Japanese Lesson 2

Alright, so now you have an idea of the challenges faced when one starts to learn Japanese.
Next, lets look at the first syllabary, hiragana. I keep wanting to call it an alphabet, but it isn’t really because apart from the vowels, everything comes in twos. For example, か、き、く、け、こ　(ka, ki, ku, ke, ko). So the vowel pattern is always the same (あ、い、う、え、お、ah, ee, uw, eh, ooh) and the first letter changes (k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r). Notice no ‘f’ sound, no ‘th’, no ‘l’, and no ‘ch’. This is one of the reasons Japanese people find English so difficult to learn.
Personally, I find the biggest difference when speaking is the use of the tongue. With English, you are almost constantly moving your tongue, whereas in Japanese, the tongue doesn’t move that much.
Try saying ‘yoroshiku’ (difficult to translate but basically means thank you, think well of me, do me a favour, nice to meet you, ….). Apart from ‘shi’, the tongue doesn’t move. Now try explaining this to elementary school students who can’t understand a word you’re saying.

One of the biggest challenges with teaching English here is getting the pronunciation right. It is a fight to get teachers to do phonics, and no matter how much we tell them, they don’t seem to grasp how important phonics is!! Sorry, gone off on a tangent there. Just one of my pet hates rearing its ugly head.

Anyway, back to hiragana: There is also a proper way of writing each hiragana, and if people see you doing it wrong, they don’t hesitate to correct you. Trust me, I’ve had complete strangers stop me writing and demonstrate the right way to write! Grrrr!!
For example, あ (a). I think most Westerners would draw the vertical bar first, like a t, then the cross bar and last the curly bit. WRONG!! First is the cross bar, then the down stroke and then the curly bit. Makes sense, right??
And then there is せ (se). My way: long down stroke, cross bar, small down stroke. ‘Proper’ way: cross bar, small down stroke, long down stroke. WTF??

Here are some others:
さ な ま き う お と ほ も

Enjoy!