April 21. Learning Japanese.
It occurs to me that lawyers are forced to write fiction because there are so many things they can't talk about at all--absolute confidentiality is part of the job (just as it is part of many jobs). But at some point you are just bursting with the urge to talk, and at that point you you start with "In a place far away, in an imaginary town..."
Oh, wait... anyway, since my ability to talk about specifics begins outside the office door, let's cover something I haven't covered yet, which is learning Japanese.
First, how hard is it? I would say, primarily because of the trainwreck disaster of the written language (which I find fascinating and love to study), Japanese is a hard language. Pronunciation is easy, and day-to-day conversation is probably no harder than English. Throw kanji into the mix and it gets seriously hard--a lot of people give up just because of the kanji.
I tried to learn like a child. That is, from TV, and from people who loved me. Japanese Parents not being available, girlfriends and buddies filled that role. TV is truly an amazing learning tool. I watched a lot of cartoons and kids programs, working my way from Sazae-san to Chibimarukochan, and then to Crayon Shinchan, and Conan Boy Detective. I also have a strange love for Obotchamakun, but he's off the air and probably not likely to be back for a while.
Learning Japanese on dates is a weird approach to life. I remember having some girl just furious at me and I was just sitting there listening to her word choices, thinking "Wow, I would never get this stuff in a textbook! This is so great!"
It took me about six months after first arriving in Japan (back in 1990) to get together enough money that I could pay for lessons. I got a workbook and studied all the time (on top of all the tv viewing). I'm real big on flashcards, so I made hundreds of them. In my second year in Japan I found Heisig's book on Remembering the Kanji and jumped a level in my grasp of kanji. I passed the Japanese Proficiency Test Level 2 (2-Kyuu) around that time.
And I'll tell more in my next post.
6:50:10 PM 
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