Learning Japanese
I’ve wanted to learn Japanese for long time. To understand that, we have to go back in time, go back to the day when I started to read manga again. I began to read manga at the age of 7 but abandoned when I was 14. And then, when I was in the first year at my university in Vietnam, I suddenly wanted to read manga. Until now I don’t understand what made me interested in the manga universe again. Anyways, it does not really matter.
But, this time, I don’t read manga the way I did before. I think a lot while reading and select the series more strictly. And the most different detail is that I don’t like mangas for girls anymore but find myself truly attracted by mangas for boys, which contains quite a lot of violent scenes and bloody battles. But just like I said earlier, I select the mangas I read and once the story is interesting and the message conveyed is profound enough, I do not care if there are much violence or not. And curiously enough, most of the mangas for boys have more subtle plots than most of the mangas for girls.
Moreover, this time, I pay much more attention in the cultural aspects of the mangas than before, the Japanese language included. That can explain why I always feel very excited when I am in the Japanese class.
First of all, the fact that you can read another system of characters is really satisfying. From now on, I can understand all the hiragana and can read all the Japanese texts written in hiragana. What I saw as “weird codes” before become clear and understandable now. Secondly, learning new vocabularies and grammar is also exciting, which is very weird because normally I hate learning things like this. In the case of Japanese, learning new things means that I can understand more and can explain myself better in the language I’m curious about. Thirdly, learning Japanese makes me feel even happier watching the anime. Before, I loved hearing the voices of the characters in the anime and love the way they spoke. And now, sometimes I can recognise the words, the sentences and can understand some words they say. And reversely, when I am in class, I feel excited each time the teacher says a word that I’ve heard in the anime. The link between what passionate you and what you learn is really a great motivation for your studies.
In fact, the same thing happened between me and English, when my biggest love for cinema made me understand English more easier. The day when I started to love Harry Potter and Daniel Radcliffe was also the day when every English word I heard and pronounced began to make me happy. At that time, all the things related to English means “Dan” and “Harry” for me. I loved English because I loved Dan. People could say that this is just a crazy passion and that I was such an irrational girl. But I know that whatever people may say, the true passion is the only thing that can help you to study more efficiently, no matter what this passion is.