My first Japanese lesson

Today I went for my first Japanese lesson. It's actually the third lesson as it started last week, but I only managed to register on last Wednesday night, so this makes it my first lesson. As expected, we are behind the others, lucky to say, they did not proceed far, at least, we could still catch up with what they have learned.

Like all other languages, we need to start by learning the alphabets, or known as Hiragana in Japanese. But, Hiragana is not really alphabets as ABC in English. It's something more like "characters" of sound. Each Hiragana has its own pronunciation. Learning the Hiragana includes learning how to write the characters (as in Mandarin) and also its pronunciation, because Japanese words are constructed based on Hiragana, for example, "watashi" is constructed from "wa", "ta" and "shi", same thing goes for "sakura" is built from the Hiragana's of "sa", "ku" and "ra". Learning to write the characters reminded me of the nostalgic primary school Standard 1, where we need to learn all the basics in Mandarin characters stroke by stroke.

Besides, we were also exposed to the simple, but important greetings that are required daily. For instance,

ohio gozaimasu - おはようございます (good morning),

konnichiwa - こんにちは (good afternoon),

konbanwa - こんばんは (good evening) and

oyasuminasai - おやすみなさい (good night).

I have quite a lot to learn in order to catch up with the lesson. I have 71 Hiragana's to learn! Better work harder...wish me luck!