I’ve picked up quite a bit of Japanese just by watching so much anime but also from reading manga and from some Japanese tv programs. I have started learning the hiragana characters and have mostly mastered about fifteen of them out of 46, I think. There’s also katakana which are characters used for foreign words which I plan to learn once I have finished the hiragana.

I found many apps for my phone that are really useful. Many of them teach how to draw the character properly and also serve as flashcards of sorts. But the most interesting thing to me now is learning the kanji characters. I downloaded a free dictionary and found it has a study mode with lists of kanji characters for each grade at school up to high school. There are also lists for the various levels of Japanese learning, related to assessments available. I’ve been working on the grade one level for a week or two now and I have impressed myself a bit by recognising characters I see on the anime. Even more exciting was dropping into a Japanese goods shop (they seem to be popular here now) and recognising the kanji character for water….the Scientist wanted to know how to say the word but I am ashamed to say I couldn’t remember it. :) Not that I am working on that part quite as much just yet.