The First Post - Starting Point
This blog is for Japanese learning. I am auditing the course "Elementary Japanese I" in SP23.
I actually took a course back in China about 2 years ago, but I've forgotten most of it... So I think it's a good idea to pick it up again.
In addition, I'm quite curious about learning a foreign language with yet another foreign language (English isn't my native language). Such an experience must be quite interesting.
It's very cool that you're trying to learn another foreign language; I know I have trouble with just one. Since English isn't your first language, is the learning process for Japanese similar, or are there any notable differences about how one would go about learning each language?
ReplyDeleteWell, I would say Japanese is a little more similar to Chinese (my native language), yet things are still quite different.
DeleteJapanese uses a lot of Kanji (literally Chinese characters), making many things a lot easier, especially when more Kanji are used. For native Chinese that never learned Japanese, chances are that they can guess basic meanings of some Japanese news/articles/directions/posters/..., the more Kanji the easier. This part must be unimaginable for other languages' speakers, as Kanji is much more complicated and difficult than Hiragana and Katakana. :D
On the other hand, however, not all Kanji work the same as those in Chinese. They sometimes hold different meanings and/or shapes (e.g., EN: history, CN: 历史 lì shǐ / lishi, JP: 歴史 れきし / rekishi), and Kanji almost always have different pronunciations than Chinese characters, so knowing Chinese doesn't always help. Additionally, Japanese has its own features. For example, word order. You may know that English (Chinese as well) goes with subject - verb - object for typical sentences. But Japanese goes with subject - object - verb.
Therefore, it is indeed quite interesting for me to observe up to three languages simultaneously. Even if I am merely learning Japanese, and I don't think my English is good enough, it still shows a lot: language structures, culture backgrounds, etc.