One of the first things that I noticed about Textfugu is that almost every page has a relevant picture and quote. I laughed so hard when Tofugu quoted himself "' Romaji is completely useless. Don't learn it because you already know it' - Koichi." Also, I love that he doesn't assume that we know anything about Japanese. Even if I already know some stuff about the language, it's still interesting to read and it's extremely helpful to people who know nothing about the it. :) The way koichi words things is also really amusing; even in his videos he says things in a straightforward way that always makes me laugh ( "Unfortunately, romaji is actually pure evil, so I won’t waste your time with it." ) Even if he is stretching the truth a little, it's kind of like racist jokes (according to Avenue Q), "we laugh because [it's] based on truth." lol :) I'm definitely not saying that racist jokes are a good thing (because they're not), but I think you get the point.
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After the part about getting ready to study Japanese, Koichi gives an introduction to the four forms of writing in the Japanese language (Romaji, Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji) and explains when each is used.
Romaji: BLAH! basically he spends a whole page explaining how useless romaji is and how it only hurts progress in learning Japanese lol
Hiragana: "curvy and lovable" lol hiragana is often described as being feminine, but saying the previously mentioned phrase might be a bit much. :) It's the most common way of writing in Japanese and helps with learning Japanese pronunciation properly from the start. It's commonly used to write difficult Kanji or words with no way of writing them in Kanji, particles and suffixes (like honorifics -chan, -san, -kun, etc), and something about adding context to adjectives and adverbs (changing time tense or negativity, etc).
Katakana: "boxy and rigid" It's true that Katakana looks more masculine, but it's not as if guys write this way and girls write in Hiragana (although they do have differences in the way they speak and which words they use). Katakana is usually used to write foreign or scientific words, comic book/manga sounds effects (onomatopoeia lol), words with emphasis (like italicizing in English), and foods (like on menus).
and lastly, Kanji: The most complicated way of writing Japanese. ugh. Basically, it's Chinese characters that the Japanese adopted and use it to write pretty much all "vocabulary" words.
He then gives us a little quiz to review what he discussed in the explanations. My answers are as follows:
1. Should I bother to learn romaji? NO
2. Which “alphabet” is used to write all the “vocabulary words?” Kanji
3. Where did kanji come from? China
4. Which “alphabet” do you use to write foreign words? Katakana
5. Which “alphabet” tends to be more “boxy shaped” and “rigid?” Katakana
6. Do Hiragana & Katakana consist of the same sounds? YES
7. Which “alphabets” are you going to learn on TextFugu? all of them (except romaji :P )
8. Which “alphabet” would you use to write the “Roma” in Romaji (Roma = Rome)? Kanji? lol
AH! the last one was supposed to be Katakana; I forgot that Rome is a foreign word adapted into Japanese. Overall, I did pretty well for my first real lesson; especially since I already knew practically all of it. ROFL!! Okay so the next thing Koichi does is show this hilarious video on YouTube called "Mr. Ando of the Woods." Oh my gosh, SO FUNNY (and also slightly creepy :P ) He does so because, if the dialogue in the video was written in Japanese it would use some of each kind of writing (i.e. it uses honorifics on names, onomatopoeia, words from other languages, etc)
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I really appreciate that Koichi took the time to go through how to make a good and proper To-Do list too. Lists are a big thing to me; I love lists. Whenever it gets to To-Do lists, though, I always get too general and end up spending too much time trying to do each thing instead of doing a little of each thing and getting closer to finishing all of them. He recommends keeping the items on the list manageable/"actionable" and short-term. Making my really general things more specific will probably help me manage my time better and help me make more time for studying Japanese. :)
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I've noticed that Koichi likes consistency; I say this because the first writing method he teaches is Hiragana, which is the same writing method he first explained. He starts off explaining the pronunciation of the five "magic characters" or something like that. The five characters, are said to be magical because the Hiragana characters have a pronunciation pattern. If you have ever read any Romaji, basically all vowels are pronounced the same way ... well not ALL, but all the a's (ka, ga, na, sa, ra, etc) have an "ah" sound and similarly, all the e's (ke, ge, ne, se, re, etc) have an "eh" sound.
あ → a (ah)
い → i (ee)
う → u (oo like who or you)
え → e (eh)
お → o (oh)
Since I already know all the Hiragana and how to pronounce them, I'm not really going to go into much detail beyond that, but the r's and l's are almost pronounced the same (almost like r + l + d sound) so it can be kind of confusing. Also, the character ふ can be pronounced as either fu or hu depending on the word. ん (n) is the only character that doesn't have any vowel sound (ah, eh, ee, oh, oo). Lastly, in words with double consonants, the character っ(not to be confused with つ) goes before the consonant that needs to be doubled. For now I'm reviewing all of the Hiragana, and when I get through all of the Hiragana sections, I will post again. :)
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