Watashi wa Nihonjin ni Naru to Omoimasu.

or, “I think I’m turning Japanese.”

Those of you who know me personally realize that I’ve been studying Japanese for about 3 years now. And not one of those classes where they teach you how to pronounce things from the Berlitz phase dictionary. Nope, we’ve actually been learning to read and write, listen and speak, vocabulary and grammar.

Frankly, many sushi chefs are impressed by any hakujin (that’s “white person”) who can successfully say that the meal was delicious. The grammar is complicated. Verbs and adjectives conjugate but there is no future tense. Nouns rarely appear in the plural; if you want to express more than one you can say how many, or just say “a lot of”. And then there are particles; put the wrong one in the wrong spot, and instead of eating dinner with a friend, you have eaten your friend for dinner.

Reading in Japanese is complicated by the fact that they have three basic writing systems which are all used at the same time. Hiragana — a system of 46 lovely curved figures, each of which represents a syllable — is learned first, both in Japan and here. Learning Hiragana is like being in Kindergarten all over again, scratching your head and trying to remember which squiggly bit makes an “ah” sound, and worse yet, not really being able to read anything substantive even when you have figured it out. After one learns Hiragana, the next set of symbols is Katakana — the 46 angular figures you might see on package labels or signage — which are used for “foriegn” words and sometimes for emphasis. Great, now the reader can tell that the sign over the bananas says “banana”! To make sense of Japanese writing, one still needs Kanji, a set of (*gulp*) 1945 Chinese characters which impart meaning and one of several pronunciations. For the record, I’m currently about a sixth of the way to that figure.

Actually, Kanji are very interesting. For example, the kanji for “sun” can also mean “day.” It can be pronouced ni, hi, bi, nichi, ka, or jitsu, in addition to other ways one finds while reading. It combines with the Asian “elements” to make the days of the week: Friday is literally “Money Day”. Pair it with the kanji for “now” and you have “now-day,” or “today” (pronounced kyoo, using none of the pronunciations I listed earlier). Pair it with the kanji for “bright” (which is a sun and moon kanji together) and “bright day” is “tomorrow” (pronounced “ashita”, the sun will come out tomorrow). Some pairings are not so esoteric; “sky” plus “harbor” turn unsurprisingly into “airport.”

Japanese textbooks are also kind of interesting. They seem to invariably follow the adventures of an English speaker visiting the country with good but limited language skills. This allows us to learn from the mistakes of our fictional travelers. In Japanese for Busy People, for example, Mr. Smith is a lawyer spending some months in Japan on business. Since he doesn’t read Japanese, he ends up asking people to read him business cards. In one case, he asks someone what the department store hours are, while standing in front of a sign listing the store hours. This book is great for people who must cram enough working phrases into their brain to function without worrying about grammar. It is worth noting that you learn in chapter one how to say “Pardon me, where is the American Embassy?” Since it is aimed at the potential business traveler, there is much more formal, humble, and polite language earlier. There is a separate workbook for hiragana/katakana, but no kanji.

By contrast, in Genki: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese, we follow the adventures of Mary, and exchange student from the University of Arizona, her Japanese boyfriend Takeshi, and their friends. Mary gets to ask silly questions like “Pork loin? What kind of fish is that?” and “You mean all those Kabuki actors were men??” Because this course is aimed at college students, a lot of time is spent on college and young-adults-coming-of-age sorts of language issues. Chapter one, for example, focuses on “What is your major” and “What year student are you?” As the text proceeds, we learn about studying, part time jobs, seeing a doctor, going to a party, and other things. Grammar is taught early and often. Each chapter has a parallel chapter on the written language. If you have the time, this is really a better book than “Japanese for Busy People.”

Even books like Teach Yourself Beginner’s Japanese focus on a foriegner, this time a high school exchange student. This book addresses the written language only in passing; it’s fine for those who need something a step above a phrasebook, but it’s only a stepping stone for those who want to really learn the language.

This discussion would not be complete without some of my favorite Japan-oriented websites. You may already know Pureland Mountain and Gaijin Smash from my link list. A couple of more news-oriented sites are Japundit and Japan Probe. If you’re looking for help learning the language, there’s flash card generator (as a word of warning, if you use 3×5 cards, they will eventually take up a bit of space), online dictionary, and a leve 4 proficiency exam study page.

In closing: War on Terror == War On You; something that should really terrify you, China may sell some of it’s US Bonds (like oh, maybe a few hundred million dollars worth); if that doesn’t scare you how about climate change; even some evangelicals are worried about the environment; on a related note, the real decline of the American family; even Gretchen Morgenson thinks a “Crisis Looms in Mortgages”; I am very sorry, no papers, no medical care (real sorry about that fire that burned up your kid’s birth certificates; even bigger shame they’re gonna die of something we can fix!); could it be that drunk driving is not quite as big a problem as certain people want us to think?; “Even Republicans Hate Our Health Care System”; Orwell at the Office (please ignore that many of the “Orwellian” intrusions cited in this piece are merely a continuation of school rules); the 10 most important video games of all time?; custom clothes on the internet; and finally, I may be the only person not calling for Halliburton’s blood this morning (CNBC’s caption was that they were Un-American!), but as I read the actual story, I am noting that “The company will maintain its existing corporate office here as well as its legal incorporation in the United States, meaning that it will still be subject to domestic laws and regulations.” Only the big boss and his cronies are leaving for Dubai. Let him go! The bright spot is that this is bringing scrutiny to their contracts with the United States government.