Hiragana Learning

 

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                       I hoped to take Japanese in high school, though that wasn't in the cards. I moved three times in high school and never got to a school that had Japanese. This made me take Spanish all of middle school, high school, and even my first elementary school taught it to us. The language definitely was a challenge at first so learning it was an interesting. Though I feel it did make me a better learner. Moving from Spanish to Japanese does make me worried. With the huge difference of Japanese and Spanish being the fact Japanese isn't written the way Spanish and English is. 

                        I attempted to learn Hiragana on my own during Japanese Calligraphy, though I didn't put much effort into it. I feel class has given me that effort and want to learn more. I feel it has given me very creative ways to think about how to learn more. Compared to just staring at words or looking at flashcards. I enjoy learning the way this class and how my other language classes have taught. I also enjoy using Duolingo. I feel it's definitely helped me be able to remember and recognize Hiragana out in the wild. Looking even on TikTok I get a lot of Japanese posts in full Hiragana and it's surprising to look at some of it and realize I can read it.  

                        When learning Spanish growing up, I honestly hated it. I think I hated it because it wasn't really taught to me at first. When I was learning in elementary school, I was attending a private school, which was more of learning questions, numbers, colors, and simple words in Spanish. When I left that school, I moved many times and didn't learn a language. Then I moved to Vermont where the middle school threw me into Spanish three where I didn't understand what was going on. The teacher even moved me up a letter grade, so I didn't fail. It wasn't till I got to Highschool and started out in Spanish one again that I realized the love I had for learning Spanish. I enjoyed going home doing the assignments and really enjoyed our speaking exercises and projects we had. 

                         My attitude with Japanese I hope to keep it as positive as possible. I have recently realized that it is very hard for me to pronounce Rs and some other letters in Japanese. I've noticed that my habit is to pronounce them the Spanish way.

What does learning a language mean?

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         With learning a new language, the thought of why and what learning a new language means is important. Besides thinking about interaction between people it allows you to develop problem solving skills. With the knowledge of a new language, it makes your brain have a stronger problem-solving skill and makes you more flexible and creative. Language is a puzzle that needs to be solved no matter the conversation. You'll have to know what word to use and when to use it, how to form a sentence, and how to address someone. With the learning of a new language, you're learning a lot, this greatly increases your ability to retain information, whether it's short term or long term. Retaining your memory of a language increase your recall, as you may need to remember a pronunciation, or the meaning of a word. Learning a language combines many groups of people who may not have been able to interact with you without learning English. Though learning another language, you reach a common ground with people who may haven't reached the point of learning English. Though you both can communicate growing an appreciation of diversity. All learners benefit from this as you're supporting each other whether or not you both have a common ground of English. 

    As someone who has studied another language before (Spanish) I greatly enjoyed it. it's helped me interact with many people I don't think I'd have a chance to interact with. I think that it's also made others happy to see someone who took the time to learn their language and their culture and enjoy it as much as they have. I hope that I can learn Japanese in the same sense I did Spanish and speak it fluently giving myself opportunities to spread the language.

☆ Hajime - My Calligraphy ☆