Intro
ようこそ！ Welcome to 「好きこそ物の上手なれ」- A humble Japanese learning site. Thank you for taking the time to check out my website, and I hope you'll enjoy your stay.
About Me
First, a bit about me and my experience with learning Japanese. My name's Howard, and I'm an undergraduate engineering student at the University of British Columbia.
I made a few half-hearted attempts in high school to learn Japanese, but never made it past memorizing hiragana and basic phrases. It wasn't until May 2022 that I really started taking things seriously. Honestly, I'm not quite sure what the impetus was, or why this attempt was able to last so much longer than my previous efforts, but I think a difference in motivation was a big factor—more on that later.
I wouldn't consider myself a "weeb", although I do happen to enjoy anime, light novels, etc. from time to time. Maybe, it'd be more apt to say that my interests happen to be Japanese in origin.
One such interest of mine is in Riichi (Japanese) Mahjong, which is a fairly niche hobby in the west. As a consequence, the vast majority of Riichi videos, books, etc. have no English translations, so I suppose this is where one part of my motivation to learn Japanese came from. I'm also a fan of the 本格, or "orthodox" style of mystery novels favored by Japanese authors, but again, English translations are few and far between.
As for how far I've come in the two or so years since I started learning Japanese, although I've yet to take any formal examination, I would place myself somewhere between N2 and N1 on the JLPT.[1]
My strongest areas are reading and kanji knowledge, and my weakest area is speaking, which I think makes sense, considering that most of my experience with the Japanese language comes from input (as opposed to output). Going forward, I definitely want to work on being able to better express my thoughts in Japanese!
About This Site
Next, a bit about this site. The title, 好きこそ物の上手なれ, is a proverb that roughly translates to you become good at what you like doing. I chose this title because it reflects a key belief of mine—namely, that motivation is the most important factor when it comes to learning a language.
I intend for this site to serve as a blog where I'll upload posts about topics related to learning Japanese. I am highly interested in the language itself, so expect to see a lot of posts about grammar, vocabulary, and kanji, as opposed to posts about culture or history. Since there's already a lot of existing English content for Japanese learners, I'll also try to cover topics that are less well-known.
The topics which I'll post about are intended for anyone with an interest in Japanese, but having a bit of Japanese knowledge definitely wouldn't hurt. Those who can read kana and understand basic grammar are likely to get more out of my posts than an absolute beginner, but there should be something for everyone. Readers at an N2 or N1 level should be able to understand everything with little to no issues.
As someone who especially likes proverbs and idiomatic expressions, I might include some 四字熟語 (Yojijukugo) or 諺 (Kotowaza) in my posts. In these cases, I'll provide the reading in kana, as well as common translations, in boxes like the ones below. On this note, a strong foundation in kanji would also help when it comes to reading my posts, but I imagine that readers will be fine either way.
四字熟語 (Yojijukugo)
本末転倒 (ほんまつてんとう) — Putting the cart before the horse ; getting one's priorities backwards.
諺 (Kotowaza)
雨降って地固まる (あめふってじかたまる) — What doesn't kill you makes you stronger ; after the rain, the ground hardens [literal translation].
I'll also be including interesting facts or bits of information in info boxes like the one below.
Info
My name, Howard, is pronounced as ハワード in Japanese.
Is Japanese Easy, Actually?
If you look around online enough, you might come across resources claiming that learning Japanese is actually easy. I think those authors are mostly being tongue-in-cheek, though, because the truth of the matter is that learning Japanese is not easy.
Learning Japanese to even a basic level—I acknowledge that "basic" here is pretty poorly defined, so let's say to the level of passing N5—takes hundreds of hours, and even that is a far, far cry from any sort of "fluency". What's important is being able to commit yourself to the huge undertaking that is learning Japanese, which makes being motivated all the more important.
There'll be times when you feel like you're making progress at lightspeed, and there'll also be times when you feel as though you've hit a wall. My advice is to tough it out and roll with the punches—as the saying goes, 苦は楽の種. Don't hyper-fixate on short term progress (or lack thereof), but instead look at things in the long term.
諺 (Kotowaza)
苦は楽の種 (くはらくのたね) — No pain, no gain ; suffering is the origin of pleasure [literal translation].
Of course, all the thoughts and views expressed on this site are just my personal opinions, and you're free to think however you wish to. If you'd like to get in touch with me, you can reach out either via Neocities (that's where I'm hosting this site), or via Discord at nootnoot4900.
If you notice any errors or inaccuracies, don't hesitate to let me know. I promise I won't bite!
Well, that's all I have to say, at least for the About page. I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the site—and may all your future endeavors be fruitful.
There's a few reasons why I don't think the JLPT is actually that great of a benchmark for Japanese proficiency, but as a point of reference, it'll do. ↩︎