Learning Japanese - At My Pace
I have finally figured out how to display Japanese characters on this site! After lots of hours of tweaking and adjusting whilst trying not to completely destroy the site, I think I have made it possible!
This can only mean one thing 
I will be ‘learning Japanese’ and using this site as my exercise book to make all my notes and track what I am getting up to. The reason I say ‘learning Japanese’ is because I am not going to dive in and be all intense (just yet), so I will be learning at my own pace. So quite possibly slower than you if you were learning a language.
What I will try to do, is make an archive of things I have learnt in Japanese and anything I feel has helped me to learn it on this site. So you can keep checking back if you too wouldn’t mind learning some 日本語 (Japanese) at my pace 
. Check back every Sunday and hopefully I’ll have learnt something new. Also, just to clarify, I can’t actually read that Japanese text I entered above just yet 
maybe in a few months? Hmm.
Why do I want to learn Japanese?
Japanese is actually a very popular language for native English speaking people to learn.
It is seen as a difficult language by a lot of people simply due to the characters used, but I want to disprove that ‘myth’ - I hope
I want to be able to actually go to another non-English speaking country and be able to speak the native language. So far, when I have been to places such as Mexico, Hong Kong or Amsterdam - I have had to get by relying on people speaking some English, or just guessing. I think this is kinda rude, but can’t be helped I guess sometimes. Japan is somewhere I want to go without these problems.
Learning a language, to me feels like a great achievement. It isn’t something everyone can do simply because some people can’t grasp the different phonetics and gramatical structures involed. I feel that I can, therefore I will - at my own pace.
Maybe I am just a little obsessed with travelling, seeing different cultures and way of life. Japan seems to be an iconic place in my eyes, so I want to take on board some of its culture for myself. Starting with the language.
I have made a separate category for all these ‘notes’ which can be found at www.locksleynet.com/japanese for quick access.
Do you know any Japanese?
I asked my younger cousin if she knew any Japanese. The response I got was ‘Arigatou’ (ありがとう). I am guessing that most of you reading this will have heard this word before even if you know no other Japanese words? Well, this is the informal way of saying ‘Thank you’.
When I start next week I will list some of the random words of Japanese that I have stumbled upon without even realising, before getting down to some new learning
Anyone else learnt a language without actually attending any classes? How long has it taken to get to where you are today? I am open to all recommendations since all I have so far are a few audio downloads and a text book
[Do the characters display properly on your computer? Let me know because I will have to do a whole lot more work on it if not 
]
Popularity: 23% [?]
345 views
About the Author: Locksley McPherson Jnr. I started this blog in late 2005 as a secondary part of the site, it soon took over! I am currently studying Law and also Spanish. See more on my 'about' page.
RSON | Jan 31, 2008 | Reply
Japanese is a great language. Indeed it is difficult. But not so difficult that children 2-3 years old can’t speak it.
Any language can be mastered if the student is faithful in his/her studies.
Learning a language is not hard. Studying the language faithfully until it’s mastered is hard. Spend 20-30 minutes a day, every day, every every day, and you can master Japanese over time, too.
I wish you well in your studies. And, thanks for visiting RSON.
Locksley | Jan 31, 2008 | Reply
Cheers for your response
What you have said is very true. Spending even just a little time every day will definitely boost my language learning skills. My aim is to be able to have a basic conversation by the end of the year.
I say basic, but a year is a long time so we’ll see
RSON | Feb 7, 2008 | Reply
The first step to learning…to have a compelling reason to do so.
Make a Japanese friend. Plan a trip to Japan. Meet a Japanese student at a nearby college.
I wish you well. Let me know how it’s going from time to time.
Acountability works wonders as well.
I wish your success!
Grace | Oct 16, 2008 | Reply
Hi, so how did you tweak this site for it to be able to display Japanese text? I have a blog but it can’t display Japanese text in the comments.
By the way, I lived in Japan for 10 years but currently living in Dubai. Goodluck with your Japanese studies. I was literally crying with blood when I was a student there in Japan.
Locksley | Oct 17, 2008 | Reply
Hi, you’ll need to be the webmaster to do it yourself (unless there is a plugin I don’t know about).. The way I did it was to go into the SQL database for the blog and change the section wp_comments -> comment_content to ‘utf8_unicode_ci’ collation… That might not make any sense, but once you get into the database you will see all these names so it’s alright..
Then do the same for wp_posts -> post_content as well.. That’s all I changed and it seems to work fine. If there are any other ways to do this that are easier someone let me know
Hope that helps