Alpha Core

After a break of about one and a half years, I decided to continue learning Japanese again. For some inexplicable reason I’m immensely drawn towards this language. Maybe because of its complexity, maybe because it’s so completely different than any other language I know.

In Belgium, I did 2 years at the Centrum voor Levende Talen (CLT) in Leuven, thereby completing level A1 (Breakthrough). During my third year, I moved to Germany and put my language study on hold until now. Yesterday, I enrolled for an A2 (Waystage) course at the Volkshochschule (VHS) here in Hamburg. I’m studying hard to get back up to my level again until next week and I’m keeping my fingers crossed, because it’s not entirely sure that the course will actually take place, because that depends on the amount of people enrolling for it.

I also wanted to share some links and name some software for people learning the language as well. First of all, you have to learn Kana (hiragana and katakana). For Microsoft Windows users, you should also install the Japanese IME, so you can type Japanese on your PC. Its IME Pad (with handwriting recognition) is a really good thing to have as well! In my humble opinion, the greatest learning and dictionary tool of them all, both for Japanese as well as for Chinese, is WaKan. Among some of its great features are dictionary searches as you type, kanji lookup, stroke order and card printing. If you’re browsing the internet with Firefox or you’re using Thunderbird as your e-mail client, Rikaichan is a great add-on that adds tooltip help and dictionary word and kanji lookup when hovering over some Japanese text. Kanji-A-Day offers you a kanji, guess what.. yes, every day, so that’s another one of those things to start your day with. Furthermore, any article about Japanese is incomplete without a link to Jim Breen’s Japanese Page and finally also take a look at the Japanese Learning Suite.

I would also like to recommend the following books: as a course book I would suggest Japanese for Busy People I and II. An amazingly good book to learn your kanji is Kanji & Kana: A Handbook of the Japanese Writing System. Although opinions about Heisig’s method are divided, I also suggest Remembering the Kanji 1 (here are some free sample pages). However, I don’t think you should wait with studying readings until you finish the book though! Finally, if you’re looking for a good dictionary, take a look at Kodansha’s Furigana Japanese Dictionary.

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