Learning to Speak Japanese

Japanese had always sounded like a difficult language to learn but I was intrigued by its “strange” looking characters and the sound of the words. When I found myself on a visit to Japan several years ago, I marveled at non-Japanese who felt so at ease conversing with the Japanese (in Japanese!) and wondered if I too would be able to do so in the future. Though I secretly longed to speak Japanese and to understand the sea of voices around me the possibility seemed remote.

After living in Japan for three months I was no closer to responding to even the simplest of expressions. I relied tremendously on a Brazilian friend who relished speaking Japanese and showing off his skills at every opportunity. At those times when I found myself alone in a shop or at a train station, I felt totally at a loss. I resolved to remedy the situation by enrolling in a Japanese language course.

On my first day in school, I expected the teacher to begin with some English explanations. No such luck. The class comprised English, Korean, Chinese, and Bahasa Indonesia speakers. From the get-go we were supposed to communicate in Japanese. The first few lessons were easy enough as the teacher pointed to various objects and indicated their Japanese names. Soon enough I had learned the names of half a dozen Japanese objects: takushi, naifu, konbini (convenience shop).

Learning to write was another matter altogether. The Japanese hiragana and katakana are not all that difficult to learn and yet I found myself putting it off for weeks…