Jamie Marsden: Making progress with Japanese classes

Acouple of weeks ago, I finally started learning a second language. It took the best part of 25 years, but I’m now (technically) bilingual, and it’s a good feeling.

I’ve written before about wanting to take Japanese classes. I’m intending to spend a lot of time in Japan in my adult life.

It’s a lot of fun there, and there’s so much I missed on my first visit, that I absolutely can’t go without making a second visit.

This time round, language skills are a must. I survived okay with my marginally above-average conversational command of the language last summer, but it’s getting to the point that reading signs and advertisements is a requirement.

Not all places offer an English menu, though I was lucky enough for that to be the case everywhere I went in my two-week stay. The further out from the city you go, the less you see that happen, however.

I’m taking my classes with the friend I travelled with, and we jumped right in the deep end.

We skipped the entry level and beginner’s class, and went straight into the one between beginner and intermediate.

At first, we were worried about if we had chosen the correct course. The website made us think that the one we had chosen was the first one to teach basic literacy, but it was actually the one below ours.

People who had already been through the previous class had their textbooks (which we knew we’d need to ask about so we knew what to buy), and were talking about if they could read anything yet. This got us a little concerned.

It only took about 15 minutes to realise that we were in the right place though.

Although we had absolutely zero literacy, the others still couldn’t read a full sentence, to say nothing of being able to translate. We were able to understand what our teacher was saying, and answer her questions when asked.

We had no problems with the material, and she read most of the textbooks to us in English anyway, so our deficiency didn’t really matter.

Two weeks in, and I’ve made a start by learning one of the three Japanese alphabets, Hiragana. I have vowels down, so now it’s everything inbetween.

Sadly, Hiragana doesn’t get used much in the real world. It’s the other two which are built upon Hiragana that actually see usage. A shame, yes, but it’s a jumping point at the very least.

I’ve been using mobile apps to get a bit of learning in every day. It’s a good habit to get into.

With 14 weeks to go before deciding on if I want to move onto the next class, I have plenty of time to reach the point I want to.

I don’t really mind if I don’t, it might require more time, and this is one thing I absolutely don’t want to rush.