Hirakana script table.
Hello all,
It's been a while since my last post! This is due in no small part to an examination that I have been working towards, which will be held tomorrow. This exam is taking place at the half-way point of the beginners course, and the results will determine who is in what class for the remainder of the course. I think my Japanese is coming on OK at this point. I have done quite a lot of study, talking to Kyoko-san, the lads in Jiu-Jitsu and other Japanese people, trying to practise the Japanese vocabulary and terms that we study in class. By repeating what we learn parrot fashion as many times as possible, and getting positive feedback from the people we practise on (and also criticism) I am slowly building up my confidence and ability.
The test is made up of two parts, a written test and an oral test. As I have said before, I think I will be OK with the oral test. The written test will be much harder, and for the past few weeks in class we have focused on writing. Japanese is probably one of the most difficult languages in use when it comes to writing. It has four seperate writing scripts which people must be competent in to read, for instance, a paper. The four scripts are Kanji (Chinese characters) Hirakana (a syllabary which represents common japanese syllables) and Katakana, which is another syllabary to represent foreign loan words. Lastly, there comes Romaji, or the alphabet, which is also widely used due to the popularity of certain English words. So, if you want to write the sound "ka", there is a symbol to represtent the sound both in Kana and Hira. There is also a Kanji, and the alphabet - confusing stuff!
We have not started studying Kanji yet, and school children detest it. Before they learn Kanji (aparently you need to understand 2000 everyday kanji to read a newspaper) the kanji is written, but complemented with the hirakana alternative, which is easy! (Why not do away with the kanji altogether then! - answers on a postcard please). I have all but learned how to write Kana and Hira. Sometimes I mix symbols when writing a kana word with a hira., but on the whole these have proven little problems which are solved with a bit of practise. It is writing words that is the problem, because there are many rules which must be remembered! So far though, we have managed to write short (very short) essays on what our typical days are like, and "what we did last Sunday", the last class essay, now being stuck on the notice board of school for other students to critique!
Fingers crossed.....
