Step 3: Kanji

Step 3, Kanji. Looking at it, Kanji is a huge monster to be tackled and even then, you'll struggle in the beginning and struggle even after you've grasped it and yet the things are still ever changing. Now I will introduce a source that is a bit on the free side. I'm talking about this website called Wanikani and it's by the same people who host Tofugu, unfortunately it does require payments, but they will give you a demo to see if you would like to use it.

Now then, Kanji is a Chinese character and beyond that, there is Kanji Radicals. What are Kanji Radicals are classifying components in Kanji. And even beyond that there is two readings of Kanji. They are Onyomi and Kunyomi. Onyomi is the Chinese reading of Kanji while Kunyomi is the Japanese reading of Kanji (Which there is over 50,000 of). For this part, Onyomi really is not necessary to learn as it will become familiar when you start to build up your vocabulary. As for Kunyomi, it's quite the opposite of Onyomi.

Side Step: Education

In case you haven't noticed, side steps will mainly be looking at the culture of Japan, in this side step, we'll start with education.

Side Step: How my interest in learning a language started

While I am interested in learning Japanese, I think it's also important to learn about the culture since, for me, that's where my interest in learning the language came from. My interest started from the most basic interest ever. Anime. Yes, although I find it albeit embarrassing to admit it, the fact that anime was the my spring board into getting interested in a culture is the all the more important. Due to the variety of genre's, I was able to get a feel of what was enjoyed upon by certain subculture group. Of course, anime is more or less equivalent to a a dramatic TV show so I couldn't take what I learned at face value. After all, you wouldn't take a movie, let's say Fast and the Furious as the face value for America's culture now would you?

Step 2: Katakana

Now it's time we moved on to Katakana. If your still not caught up with, that is perfectly okay as everyone goes within their own paces. For this lesson, we will also be using Tofugu for Katakana as this guide is on the assumption that you used the previous source from the Hiragana step since the method is pretty much the same concept.

The same thing! Except different!

Step 1: Hiragana

In short, making this seem like 'steps' to achieve Japanese is faulty. So for that fact, there will be some "Step 1.5's" between them if need be. Moving on, I'll present you with the FIRST resource that I (and maybe you) will use. The website, for free mind you, is called Tofugu. We'll be using this for learning the first two alphabets which are Hiragana and Katakana.

If you have checked out other resources on learning hiragana, you'll notice that the guide is different than most other learning guides. For one thing, it's based on mnemonics which are images that are supposed to trigger the kana.

Kana for "a" (pronounced -ah). See the little A inside it?

Beginning's

こんにちわ! In other words, this is the Japanese Hiragana word for Hello! Before I get started, I need to explain what this blog is about. First of all, this is going to be a personal experience for me and my unsteady and unprofessional approach to learning Japanese and perhaps more on it's culture. This could be considered a guide since you could learn along with me aswell but it's mainly just for dating my process and where I've gotten my studies from.

Anywho, the reason why my approach is a bit unique is because I am a cheapskate. What that means is that I'm going to be looking at FREE resources. Yes, FREE. There have been times where I've wanted to learn a language but most of the great sources cost money. So I'm scouring the internet (as well as books) for FREE and GOOD sources.

Occasionally I might use resources that require money BUT I'm waiting til I'm at a good level for speaking it.

This is going to be my unruly approach to learning, hope you'll be along the ride with me.