Japanese is...difficult
Coming into this class, I was expecting there to be a lot of work and knew it would require a lot of determination to actually get something out of this class. However, I was definitely not preparing myself enough. Despite this, I truly believe that this is going to be a great experience. There are so many good things that I already feel coming from learning Japanese. I am truly rediscovering what it is like to learn something truly different and unlike anything I've ever encountered before. Learning math, or studying political science texts is sort of the same old same old, even if it is technically new material. Numbers will be numbers, wars will be waged, etc etc. Even learning Italian was kind of the same. Japanese, on the other hand, is a completely different learning experience. Learning completely new characters which almost seem out of this world is so frustrating at times, but the reward for memorizing and understanding the characters is already so satisfying. I am truly excited to learn more characters and continue to immerse myself in the language!
ありがとうございます for your hard work towards this class. You should be proud yourself as you have already memorized many strange characters in a couple of days! I am truly glad that you still feel satisfied even though you have to work hard. I am sure you will feel a lot more comfortable with the language very soon.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to what you're saying about how studying Japanese seems to be unlike any other learning experience. I've taken other languages (German and Spanish) in the past, and even then I had the comfort of similar grammar and alphabets. It seems like in learning Japanese, or any language with a brand new (or multiple brand new) alphabets requires you to change the way you interpret and process things.
ReplyDeleteI completely understand you. Learning a Latin-character based language is difficult enough when your brain is hardwired toward whatever you were raised with. But learning a new language with THREE alphabets of which only one can be directly compared to another language, which is not Latin-based in the slightest. It's hard, but I think its rewarding if you have any interest in Japanese culture (which I think we all do). I'm sure we'll all get better as the year goes on though!
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