May 30, 2024
The journey continues!
Some time ago, I wrote about 4 months of learning Japanese. Now, it's been 6 months, and I still learn every day. I know, not a lot of time has passed, but still, some of the things have changed. Here are a few fresh takes on my learning journey...
1. I cannot live without Kanji
Honestly, before I started, I thought that Kanji will be just impossible for me. Like, there is no way that they will become natural and I'd always choose kana when possible.
No!
I cannot live without Kanji!!! Their existence separates words from grammar points, which make the sentences way easier to digest and deconstruct. Not to mention, they are just "fun part" of learning, keeping me motivated.
What is wild to me is that I can see the combination of kanji, have no idea how to read it, but I can easily assume the meaning of the word. For example, seeing "horse" and "car" together... it has to be some kind of horse-powered carriage.
This just isn't possible using Latin alphabet.
But, there are also cons to kanji, that is, I rely on them too much. Japanese language has a lot of homophones - words that sound the same, but have different meanings. While reading, this is not an issue at all, because Kanji helps with distinguishing those meanings. But listening? This is another story. Without having Kanji before my eyes, mentally searching for a correct word is way harder than I expected.
Which ultimately brings me to my second point...
I was too focused on reading comprehension
While my reading in Japanese improves greatly in just 3 months, I noticed that my listening and speaking skills were severely lacking. I learned about this the hard way, when I went to the event focused on speaking in Japanese in another city, and found it reeeealy hard, even when my friend talked in a really slow and simple Japanese. Ouch!
Unfortunately, I don't have any speaking partner on a daily basis.
For the speaking part, the best I can do is forming sentences in my mind, trying to narrate my life in Japanese.
As for the listening part, I included YouTube videos/podcasts in my studies. There are A TON of those resources online. And it does help - I noticed that even a simple exposure to the language, not even active listening, improves my skills. After all, this is how the kids learn, right? They don't do any grammar exercises or vocab memorization, all they do is immersing themselves in language, listening, absorbing it.
Anyways, my learning journey continues! I will report again in a few months.