Ippoippo

Background

I started to become interested in Japan and her culture during 2002. I started to teach myself Japanese in April 2003, which then progressed into doing 2 hours of evening class in the local college from September 2003 to June 2004.

Learning Japanese is hard, and you really need to spend a lot of time devoted to it to make fast progress. In an ideal world, I would have so much spare money I could stop working and study Japanese language at a school and then university on a full time basis. That is not going to happen! There are a couple of things I do suggest. Try to converse with Japanese people is the most important one. This is quite hard. Those who speak English (or are learning it) are very good at making you speak English to them rather than you speaking Japanese. One good way to converse with Japanese is through a pen-friend. This is what I initially did before I met any Japanese through my Japanese classes. Japan Guide has a good page for getting a few pen friends.

When learning Japanese, try to learn the Hiragana and Katakana writing systems as soon as possible. Try to use this in preference to the Romaji (Western writing) form when reading and writing.

I also believe it is really important to learn as much as possible about the history and culture of the country. When I came here on my first holiday, and when I relocated here as well, I did not suffer to badly from Culture Shock. Japanese culture and thinking fascinates me……. and can be immensely infuriating as well. In some ways, Japan is similar to the United Kingdom. I think a lot of this is to do with the fact that we are both island nations. Relative to people of other countries, we are quiet and reserved. We both seem to have a fascination of what the weather is going to be like! Japan though is quite different in other respects. Japan is a very homogenous society.

Links

Here are some useful websites I have found for starting to learn Japanese.

• Jim Breens Site :- Very useful site, with lots of links. His WWWJDIC dictionary is great.
• KanjiSite :- You want to learn kanji!? Try here.
• Japanese Verbs :- Quite a lot of useful information on Japanese verb forms.
• Collins Japanese Language and Culture Page :- KanjiLab is a great tool to learn Kanji with.
• Declan Software :- I am currently using ReadWrite Kanji as one of my two computer programs to try to learn kanji.
• Kodansha Publishing :- This company publishes a lot of the books I use.

I also like to read about other foreigners experiences of Japan, so here are some of the Blogs I like to read.

You can find those links to those blogs in my main navigation bar.

Finally, here are some general Culture and Reference Material Links.

• Japan Guide :- This is a particulary good reference Guide.
• Wikipedia :- This is the Japan entry on Wikipedia. You can find more information out about Japan by searching around in this online encyclopedia.