ornoth | 日本人に変身

… or “nihonjin ni henshin”: inexpertly translated as “turning Japanese”. This is the story behind my attempt to learn the native tongue of the rising sun.

Obviously, the first question is “Why?” and it’s not that easy to answer.

I’ve had some relationship to Japanese culture as far back as high school. I practiced kyūdō – Japanese meditative archery — for several years and hope to resume again. I’ve also dabbled with taiko: Japanese drumming. There’s a slight Buddhist connection, tho Zen is rather distant from my own meditative lineage. Despite approaching 60, I still watch anime (usually subtitled). Even something as mundane as the virtual cycling app I train with, which recently released a Tokyo-themed expansion, provides lots of signage for a Japanese language student to decipher.

Another big reason why I am attempting this now is because physical limitations reduced the amount of indoor cycling I could do over the winter. So with more time on my hands, I could attack one of the most time-consuming things on my long-term to-do list.

As an aside, the other big pastime I undertook over the winter was improving my investing by doing a lot of reading about how to interpret corporate financial reports: balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements.

Other than just killing hours over the winter, learning Japanese provides a great intellectual challenge. I’ve always loved – and been reasonably good at – picking up foreign languages (French, German, Russian) and alphabets (runic, Cyrillic, plus calligraphy). Although to be honest I think I might have opened Pandora’s box in tackling a language made so difficult by formal and non-formal modes, slang, regional dialects, and of course three different alphabets, including kanji. Still, it’s a great way for an older guy to stretch his neurons. And if I really enjoy it, I can always look into formally testing myself by taking the standardized five-level JLPT language exam(s).

The next question is how I’m attacking it.

So far my primary tool has been the (Pittsburgh-based) Duolingo phone app. Theoretically they’ve taught me about 1,200 words, which is terrific, but it does have some shortcomings. My active vocabulary is trailing my passive vocabulary, and I find I rely too much on the hiragana pronunciation hints rather than learning the kanji characters in words. Part of the problem is just how the app is set up, and part of it is because the gamification elements set up incentives that aren’t always in the best interest of the student.

I’ve also made use of YouTube, where it’s easy to find tons of language instruction. Although I don’t feel especially loyal to any one channel, the one I’ve relied on most is Japanese Ammo with Misa.

And no Japanese student can avoid the elephant on the bookshelf: the Genki textbooks. I’ve downloaded electronic copies of their third editions, but haven’t used them much yet. If I find them useful, I’ll spring for the print copies.

There are other resources that I am not using yet, including local language programs, online tutoring like Italki, and local Japanese language learner meetups.

I seem to have a fair number of friends who have learned Japanese, including one guy whose former wife was a Japanese native. But I’m sad that my high school friend Mark died before I took this up. He moved to Japan after college, where he married a Japanese woman and taught English for thirty years. I’m sure he would have been amused and happy to support me and host a visiting traveler.

I’ve already alluded to how it’s gone. I’ve been putting in ten to fifteen hours a week, and I’m enjoying it and making steady progress. Although like any language, the complexity ramps up substantially as you start tapping into more complex (and realistic) grammatical structures. And learning a few thousand pictographic kanji characters is a bear.

But it’s been fun, and hopefully I’ll become competent enough to actually interact with other Japanese speakers in person sometime in the future.