I've started teaching myself some basic Japanese again. Unfortunately I have not been the most hard-working student in the Japanese classes I used to take 3 years ago, so I learned little there and since I haven't been practising at all since I've pretty much lost that little bit. Still, it seems I have gotten some basic idea of what the language is like, what the difficulties are and I somehow remember those tireing writing exercises to learn Hiragana. At least it seems that I'm learning them quite fast now.
Japanese uses 3 types of script, or rather four if you count the "Romanji", which is our Roman alphabet. Hiragana and Katakana (Kana) are syllable scripts, so each sign represents a syllable. Both scripts consist of 46 basic signs and some variations. So obviously this is a pretty limited amount of signs to learn. It is still a it tricky since they look so strange to our eyes. When I took my Japanese classes I spent hours drawing letters like a 7-year old in primary school. Katakana is used for foreign words and names, with Hiragana you could write all Japanese words. "Could" because in reality they are more used to complement Kanji with flexion endings.
The third script used is Kanji which pretty much corresponds to the Chinese signs. An individual sign or a combination explicitely represents a word. Therefore a rather infinite number of Kanji exists, I read that an estimated 50'000 signs exist. The Japanese have put together a list of around 1900 that are commonly used in Japanese, but that still seems like a loooooooot.
Well, I need to give it a shot. So besides practising Hiragana and Katakana I'm trying to learn a first few Kanji as well. I bought these "Kanji cards" with the sign on the front and the explanation on the back (meaning, how it's composed and in what order to paint the lines). I have a couple of them in my bag to study when I'm going somewhere. And I've stuck a few on my bathroom mirror. Let's see how far I will get...
Japanese uses 3 types of script, or rather four if you count the "Romanji", which is our Roman alphabet. Hiragana and Katakana (Kana) are syllable scripts, so each sign represents a syllable. Both scripts consist of 46 basic signs and some variations. So obviously this is a pretty limited amount of signs to learn. It is still a it tricky since they look so strange to our eyes. When I took my Japanese classes I spent hours drawing letters like a 7-year old in primary school. Katakana is used for foreign words and names, with Hiragana you could write all Japanese words. "Could" because in reality they are more used to complement Kanji with flexion endings.
The third script used is Kanji which pretty much corresponds to the Chinese signs. An individual sign or a combination explicitely represents a word. Therefore a rather infinite number of Kanji exists, I read that an estimated 50'000 signs exist. The Japanese have put together a list of around 1900 that are commonly used in Japanese, but that still seems like a loooooooot.
Well, I need to give it a shot. So besides practising Hiragana and Katakana I'm trying to learn a first few Kanji as well. I bought these "Kanji cards" with the sign on the front and the explanation on the back (meaning, how it's composed and in what order to paint the lines). I have a couple of them in my bag to study when I'm going somewhere. And I've stuck a few on my bathroom mirror. Let's see how far I will get...
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