Japanese 101

こんにちわ。はじめまして。

I am Theo Anderson, and this is my very own blog dedicated to the trials of learning Japanese.
I will be telling you of the excitement and difficulties of learning Japanese. As I currently know
just a few phrases and words, the blog is primarily in English, but as my knowledge of Japanese grows I will use it in my blog more and more often.

I have always wanted to learn a foreign language, but I have never had the motivation until this
year. The timing is also opportune. The University offers so many resources to help learn Japanese.
Moreover, it is more difficult to learn a language the older you become. So I have decided to take action and learn Japanese now. I expect it will be a slow and difficult, but highly rewarding endeavor. Learning a foreign language is exciting to me because it opens up new places to travel, books to read, and people to speak to.

So, why Japanese? Why not German, French, Chinese, Swahili, Korean, Russian, or Portuguese? There is no quick answer for this. For one, a major advantage of learning a language is being able to travel to the respective country. Japan is an exciting country to me, whereas I don't think I'd ever step foot inside, say, China. Secondly, a relatively small proportion of the Japanese speak English, whereas the French or Koreans are more likely to already speak English. Thirdly, Japanese is relatively easy for native English speakers to pronounce. Fourth, I am excited about the challenge of learning an East-Asian language as an American. Fifth, I like Japanese culture. For example, I like sushi, and I spent many hours of my childhood playing Nintendo video games.

The first few days I have been learning Hiragana, and I admire the elegance of the Hiragana characters. Although I can pronounce the sound when I see a character, it has been difficult for me to write the characters. It's hard because the characters look so different from the Latin alphabet and I have to remember which character to draw for each sound. I will simply have to keep practicing.