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I Can Speak In Japanese
Oct. 9th, 2014 10:09 amLast night was the first lesson of my new Japanese language course at Leeds Beckett University. I opted to start Japanese for a variety of reasons - my desire to get into more anime being one - and it was a surprisingly significant motivation amongst many of the 29 people who attended the class.
There was a range of reasons why people were studying the language but the anime one was surprisingly high and indeed the teacher, a Brit with an immaculately styled beard who had lived for nine years in Kyoto, made quite a few anime references throughout the class. It was quite surprising seeing it so popular but I'm glad it was so - this is the first time they had run a language class in the city centre rather than on their main campus some five miles out of town and this is one of the main reasons why I felt I couldn't do year three Russian - getting to the class in time in rush hour was nigh on impossible. This class is just ten minutes walk from work so, even though it started half an hour earlier than Russian, I should be able to more reliably attend. I do hope to pick up Russian again someday.
I met a nice lady called Annabel in the splat outside the classroom, breaking the awkward silence by talking about ourselves and our motivations to learn Japanese. She was really friendly, as was the late Greek bloke who was sat the opposite side of me in the classroom. It was a lot more formal than Russian, largely due to the classes being over double the size but I quite liked the arrangement, even if I couldn't see the screen very well due to someone's big head.
Hirigana was the obvious place to start so after learning greetings, we learnt the 46 characters which make up these monosyllabic sounds. Despite all my foreign language work, these letters are completely alien to me and being a shit artist is probably not going to help. Still, I started to get the hang of it towards the end and will endeavour to learn them as soon as possible. Learning to spell familiar words such as sushi in Japanese was quite a thrill. We also learnt a few Kanji but I imagine this will be developed in the coming weeks. I certainly know a lot more about the structure of the language now than I did yesterday.
Like with Russian, my success in the language will depend on how much I can study at home, and I'm notoriously busy and lazy. I also need to try and stop my mind from wandering but that's just a general lifestyle point. I'll try and stay motivated, not least because I'll miss three lessons towards the end of the year and I've opted for another assessed course. I've ordered the textbook now and I can't wait for it to come - let's see if I can do a language properly this time.
There was a range of reasons why people were studying the language but the anime one was surprisingly high and indeed the teacher, a Brit with an immaculately styled beard who had lived for nine years in Kyoto, made quite a few anime references throughout the class. It was quite surprising seeing it so popular but I'm glad it was so - this is the first time they had run a language class in the city centre rather than on their main campus some five miles out of town and this is one of the main reasons why I felt I couldn't do year three Russian - getting to the class in time in rush hour was nigh on impossible. This class is just ten minutes walk from work so, even though it started half an hour earlier than Russian, I should be able to more reliably attend. I do hope to pick up Russian again someday.
I met a nice lady called Annabel in the splat outside the classroom, breaking the awkward silence by talking about ourselves and our motivations to learn Japanese. She was really friendly, as was the late Greek bloke who was sat the opposite side of me in the classroom. It was a lot more formal than Russian, largely due to the classes being over double the size but I quite liked the arrangement, even if I couldn't see the screen very well due to someone's big head.
Hirigana was the obvious place to start so after learning greetings, we learnt the 46 characters which make up these monosyllabic sounds. Despite all my foreign language work, these letters are completely alien to me and being a shit artist is probably not going to help. Still, I started to get the hang of it towards the end and will endeavour to learn them as soon as possible. Learning to spell familiar words such as sushi in Japanese was quite a thrill. We also learnt a few Kanji but I imagine this will be developed in the coming weeks. I certainly know a lot more about the structure of the language now than I did yesterday.
Like with Russian, my success in the language will depend on how much I can study at home, and I'm notoriously busy and lazy. I also need to try and stop my mind from wandering but that's just a general lifestyle point. I'll try and stay motivated, not least because I'll miss three lessons towards the end of the year and I've opted for another assessed course. I've ordered the textbook now and I can't wait for it to come - let's see if I can do a language properly this time.
