ダニーの日本語

I’m not much one for resolutions. Giving up chocolate, or drinking, or playing karaoke games for a year seems to me to serve little purpose. If I ever did find myself doing any of those things to excess I wouldn’t want to wait until January 1st to do something about it.  So I don’t generally bother with making a resolution at new year.

Projects, on the other hand, are something else.  I love a good project.  Planning everything out, deciding what I should do – the sillier or more extreme the better!  At the end of last year, I first tried to write a novel in a month, and later completed an album in 24 hours with some friends.

It is in this spirit that I have decided this year to begin a new project, specifically to try and gain some proficiency in Japanese within twelve months.  The vagueness of this definition is intentional.  I do not want to set a task that is totally unreasonable and unattainable, but at the same time I would like to reach as far as I can.

In order to strive for this target, I will mostly be following the method put forward by Khatzumoto in his website, All Japanese All The Time.  He attained fluency (a somewhat more impressive level of mastery than “some proficiency”) in eighteen months using this method, so I hope to have got some way toward that by the end of the year.

There are some ways in which I am not following Khatzumoto to the letter; in some cases going directly against his advice.  For the most part, this is just an attachment I have to my stuff, and I may pay for it later – we shall see.  For the sake of clarification, here are some of the areas where I will and won’t be following Khatzumoto’s method:

• I will avoid English-language media as far as is possible.  I have deleted all non-japanese music from my iPod, and written to National Geographic asking them to change my subscription to Japanese (!).
• I will use Japanese for any configurable electronic device I’m using (for example, the MacBook I am typing on now is running a Japanese OS X).
• I will sell or otherwise get rid of non-Japanese DVDs and Blu-Ray discs that I own.  I’ve been meaning to have a clearout in a long time anyway.
• I will pack up all my books and CDs in a friend’s attic for the course of the year.  Khatzumoto warns against just “packing things away”, and suggests that they be sold to remove completely any chance of having a moment of nostalgic weakness and unpacking them all.  However, the fact that they will be in someone else’s house should help ward against that…
• I will not neglect my English friends in my efforts to learn Japanese.  Luckily for me, two of my closest friends here in Brighton are both learning Japanese at the same time, so I shouldn’t have to.

That’s about it.  So, the basic gist of it is: I won’t be listening to any English music or reading English books or watching English films (unless they’re Japanese-dubbed).  At all.  A fairly tall order!

So, apart from that, there must be some method, right?  Indeed, there must.  I could listen to all the J-Pop I wanted and never pick up a word.  So, I am first going through the Kanji using Heisig’s mnemonic technique to get some “feeling” for the word in English.  This is so that when I begin studying actual Japanese, I will at least be literate.  And, of course, by cutting out English books I have forced myself into a temporary illiteracy, which for me as an avid reader is quite an horrific state of affairs.  This is hugely motivating – I can’t wait to finish the Kanji, stock up on Japanese books and magazines, and start learning how to read!

The method as Khatzumoto sees it is to learn 2,000-3,000 Kanji, and then move onto learning entire sentences – not words out of context but full sentences.  He recommends learning 10,000 of these.

And so, my journey begins with Heisig and the Kanji.  I will post occasionally when things of interest occur or when I pass a significant milestone.  Wish me luck!