Good Reasons To Learn Japanese 1

The video store! My God, it's a tease. Every Japanese movie I ever wanted to see right there, gleaming in their shiny plastic boxes. Right there but alas completely out of my reach, for they are, as you would expect, in Japanese. Gaaaarrgggghh. Look at all those Takeuchi Riki movies, and all those Aikawa Sho titles. Shit, there's the latest Takashi Miike's and all the Hama Mike TV Shows! Kurosawa! Ozu!! Ichikawa!!! There's 'Gojoe' and 'Bayside Shakedown' and 'Last Life in the Universe' and all that Suguwara Bunta stuff andohmygodI'mhyperventilatingdoesanybodyhaveapaperbag?

Ah, but I discovered this: mostly in Japanese, but not all! Oh yes, some have English subtitles, some even have English language audio tracks. How do I know this? I know this because I learnt some Kanji, yes Kanji! That ridiculously difficult script developed by the Chinese, those characters that now surround me constantly, looking oh so foreign and bewildering. I learnt some, me, yes.

I now know this: 英語字幕 means 'English Subtitles'. I even know how to say it: えいごじまく. So there you go.

Self congratulatory though this post may well seem (and perhaps it is) and though I'm acutely aware that this is a terribly trivial achievement - a drop in the ocean - I'm really just trying to echo the post on Hayato's blog about learning Japanese through manga. If there's something you really want, need or enjoy, and the Japanese language is a barrier to that, then you're gonna learn it much, much quicker.

It also helps stave off the culture shock that much longer.