The Road To Japanese

こんにちわ！I have a few things to say in this blog post, so lets get started!

こんにちわ
So, today marks the day that I have fully learnt hiragana, the 46 basic ones as well as dakuten and combination hiragana, which if I'm not mistaken adds up to a total of 119 sounds! Of course I still need a lot more practise, I'm still pretty slow at reading them and on the rare occasion I might need to reference my hiragana chart (but I probably won't!) but, I do know them! Let me tell you this now, if you are learning them, do not, I repeat, do not give up! The buzz and sheer thrill you get off this accomplishment is amazing, you will feel really good about yourself, believe me!

So It's time to share with you the full list of learning resources I used to learn hiragana! Enjoy! (Note that just because this worked for me doesn't mean it will work for you, but I'd give it  a shot! I found it to be an amazing method!)

The List:

1. A pen and a notepad/paper (I found a notepad better because you can easily keep all your practise sheets together and see your progress)
2. Tofugu's Hiragana stroke order chart (as you should learn to write them in the correct stroke order!) - http://www.tofugu.com/downloads/hiragana-stroke-order.pdf
3. Tofugu's Hiragana chart (complete with dakuten and combination hiragana) - http://www.tofugu.com/downloads/hiragana-chart.pdf
4. RealKana - Great for learning to recognize hiragana fast (I will be using this a lot over the next few weeks) - http://www.realkana.com 
5. The Ipad app Study Japanese for iPad - http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/study-japanese-for-ipad/id378266594?mt=8&ls=1
6. Hard work and strong will (probably the most important tool, with no determination and no hard work you will get no where!)

My anime-junkie friends always ask me how to use and for what purpose are Japanese honorifics used. So in case anybody needs to know (and happened to come across this blog rather than one of the other multiple sources for learning this information), I thought I'd explain a few that you are likely to come across.

Chan - This is used for babies and children as well as teenage girls but with teenage girls it's more of a term of endearment or used if you have a higher status than them.

Kun - This is used for males who are lower status than you, and also young boys.

San - This is the general term and probably the one you will hear the most out and about. If you don't know the person you should probably use this. It is sort of the equivalent of Mr/Mrs.

Sama - This is a very respectful suffix used for people with much higher status than you, probably the head of the company you work for or someone you have great respect for.

Dono - An extremely respectful suffix that you will probably only hear in animes, it is similar to my lord.

What are they used for? Well they are used as a sign of respect for the most part, it would be rude not to use someone's title when addressing them if you are not close friends with them and it would also be rude to called them chan or kun, as a general rule use san.

Dakuten is actually really easy to learn once you've learnt the basic hiragana, you just have to remember which groups change really, the sounds that they change too are also generally similar to the original sound for example sa, si, su, se and so change to za, zi, zu, se and zo, very similar if you ask me, you just have to remember if its the speech mark like things that changes the sound or the dot (or both). It's pretty simple really!

It took me a while (I haven't been overly dedicated with it), but finally I have learnt all 46 basic hiragana! It turned out to be pretty fun, not at all as hard as I first thought. However now I'm facing the thought of learning all the combination and dakuten hiragana, which if I remember correctly, including the basic hiragana, sums up to 119 different sounds (and their symbols) to learn. I better get started!

I'm always looking for ways to improve my Japanese and why just practise at your desk? You can learn and review your current knowledge anywhere and in fact it can be extremely useful, it enables you to see the gaps in you knowledge, what you don't know and what you need a smidgen more practice.

Realising this I have started doing a few things through out my daily happenings in order to secure my current Japanese knowledge and practise my oral skills a little more. To begin with I have a few rules I have set out for myself around my house, I only speak to my cat in Japanese (who doesn't want a bilingual cat anyway?), I also, much to the annoyance of my family, only say numbers in Japanese and of course the basic speaking Japanese when you can method.

I also do these kind of things while out and about to (although usually in my head so as to not turn heads) but one thing I found myself doing today, which amused me quite a lot, was due to the fact that I work as a part time volunteer at a nursery near where I live, I started to join in with the children's activities but I would translate it all into Japanese and do them in my head! It's great because only simple language is used, language that I know (on the most part) in Japanese.

To conclude, you should really start doing these kind of things through out your daily routine, it really is great for seeing what you know and don't know, if you really want to get into it bring around a notepad and write down what you need to learn, the possibilities are endless!

Here's a quick tip; always look back and study what you have already learnt! Secure it in your mind and practise it regularly! That way you wont forget the basics and beyond, there's no point learning new material, only to forget what you previously learnt!

Every so often you may find yourself on a low, you feel as if you have made no progress, you lack motivation, you "don't have the time". Well it's time to give yourself a little bit of a pick-me-up.

 It's always nice to realise how much you have really learnt, so try to look at basic Japanese text and read it, even if you don't understand it being able to read it is great and that should give you a more positive outlook on your Japanese learning experience.

Why did you start learning Japanese? For me I loved how the language sounded, I didn't want to follow the common, arrogant attitude of native English speakers "the rest of the world will learn our language so why bother to become bilingual" and I also want to study, or at least take a gap year there. Remind yourself of these reasons, chances are that it will reignite your passion for the language.

Watch some Japanese shows, listen to some Japanese podcasts, or something along these lines, it's always nice to be able to understand the odd word they are saying but are also interesting to watch!

I just wanted to point you in the direction of an app called Kotoba! (Japanese dictionary). It's a free multilingual Japanese dictionary application, it does the job very well, it has a built in Japanese keyboard so you can look up kana/kanji and romaji is also supported, it's very good and also free, I'd recommend you get it if you don't already have a Japanese dictionary!

Today I bought an ipad! When I got it I immediately went into to app store on a hunt for apps that would help me learn Japanese, this is what I found;

• Hirigana and Katakana - Complete Basics of Japanese    This is a good free app for learning Hiragana and Katakana
• Study Japanese for iPad    This is another good app for learning Hiragana and Katakana, this is however better than the last one in my opinion, for example you can draw the characters in it. This is not free.
• Learning Japanese (It's easy to find by searing for Tae Kim)    This is an amazing free app. It is basically a boo kand it teaches you about Japanese grammar.
• Learn Japanese Vocabulary - Free Gengo WordPower   This is a good one for expanding your vocabulary, there is a also a better paid version of it. 
• Japanese Language Guide    This is free and gives you lots of little phrases that are nice to look at and learn.

One thing that I would say has helped me a lot is trying to immerse myself as much as possible. I've been watching Japanese TV, listening to Japanese podcasts and other things like that. It has helped me a lot with pronunciation and helping to remember words I've already learnt, not to mention the moral boost you get when you actually understand some of what they are saying, it really helps in keeping me motivated! I recommend that you try this out!

It's been a little over two weeks since I started learning Japanese now, so I thought that I'd make this post to give you my experiences so far, this could be useful to you if you're just starting to learn Japanese. I thought I'd write this post in a list format so here goes!