Japanese Learning Log

Some time around May 2nd, 2025, I got a silly idea in my head: that I should try to learn Japanese.

Despite not even finishing learning Spanish.

Despite not even having a good reason

In the end, the thing that prompted me to do this absurd thing was the fact that I'd been reading a whole lot of fully-voiced Japanese visual novels and planned to read many more, and I thought gee, that sure is a lot of potential passive immersion I'm missing out on.

Fully aware that it was a silly idea, I went and learned hiragana, and then off to wanikani I went...

This will be a log of my efforts, to look back on when I either succeed or give up entirely.

Current goal: pass mock N5 test

Log 1 - May 2025

Things I have learned and feelings I've had this first month of learning:

-I knew that one word or syllable could have a ton of different kanji associated with it from names, but had no idea just how many readings there were of everything. I understand the history of on'yomi and kun'yomi readings, and despair at ever being able to tell when one should be used over the other. Especially when there are multiple readings for each type...

-Numbers are a nightmare. I learn the numbers one through ten, and then surprise, if you want to actually use those numbers to count anything you use a different reading.

-Counters are...interesting. Thankfully, since my primary goal is reading and listening comprehension, it's not as important for me to have a great grasp of when to use what where, and only need to be able to understand when I do encounter them.

-The order that wanikani is teaching me in is very funny. Usually at this point learning a language you would've learned a couple of actual sentences. Not so here. At least I can identify exit signs?

-I managed to identify my first kanji and hiragana outside of a learning context, and it felt awesome. It's such a tiny thing, but with how complex Japanese is it felt like an accomplishment. While playing Tengoku Struggle, I was able to recognize 天獄 and 氷, and could read らあめん

-And then I got quite confused, because why did they spell it like that?? And apparently it can be spelled like that or らめん or らーめん, and then there's the katakana spelling...

Speaking of katakana, I've learned maybe half of them. I should refresh them in my mind and finish up the rest of them, but there's so much else going on that it doesn't feel that high priority.

-I still don't know much about grammar and sentence structures, since I've been trying to build up vocabulary, but I need to jump on that soon.

-Did some reading on pronouns, and then listened for what pronouns characters used in games, and noticed that a lot of times there aren't any pronouns used where I'd expect some. The context-dependent language frightens me. Speaking of which....

-Plurals. Why. Why is "this is my dog" and "these are my dogs" the same sentence. This language is going to kill me.

-In addition to hitting the grammar, I should try watching things with Japanese subtitles. I'm hanging out in the kiddy pool because everything else scares me. To be fair, the kiddy pool itself is 10 feet deep with a wave machine.