Thanks to the excellent JapanesePod101 video on learning the Hiragana, I’ve managed to learn how to read (and write) the Hiragana in 6 hours. The memory hooks were surprisingly effective but not for all characters it seems, as I can remember and write some from memory more easily than others. In any case, I’m sure they’ll solidify further in my mind as I progress through Assimil Japanese with Ease. Why I’m so pleased is that I expected a truly unpleasant learning experience and I’m glad to get one alphabet out of the way in so short a period of time. I haven’t begun with the katakana yet but I’ve already been introduced to three kanji characters (or words?) in the first lesson of Assimil.
So I’ve hunted down a library copy of Remembering the Kanji and I’m not sure what goal I should set for myself with regards to speed. Used in conjunction with Anki, what is too short a period of time to aim to learn all 2000 kanji? Heisig apparently did it in a month (or was it six weeks?) but I really don’t think I’d have the time to sit and do 80-100 new Kanji a day plus Anki reviews.
In any case, after months of quietly dreading and postponing, I have begun my first Asian language and I’m absolutely fascinated.
Russian
Assimil is still on hold until I do the first 1000 words in the Memrise top 10,000 deck. Meanwhile I’m simply making my way through the Linguaphone 1961 course, a lesson a day. Although the English translation and explanatory notes booklet may have been lost to the ether, I’m still using it as best as I can with a dictionary and my grammar charts. If anything, it’ll improve my understanding of the cases while I do the primary task of front loading vocab in order to get back to Assimil Russian as soon as possible.
German and French on hold, a podcast here or there, while I’m still on the half SC for Spanish.
I’m not sure I particularly care when I finally achieve some level of proficiency in Russian or Japanese. For now the pleasure of study is enough, though I’m especially motivated to learn Russian because I’ve always wanted to read Soviet era literature as quite a few of those works were apparently never translated into English.
Come to think about it, I suppose I’d consider reading as my secondary motivation for language learning.
Primary motivation? I’ve been doing some thinking and I think I’ve arrived at an answer.
Although extroverted, I’ve never been very talkative, neither have I got the itchy feet of a modern nomad, thus communication with native speakers has never been a present worry. In the future perhaps, since I’m young and I have my travelling days ahead of me, but not now.
Also being able to understand TL native media is nice, but I lack the patience to binge watch
or listen to media in my native language, suggesting that I don’t consume TL media particularly for the pleasure of consumption but for the pleasure of knowing that I’m able to understand it. It’s all about the sense of accomplishment, I find.
Finally, although it’s nice to be multi lingual in my future career at a law firm, it’s not particularly an absolute requirement as most of the business is conducted in the UK for the City firms and the international firms have branches in other countries to handle the business there too. Multi lingualism may give an edge as an associate solicitor but it’s hardly a roundhouse kick to the competition.
Well, if not for travel/communication, media consumption, career reasons, then why am I spending so much time on language learning?
Boredom.
I don’t think I can handle doing nothing all day, I’d go insane. Law school is honestly quite boring and I need something else to do. Also that sense of accomplishment that language learning provides is rather addictive, I must say. Just a steady drip drip of dopamine laced internal validation, straight to the brain. I suppose there are worse things to get addicted to.