I’m learning specific phrases to say and to count (it’s called Survival Japanese) while learning one of the three alphabets that are needed to be able to read. The others will follow. If you’re reading this, you’re reading the fourth alphabet that’s used, though it would rarely be seen in a newspaper.  

The characters I know at the moment are enough to spell some words but not enough for a sentence. It means that while I can recognise some characters, I’m finding it a little tricky to remember what the words mean as there isn’t a situation where I can use them yet. Except for “shellfish”. I can use that but only by itself. There’s no “I’d like some shellfish”. Just “shellfish”. So it’s a bit like how a caveman/woman would order food. Or a toddler. A toddler with advanced tastebuds but a toddler nonetheless.

Lucky I like shellfish.

I can also read and say a “red” or a “blue” shellfish. Seems a little odd. Oh, and “red wine” or “sake” though I can’t get any more specific than that. As a piece of interesting trivia, “sake” actually means liquor and is not the rice wine itself.

Also like a toddler, I know the words for “yes” and “no” both written and spoken. 

This process is a little different to learning your first language. Normally you pick up words by association and when you start learning to read, you already know what things are so when you sound out ‘t-a-b-l-e’, you know what a ‘table’ is and can make that link. I’m struggling with that at the moment. I sound out a word and while I will have the characters correctly sounded, I seem to find it difficult to know what the word really means. I know I’ve learnt the word for “table” too because that is made with a few of the characters I know. I don’t remember what it is at the moment…

The train station is the exception (I know I’ve learnt the word for that too but I’ve forgotten! Lack of context). Catching the train to and from work is a great way for me to practice my character recognition as I know the train stations I pass. As we near each one, the name of the station comes on the screens in the train in three different alphabets. One being this one, one in hiragana and the other in kanji, the Chinese style characters. I’m not even attempting that alphabet just yet.

I’ve also started reading the advertisements. I have no idea what they are really saying and even if I get the words correct, I’m still clueless. The pictures that go with the advertisements are equally useless at giving me a contextual clue. At least it means I won’t be sucked into buying anything I don’t really need.