2020 Goal - Learn Japanese
私の名前はケビンです。 お会いできて光栄です。
As some of my friends know, one of my growth goals for 2020 was to learn Japanese. Each week, I take a one hour class via Skype with the most amazing human, my teacher - Yuki-san, (Yuki means "snow") who lives in Fukuoka, Japan. She's amazingly patient with me, never judges me and repeats everything 1,000 times. We started without any grammar or character knowledge, just an interest to learn. Each week between lessons, I found a routine to study flashcards, listen to podcasts in Japanese, watch Japanese new stations in the background and, the best part, watched hours of Studio Ghibili, with subtitles, of course.
I’d like to share some thoughts about my journey:
Set goals
Set goals, work at them, especially when you are miserable, not motivated and want to give up. Routine is everything. Continuing when you "aren't feeling it" was likely the hardest part for me.
Be patient, with you
Don’t be hard on yourself, each day provides you with a clean mental state to start anew, forgive yourself any ridiculous shortcomings you are judging yourself for. It's a new language, there's lots to learn, just keep keeping on. It will come in time. Be patient.
One step at a time
Focus on achieving the next step and rewarding yourself mentally on that goal. Be proud of yourself and stay positive about your accomplishments. Don’t put any thought into “how much more or longer” you have to go. An “are we there yet?” mentally will destroy your positive mental state for all the achievements you’ve made thus far; you can’t compare your “1 year child old” level language skills to a collegiate graduate linguistic master.
Japanese is easy (ish)
Japanese is much easier than anyone will have you believe. Don’t believe those who have never tried, tried and gave up. Just start, work at it each day and week, after you have been faithful, you will yield fruit. Japanese does have a lot of rules, and conflicts, but I suppose American English is just as difficult (e.g. - refuse the refuse)
Encouragement!
2021年に達成する目標を見つけていただければ幸いです。
I hope you find a goal to achieve in 2021.
I hope you accomplish it.
I hope you believe in yourself.
I hope you invest in you.
I hope.
私は願います
A few choice photos of my lessons:
I started in January 2020. This is one of my very first lessons - learning basic greetings (without Hiragana) and Country of origin.
One of my latest, late November lessons, now I’m reading Hiragana and Katakana fully. Still 2,000 Kanji to go