Kanji for Fun 2
For those not in the know there are 3 different alphabets used in Japanese, Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana are very easy to learn, each character is simple and each character represents a different sound. Kanji on the other hand are those complicated Chinese characters which don’t just represent sounds but complete words and the reading and meaning can change seemingly (to me at least) at random.
I have already learnt Hiragana and Katakana and now I’ve finally decided to learn Kanji. To aid my greater understanding of the world going on around me I bought some Kanji flash cards called Kanji for Fun 2 (pack one was sold out, who needs the basics…). I rather hope it is fun and as long as I keep telling myself so while I am slogging through them, can only help.
The main reason I felt the need to learn Kanji was that while writing in Japanese I found that writing “watashi” was most frustrating. In hiragana watashi is rendered “わたし”, in theory it’s only three characters so it should be simple. Unfortunately every time I write わ it comes out looking terrible, really spacked up. Watashi also happens to mean “I”, so I tend to need to write it a lot. Writing watashi in Kanji is a much simpler affair: 私. There, one character and much easier to write. I reckon if I learn enough Kanji, I may never need to write わ again. Surely that is as good a reason as any to learn a new alphabet, to avoid using another one.
Something else I have noticed about Japanese is that there are about a dozen ways to say “I”. All of which are dependant on sex, situation, politeness level and who you are with. For girls I have discovered two, watashi and atashi. Apperently atashi is said when a girl is trying to be extra cute. For guys I have uncovered three, watashi, boku and ore. I am mightily confused as to when they should be used and have stuck with watashi so far because it seems to be the safest. Brilliantly, saying the subject of a sentence is often dropped when speaking Japanese. I can’t say I’m very surprised, people probably can’t remember which word they should be using.
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