Hey all! I don't find myself posting on GJ a whole lot, but I think this'll get me posting a little more. Hopefully I can remember to do these monthly, but we'll see if I can remember, and if there's any significant progress to be shown at all.

(Also, sometimes I'll post a little doodle of whatever I think is interesting at the stage I'm in. And it looks like yall get a doodle this time! Lucky you!)

I'm going to condense this first part of the story a lot, so here goes. One day a few years ago, I decided to start learning Japanese on Duolingo. It was pretty interesting and I was able to read most of if not all the Hiragana.

(For those unaware, Japanese has 3 different alphabets: Hiragana for main writing, looks generally like this あかさた..., Katakana for words borrowed from other languages, looks like this アカサタ..., and Kanji which derives directly from Chinese, and can range from this 中 to this 鍋 and a whole lot more.)

Anyway, skip a few years and I've pretty much forgotten and given up. The interest just kinda went away at that point. But the desire remained somewhere in there, waiting for the chance to come back to light. And in one of my school classes this year, it finally did.

Capstone is a subject where you pick something you actually want to learn about (like art or mechanics or whatever really) and study it for the entire year. This year, I was running a bit low on ideas, however. As I was brainstorming, I remembered the Japanese I had learned (among other things such as manga) and decided to do something crazy. What if I spent an entire school year learning Japanese? I already had basic knowledge of a few phrases and most of the characters, I thought, so it won't be that bad.

That was about 5 months ago. And to be honest I'm not regretting it. Yet. So far my journey has been somewhat simple. I found an article about learning Japanese and have been following it pretty much to the letter, as well as doing Duolingo on the side for character memorization, and it's doing me pretty good right now. I can read out any Hiragana, any Katakana, and read and undersatnd a generous handful of the simpler Kanji. Unfortunately, no sentences yet, but I'm getting closer 毎日 (pronounced "mainichi," means "every day").

Right now, I'm in a bit of a slow section. All I'm supposed to be doing right now is getting to level 十 (10) with the Kanji learning program I'm using. (It's called WaniKani, and while it does cost money, I say it's pretty worth it if you're wanting to get into JP yourself. I don't want to yap too much about it, but I will say you can tell actual people with actual senses of humor made this website, from the readings to the design to the emails.) Anyway, it's been going, it's just been going slow. So if I don't update for a little while, uh that's why. I'm only halfway there as of right now, at level 五 (5).

I can, however, impart some funny knowledge I've learned. For example:

Some combos actually make sense.

宝 = treasure

石 = stone

宝石 = gem/jewel (a treasure stone would be something like a jewel, right?)

Here's another example:

Some combos actually make no sense.

赤 = red

ちゃん = refers to someone younger than you. It's like the equivalent of calling someone "Little [name]"

赤ちゃん = Baby (Why is the baby red?! Is it ok?????)

I suppose that's all I have for this part of my Japanese journey. If you have any questions I might be able to answer them for you!

ありがとうございます! (Meaning "Thank you!" + respect)