Since Christmas or so, (with the gift of My Japanese Coach for DS) I've been learning the 104 Hiragana.
An example of Hiragana can be found in the title, but if you don't have Japanese installed on your computer, just Google search "Hiragana chart" any of the results will do.
Japanese has four written languages. Romaji, Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. (I'll say 'cat' in each alphabet. If you don't have Japanese installed, you'll probably see rubbish. Sorry.)
Romaji is roman characters writing out Japanese words; ie. neko.
Hiragana and Katakana are both phonetic alphabets. Each character represents one sound (one language, 104 sounds). Hiragana is used for Japanese words, Katakana for loanwords. (My name, your name, McDonalds, coffee: whenever a Japanese person would type one of those thigns, it'd be in Katakana.) Hiragana: ねこ. Katakana: ネコ.
Kanji are the (near) inifinite chinese characters given Japanese meanings; ie. 猫.
All four of those make up one language known as Japanese. Saying "this is Mr. Smith's cat." would be something along the lines of "これわスミスさんの猫です." (Literally "this cat Smith's is.") Excuse my horrible grammar.
That sentence uses the latter three alphabets, and was typed using romaji. (kore/wa/sumisu/san/no/neko/desu). Without the slashes, of course.
I'm not explaining that again. Never. Whenever someone asks me, I'll just direct them to this post.
Anyway, back to being happy. I've learned all 104 Hiragana. It's a small milestone, but it's a milestone all the same. And I've learned the combinations like: kyo (which would be the Hiragana for Ki + the Hiragana for Yo.), kya, gyu, nya, myu, etc. I still don't speak much Japanese beyond "Good morning, I am Alex. Nice to meet you." (Ohayo gozaimasu, watashi wa Aritsu desu. Hajimemashite.)
I'm getting somewhere, yes... With Japanese, I'm relishing every single step.... Especially because I'm tackling 2000 and some odd Kanji next. Then the Katakana. Finally, I start learning sentences. It's going to be a long year.
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