Lesson One

I'm currently reading through TextFugu (and listening to Japanese Pod 101), and it suggests starting a blog to log (hehe) learning. That is what this is, though I can't promise I'll actually keep up with it. I've never been good at journaling.

The title supposedly translates to "Cool Japanese Phrase", but I'm almost certain that it isn't quite right. I used a Japanese dictionary, but using a dictionary certainly doesn't mean that the usage is correct. ;)

To get on with it, I just completed the first two sections of TextFugu, so my initial thoughts are on the alphabets. I already knew that there were four “alphabets” in Japanese, but I only vaguely understood them before. Well, I still only vaguely understand them, but it is less vague than before. ;)
I don't quite get the purpose of hiragana and katakana yet (if basically all vocab is made up at least somewhat of kanji?), but I'm hoping it will become clearer as I learn.

I'm not surprised that I won't be learning romaji in this textbook. I took Arabic lessons from a family friend for about 6 months while I was in high school, and she insisted that we learn the alphabet first, then learn words written in the alphabet. Writing an Arabic word with the English alphabet was a thing to be avoided at all costs. Certainly feels tougher to begin with, having to learn a whole new alphabet and new words all at the same time, but I bet it makes learning much easier overall.