Springer-JCCC

Chapter 5 - Kanji Poster 山川田人上中下小日本 Learning the Kanji... the fabled and feared path awaiting anyone learning Japanese as a second language. It's funny: during the introductions phase of any Japanese class, students will share why they want to learn Japanese with a smile.  "I want to watch Anime without subtitles!" "I want to read Manga!" "I want to travel to Japan!" That smile quickly fades when they talk about learning the Kanji: "So hard to learn..." "There are over 2,000 required for fluency..." "They don't seem to stick..." Being a Japanese student myself, I am no different. The idea of learning thousands of anything seems difficult to find purchase on any American experience. Trying to think of a parallel, I googled "How many Pokemon are there?"  The answer is 893, far short of the 1500-2500 kanji that are "required for fluency". But the point remains: if my nieces can recite every form and ev...

Chapter 4 Kanji Poster 大学校先生  This week in class we began learning our first kanji. It's an exciting landmark. When I first attempted to learn Japanese 15 years ago, I found out the following: 1) You'll have to learn three syllabaries: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. 2) There are 48 characters in both the Hiragana and Katakana. 3) They suspect there are 40,000+ Kanji, although only around ~2,000 are commonly used in Japanese today. I learned the Hiragana before I burned out and couldn't continue. Granted, it was a long time ago and there wasn't quite the wealth of ready-at-hand resources that there are today. I learned one syllabary, but had no way to use  what I had learned. And what next? Then I would have to start learning the Kanji?  Imagine if I had known that each Kanji can have (at least) two ways of pronouncing it! So it feels like a landmark today to learn my first Kanji, because it shows I've come further than ever before in my Japanese studies. Sure, there...

  Today I read another Level 0 book on Tadoku.org , called "Chiwawa no Hanasuke" (Onesan Gomenasai!), or "A Chihuahua named Hanasuke (Sorry Older Sister!)".  It was a funny little story about a Chihuahua named Hanasuke who is left to his own devices once his owner, (whom he calls "お姉さん") leaves for the day. Once  おねさん leaves the apartment, Hanasuke decides on what he wants to do for the day. He finds that  おねさん has left her purse behind, and decides to play with it. Unfortunately for Hanasuke, that's when disaster strikes... the bag was torn! "Oops," Hanasuke says, "Onesan's bag broke ( / Onesan's bag is in a difficult situation)". 😅 Hanasuke decides to lay low until Onesan gets home. Upon her return, Hanasuke greets her at the door and declares "いいこだったよ!" (I've been a good boy!). This of course is not completely true, as Onesan soon discovers when she finds her bag totally taihen'd in the next room. When...