can. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to review my kanji, go for a run and break a sweat, and then I'm going exploring with some friends!
また明日！
I'm writing to you from a beautiful campus where I will be learning Japanese over the next two months. At breakfast this morning, I learned that some, if not most, of the instructors came here from Japan specifically just to teach this program. Beginning tomorrow, I'm signing away my right to speak English, so I'm taking this opportunity to communicate in the best way I know how. Tomorrow, though, you better be Japanese or be a wizard with Google Translate (hint: Google Translate is not your friend when reading Japanese). To be clear, as this presents the proctors of the program as strict, marching, commandants, who will slap me with a ruler if I speak English, they do allow for it if we need to go to the bookstore, for instance, and just ask us to keep chat with family and close friends to a minimum. Myself, I'd like to speak as little English as possible, but I'm not yet sure how much outside support I'm going to need. I've already met some good people in the school, many of whom are in my level, so I think I've got the foundations for a support system out here. Counseling is included in the program fee. Because yeah, it's that intense.
This evening, we have an orientation and reception. Then, bright and early tomorrow morning, we're committing to living as close to Japanese as we can. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to review my kanji, go for a run and break a sweat, and then I'm going exploring with some friends!
また明日！
Last Cinderella ラスト・シンダレラ
If you're looking for shows to watch in Japanese, it turns out Hulu actually has a good selection. Hulu and Netflix both have a strange quality in common that, if you look on their "Japanese" page, not all of their shows and movies will come up, so unfortunately, you come across shows at random and by accident. That was how I found Last Cinderella.
This is a great show, 11 episodes long, and each is about an hour and a half. It's about a 39-year-old woman who hasn't had a relationship in ten years and gets caught in between someone her age someone 15 years her junior. I found it really fun to watch, and a mid-level on the Squeal Scale.
Sakura is a what we would call a tom-boy. She's basically a dude by Japan's standards. It's fun seeing that play out in Japanese culture and how she's treated. The side characters are all great, too. I wish I could go to the pub they frequent and meet the owner.
I have noticed that these shows can often rush through tying up loose ends in the last episode, which can be frustrating, but the show is definitely worth a watch. Try Hulu.
NOT EXACTLY SPOILERS:
I was definitely team Tachibana. He has a good heart, and damn, he is attractive! Hiroto looks like he should work at a host club, and his hair is very annoying.
I thought the acting was great, in general, but Chiyoko, I thought, could be hard to watch. I'm not sure it was her, so much as the writing, though.
Ethnologue: the World Economy and Dying Languages (color me stunned!)
Well, color me stunned. A website has seriously just shifted my world view.
I somehow found myself researching the Ainu people. How this happened, I really don't think I could say. Oh, mystery solved thanks to technology--ever since I turned on the function to type Japanese, I've been wondering what Ainu is. There's a keyboard for hiragana, romaji, katakana... and Ainu. So I looked it up and then spent a good 45 minutes reading, looking, and listening to stuff on the internet. Then, I come to find out that their language is dying, which is never a happy thing to hear. And then I come across this website referenced, I think, on Wikipedia called Ethnologue.
Ethnologue is made up of contributions from linguists all over the world, who help to create a global picture of how many languages are spoken, how many people are speaking them, and their level of vitality (if they're thriving, endangered, etc.).
So I pull up the page with rankings of the world's languages, starting with the ones that have the most speakers. Naturally, being a big-headed American, I was raised with little emphasis on learning another language because everyone speaks English already. So imagine my surprise when English is not at the top of the list. Guess who is.
CHINA.
How are more of us not learning Chinese? 1,197 million (i.e., over 1 billion) people speak Chinese. Of course, this is including all the dialects. I know some Chinese dialects are more widely understood than others, but this can't be any different than English and all its dialects and pidgin forms.
How many people speak English, you might ask? 335 million.
WHAT THE HELL.
Seriously?
For every English speaker, there are 3 1/2 Chinese speakers.
No wonder we feel threatened!
But seriously, how are more of us not learning Chinese? WHY are more of us not learning Chinese? What gives?
Okay, so moving on, English is obviously the second language on the list, right? I mean, the Chinese thing threw me for a loop, but we are, obviously, as the world's superpower, at least second on the list.
Goes to read #2.
Spanish?!
I ask again, WHAT THE HELL?!?!??!?!
How are more of us not learning Spanish? I mean, SERIOUSLY.
In case you think I'm going to fool you again, saying that #3 is actually Tibetan or something, it really is English. We may have scores of millions less speakers than China, but where Chinese is spoken in "only" 33 countries, English is spoken in over 100.
So, moving on down the list, I found further surprises. Naturally, in my Indo-European world-view, I presumed that French, Italian, etc. would be at least in the top 10. Not a chance. Here, for your information, are the 24 languages with over 50 million first-language speakers:
Getting back to Ainu, Ethnologue considers it "nearly extinct."
I somehow found myself researching the Ainu people. How this happened, I really don't think I could say. Oh, mystery solved thanks to technology--ever since I turned on the function to type Japanese, I've been wondering what Ainu is. There's a keyboard for hiragana, romaji, katakana... and Ainu. So I looked it up and then spent a good 45 minutes reading, looking, and listening to stuff on the internet. Then, I come to find out that their language is dying, which is never a happy thing to hear. And then I come across this website referenced, I think, on Wikipedia called Ethnologue.
Ethnologue is made up of contributions from linguists all over the world, who help to create a global picture of how many languages are spoken, how many people are speaking them, and their level of vitality (if they're thriving, endangered, etc.).
So I pull up the page with rankings of the world's languages, starting with the ones that have the most speakers. Naturally, being a big-headed American, I was raised with little emphasis on learning another language because everyone speaks English already. So imagine my surprise when English is not at the top of the list. Guess who is.
CHINA.
How are more of us not learning Chinese? 1,197 million (i.e., over 1 billion) people speak Chinese. Of course, this is including all the dialects. I know some Chinese dialects are more widely understood than others, but this can't be any different than English and all its dialects and pidgin forms.
How many people speak English, you might ask? 335 million.
WHAT THE HELL.
Seriously?
For every English speaker, there are 3 1/2 Chinese speakers.
No wonder we feel threatened!
But seriously, how are more of us not learning Chinese? WHY are more of us not learning Chinese? What gives?
Okay, so moving on, English is obviously the second language on the list, right? I mean, the Chinese thing threw me for a loop, but we are, obviously, as the world's superpower, at least second on the list.
Goes to read #2.
Spanish?!
I ask again, WHAT THE HELL?!?!??!?!
How are more of us not learning Spanish? I mean, SERIOUSLY.
In case you think I'm going to fool you again, saying that #3 is actually Tibetan or something, it really is English. We may have scores of millions less speakers than China, but where Chinese is spoken in "only" 33 countries, English is spoken in over 100.
So, moving on down the list, I found further surprises. Naturally, in my Indo-European world-view, I presumed that French, Italian, etc. would be at least in the top 10. Not a chance. Here, for your information, are the 24 languages with over 50 million first-language speakers:
- Chinese
- Spanish
- English
- Hindi
- Arabic
- Portuguese
- Bengali
- Russian
- Japanese
- Javanese
- German
- Lahnda
- Telegu
- Marathi
- Tamil
- French
- Vietnamese
- Korean
- Urdu
- Italian
- Malay
- Persian
- Turkish
- Oriya
Are you surprised? I don't even know what some of these are. I have literally never heard of them. Apparently, Lahnda (which my browser is trying to spell correct to Landau), is spoken in Pakistan, as is Urdu. Bengali is spoken in Bangladesh (and three other countries, apparently). Telegu, Marathi, Tamil, and Oriya are all spoken in India. How, in our expanded worldview, have all of these escaped our (my) gaze? I don't know what to make of this information.
Of course, our world view has less to do with people than it does with money (ain't that the truth). So, for your reference, here are the top 24 economies (U.N., 2012). Let's see how they match up.
- United States
- China
- Japan
- Germany
- France
- Brazil
- United Kingdom
- Russia
- Italy
- India
- Canada
- Australia
- Spain
- Mexico
- South Korea
- Indonesia
- Turkey
- Netherlands
- Saudi Arabia
- Switzerland
- Iran
- Sweden
- Norway
- Poland
The Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, and Poland, are the five not represented. Then again, it is my understanding that most of these countries have many people who are at least bilingual.
What do you make of all this information? Were you surprised by anything on either list?
Getting back to Ainu, Ethnologue considers it "nearly extinct."
Now, let me tell you a quick story to explain why I'm not sure if I should feel sad about this.
I grew up loving grammar and spelling. I was not the most intense grammatical police you've ever heard of, but I certainly shared my knowledge. I also studied Shakespeare, though, and I loved tinkering with it to see how it worked--what was similar to modern English, what had changed and why, etc. So eventually, toward the end of high school, I realized that language is a living, breathing thing. It's important to have a system so that language is universally understood and credible, but I also think it's beautiful how language can transform, regenerate, create, etc. I'm not saying it doesn't bother me when people don't use apostrophes or when capital letters don't get their time to shine, but I've also begun to make my peace with the process.
This is why I don't know how to feel about languages dying. Ainu, for instance, has nothing to do with me. I'm not exactly about to start learning Ainu in addition to Japanese (and all the other languages I want to get back to). And Gaelic, which has been dying for a while, should I care? Some of "my people" come from that region, so maybe I should try to learn it. Or maybe it doesn't matter.
Do you feel connection to or emotion about dying languages? Do you feel like we should save them? Have you tried to learn one? Leave your comments below!
Learning the Kana (#1)
So I can only blog about intro-type stuff in regards to Japanese because I am still in the early stages of learning. But it has been well over a year since I learned the kana, so I can tell you a thing or two.
What are kana, anyway?
Kana are two "alphabets" (or "syllabaries") used in Japanese. They can write out any Japanese word, so these are the building blocks to reading and writing. The two kana are hiragana and katakana. Each are made up of ~about~ 46 characters each. Every sound in Japanese (except n/m) ends in a vowel. For instance, there's ka, ki, ku, ke, and ko. Each of the syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, have exactly the same sounds. But uses for either alphabet differ from one another.
Katakana
I'm being a little cavalier here in putting katakana first. No reason, though it's the slightly more interesting of the two. Katakana is usually likened to our use of italics in the West. We use them for animal names (e.g., tyrannosaurus rex), sound effects (e.g., Pop! Pop!), putting emphasis on a word (e.g., "Wait, you said you want to learn Japanese?"), and foreign words (e.g., "Now, Sam, learning Japanese is not exactly de rigeur."), among others. In this way, katakana is used.
Hiragana
Is for everything else. It's for any native Japanese language. This entry is awfully bare, so let me add a tidbit: when you're looking for reading material to practice your comprehension, if you find something with kanji in it (the more complicated-looking characters), make sure they have "furigana." Furigana are little hiragana characters next to the kanji to you can read them and look up their meanings.
Write the characters again
This is where rote repetition came in handy for me. And this is where you get another insight into... well, you'll see.
I was very bored at work, and it was a slow night. I was alone at my job, so I decided to practice my katakana (by the way, I carried around a copy of the hiragana and katakana for WEEKS to review, since I kept forgetting them). Since katakana are used for foreign words... I really have little explanation for this. The syllabaries have every sound in the Japanese combination, so you can easily write out, say, English in basically a Japanese accent. So I wrote out the lyrics to "Shorty Got Low."
ショーティ・ゴト・ゼム・アップルボットム・ジーンズ
ザ・ブツ・ウィス・ザ・ファー
ザ・ホール・クラーブ・ワズ・ルーキング・アト・ハー
シ・ヒト・ザ・フロア
ネクスト・シング・ユー・ノ
ショティ・ゴト・ロ・ロ・ロ・ロ・ロ・ロ・ロ・ロ
Shooti goto zemu appuru bottomu jiinzu
Za bootsu wisu za faa
Za whoru kurabu wazu rukingu ato haa
She hito za furoa
Nekusuto shingu yuu no
Shoti goto ro ro ro ro ro ro ro ro
I was already giggling to myself, but I about died when I got to the "ro ro ro" part, and I kid you not, I still think of that every time I write the ロ character. So make it fun for yourself! Report back with your progress :)
What are kana, anyway?
Kana are two "alphabets" (or "syllabaries") used in Japanese. They can write out any Japanese word, so these are the building blocks to reading and writing. The two kana are hiragana and katakana. Each are made up of ~about~ 46 characters each. Every sound in Japanese (except n/m) ends in a vowel. For instance, there's ka, ki, ku, ke, and ko. Each of the syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, have exactly the same sounds. But uses for either alphabet differ from one another.
Katakana
I'm being a little cavalier here in putting katakana first. No reason, though it's the slightly more interesting of the two. Katakana is usually likened to our use of italics in the West. We use them for animal names (e.g., tyrannosaurus rex), sound effects (e.g., Pop! Pop!), putting emphasis on a word (e.g., "Wait, you said you want to learn Japanese?"), and foreign words (e.g., "Now, Sam, learning Japanese is not exactly de rigeur."), among others. In this way, katakana is used.
Hiragana
Is for everything else. It's for any native Japanese language. This entry is awfully bare, so let me add a tidbit: when you're looking for reading material to practice your comprehension, if you find something with kanji in it (the more complicated-looking characters), make sure they have "furigana." Furigana are little hiragana characters next to the kanji to you can read them and look up their meanings.
How to get started
I know I put katakana first in the blog, so this is the price I pay for being cavalier. When you're learning the kana, I would start with hiragana. Put it this way: when foreigners are learning English, do they start with sound effects or foreign words? No. Hiragana is the more used of the two. And lucky you, you can master both of these in a couple weeks if you really put your nose to the grindstone.
Write the characters
Familiarize yourself. Spend some time with each character. Pick a system that works for you. Do all the K sounds first, or all the ones that end in "o." Or do all the ones you think are cute or funny. Personalize your process, but connect with each character.
Read the characters
I got a Sailor Moon manga from the library (with furigana, yes) and spent many hours sounding my way through it like a toddler. You may get the strange sensation that you can read it, but you have no idea what you're saying. You're not alone. However, when you finally find a word you know, it will feel so good. I remember reading "to...mo...da...tomodachi... tomodachi!! FRIEND!" I was very excited.
Write the characters again
This is where rote repetition came in handy for me. And this is where you get another insight into... well, you'll see.
I was very bored at work, and it was a slow night. I was alone at my job, so I decided to practice my katakana (by the way, I carried around a copy of the hiragana and katakana for WEEKS to review, since I kept forgetting them). Since katakana are used for foreign words... I really have little explanation for this. The syllabaries have every sound in the Japanese combination, so you can easily write out, say, English in basically a Japanese accent. So I wrote out the lyrics to "Shorty Got Low."
ショーティ・ゴト・ゼム・アップルボットム・ジーンズ
ザ・ブツ・ウィス・ザ・ファー
ザ・ホール・クラーブ・ワズ・ルーキング・アト・ハー
シ・ヒト・ザ・フロア
ネクスト・シング・ユー・ノ
ショティ・ゴト・ロ・ロ・ロ・ロ・ロ・ロ・ロ・ロ
Shooti goto zemu appuru bottomu jiinzu
Za bootsu wisu za faa
Za whoru kurabu wazu rukingu ato haa
She hito za furoa
Nekusuto shingu yuu no
Shoti goto ro ro ro ro ro ro ro ro
I was already giggling to myself, but I about died when I got to the "ro ro ro" part, and I kid you not, I still think of that every time I write the ロ character. So make it fun for yourself! Report back with your progress :)
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