My quest to become fluent in Japanese began today. I’m taking Japanese classes for 6 hours per week, plus 2 extra hours of conversation practice. After one hour in class, and one hour of conversation class (with native Japanese speakers) I have already learned a lot more from the conversation class.
I remember while studying a little Japanese in high school I underestimated how difficult it would be to learn a language. I am hoping that these extra conversation classes will help. When learning a language, I think it helps to put it in context by actually conversing with a Japanese person – it takes away the whole academic aspect to the language. Japanese to the English speaker can sometimes feel like doing maths – it takes a while to understand, but then it just suddenly makes sense. Then you realise there are a zillion other rules (like English – the I before E rule is the most stupid spelling rule I’ve ever heard)
So vocab I learnt today in class:
どうぞ よろしく - Doozo Yoroshiku – Pleased to meet you
Thats all. From the conversation class I learnt:
いちご – Ichigo – Strawberry – Also the name of the main character in Bleach
みなさん – Mina san – Everybody
