Japanese!!

I started teaching myself Japanese!! For months, people have been telling me that so much of what I do (especially in regards to my art) is very "East Asian" as are many of my thoughts and "philosophies" on life. I'd been feeling "unbalanced" in terms of my ethnicity. . . Don't get me wrong, I love my other half too, but I just feel like there's so much I don't know about my roots, where I come from. I'm going to change this by slowly exploring ~^_^~

So far I've learned the Hiragana syllabary :

あいうえお
かきくけこ
さしすせそ
たちつてと
なにぬねの
はひふへほ
まみむめも
や ゆ よ
らりるれろ
わ を
ん

and some Katakana too !

アイウエオ
カキクケコ

I don't know what it is, but I just find all these characters adorable. I love the little curves and loops and circular motion that's visible in many of them. My favorite character is the vowel "O" : お !

I love that you can see the energy of the second to last stroke which carries into the final tick mark. It's not just a random line...it's connected to the whole !

The other thing I love about the language is a little something referred to as "ten-ten" from the word dakuten which can be understood as "softening marks." When added to a character, the consonant becomes less hard ** i.e. the "k-" sound becomes a softer "g-", "t-" becomes "d-", and so on.


I like to hold up two fingers next to my face in imitation of these marks. **!!**

Some things I can write/say/spell:
Ohayou gozaimasu (Good morning) おはようございます
Hajimemashite (Nice to meet you) はじめまして
まりさ (ma ri sa, Hiragana) or まりっさ (* the small 'tsu' っ indicates a double consonant)
たまこ(ta ma ko, my grandmother's name !!)
みずです。(It is water or I am water or You are water -- I want to learn how to say We are all water next!)


Hooray for learning things independently !!