Learning Japanese

So I was cleaning my closet and listening to lessons from JapanesePod101 (see handy affiliate link in the sidebar). Pretty good stuff. You can listen to a conversation in Japanese at normal speaking speed, then they repeat it a little slower and then they give you line-by-line translation into English. The instructors then give an explanation of vocabulary, grammar points, context and politeness level. They have different plans that you can purchase and you can sign up for their podcast in iTunes, etc. They usually have a 7-day free trial, too (If you sign up for that, you will get LOTS of e-mail that week in an attempt to recruit you.) Honestly, though, the rates are fairly reasonable and you get lots of tools to use, including Kanji lists and self-tests.

I'm not much of an auditory learner- my mind wanders a lot- so I also make it a point to read the lesson notes. My retention rate is pretty bad right now, but I keep plugging away at it waiting for that little light bulb to go off accompanied by a nice *ding!*. I'm just too distracted by work and personal issues to dig in and really study, but if I keep listening to the lessons, at least I feel like I haven't abandoned all hope of learning Japanese.

Photo from here.

One thing that really irks me with all of the Japanese lessons that I've read and/or listened to is how they explain the differences between Japanese and English, especially in regard to politeness levels. It is common to hear that politeness levels are uniquely Japanese, but that just isn't true. There is no way whatsoever that I would speak the same to my boss as I would to my friends. The language is completely different. If I walked up to my boss and said, "Hey, dude, you gonna eat that?", I think he'd smack me. So while our verb conjugation may not alter much, our language certainly does.

Oops- kids are saying they're so hungry, so that's it for now! Matta ne!