I have been feeling sluggish and my leave has not been as productive as I intended, but yesterday Monkey coaxed me into doing the first chapter of Human Japanese, which was a gentle introduction to pronunciation in the Japanese language. Then this morning, while she did her Japanese homework I got on with chapter 2 (introduction to written Japanese) and then chapter 3 ... hiragana. And now I can read this:
It feels like huge progress in a couple of hours. I do read it very (very) slowly and have to visualise each hiragana and remember which group it is in and which vowel it is attached to, but I can do it. I am taking a break to write a blog post and knit a round of my Gaudi jumper and then will go back and try to write out again the 15 that I have learnt without looking at the screen. I am not sure when was the last time I made my brain work this hard.
Outside lovely things are happening. I hung out my bedding (not that it's sunny, but being outside makes it smell nice) and just looked for signs among all the brown, wizened, and twiggy plants. A caterpillar on the top of the plum tree (which does have little buds):
Bulbs that I planted around the plum tree but can't recall what they are , so that will be a nice surprise when they flower:
And buds on the physocarpus opulifolius that I planted back in September:
Stay safe. Be kind. See you tomorrow.
(line 1: a, i, u, e, o. line 2: ka, ki, ku, ke, ko. line 3: ga, gi, gu, ge, go. line 4: sa, shi, su, se, so. line 5: za, ji, zu, ze, zo.)
That sounds like a fun and very challenging language endeavor. I learned the Cyrillic alphabet years back, but it was nothing like this. And the garden buds and sprouts are so hopeful!
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