kanji are eff'ing tough

So the last couple of days I have been on a kick to buy Kanji helper devices. For those of you not in "the know," Kanji are the symbols you see in Japanese writing. Seperate from the syllabic alphabets, or kanas, each Kanji is a pictograph which can be read multiple ways depending which other Kanji or kana surround it. It is commonly said that you need to learn at least 2000 to be able to fluidly read Japanese. I know about 300 right now, but I still can barely read anything on the street or in books without the kana written next to the Kanji.

Each Kanji is unique and comprised of anywhere from 1 to 14 or more strokes. They get extremely complex and are easily the hardest part about learning Japanese.

Anyways, I picked up a bunch of grade school Kanji work books at the depaato the other day. They are fun and have helped me learn a few new Kanji already in just a couple days. My favorite exercise is when the sample sentence is "I am four years old."

It makes me feel smart.

The other thing I picked up today were Kanji flashcards for the first 500 Kanji taught in school. I am currently going through them to see which ones I know and which ones I dont. Each card has the Kanji, common readings, definition and common compound words using other Kanji. This is all fit in to a nice neat, 2 inch by 3 inch card. I love it.

In class I learn 6 new Kanji every day. This is an insane rate which I have never before experienced with Kanji. The fastest I learned before was maybe 10 in a 2 week span, but I am enjoying the faster pace, it actually makes the Kanji stick more, somehow.

INTERLUDE

I was in the office waiting to talk to Tanaka yesterday while he was on the phone. He kept taking photos of me with a digital camera, which struck me as odd. At first I assumed he wanted me for his book of memories or something, so I vainly posed. The truth was far from a book of memories, although it was, ironically, far more memorable.

"I have seen a show on television where people take photos and ghosts appear in the photos next to people. On the show they would talk to the people and see if the ghosts were real or not. Do you have such shows in America?"

"Uhhhh yeah...on the sci-fi channel I think, its mostly hoaxes I think."

"Well, they use film to see the ghost, so I am wondering if this digital camera I got will also be able to see the ghosts. If I can take a photo of someone with a ghost, perhaps I will go on this show to talk about my ghost."

Gotta love Tanaka!

EPILOGUE

I bought the Matrix Revolutions last night because I really wanted to see that cool battle between Neo and Smith again. Unfortunately, I remembered one key fact as I was watching it.

The Matrix Revolutions fucking sucks.

So does Matrix Reloaded.
karl.arthur