I’m Learning Japanese!

I’m taking a Japanese class this fall!  I’ve been wanting to add Japanese to my language studies for a while, and I’m finally getting started.

Our classes start this Wednesday, but I wanted to go ahead and start learning some of the alphabet(s) before the official classes began.  That way I would be ahead and hopefully not stress out as much in class.

For those of you who don’t know, Japanese has THREE (!!) writing systems — Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji.  Hiragana and Katakana are collectively known as kana, and Kanji is a collection of Chinese characters, though they are pronounced and used differently in Japanese than in Chinese.

I’m starting out studying Hiragana, and even though I’ve only learned 10 characters, my brain is already tired.  I learned how to read Korean in one day.  Japanese will not be that easy.  I can’t wait until I can read/write Japanese with ease (hehe that rhymes…).

I’m actually looking forward to when we start learning Kanji, simply because I should already have an advantage from my 3 years of Chinese studies.

Here’s what the different kana look like:

The Katakana appears to be derived from Chinese character elements, and the Hiragana is so pleasantly squiggly.  It’s all still very intimidating, though.

Any tips for beginning Japanese learners?  Feel free to comment below!