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I`ve really got back into the swing of learning Hiragana, the first of the three character sets used by the Japanese for Japanese words. It`s quite addictive as you can see the progress you are making and seeing the numerous occurences of these characters in shops, menus and on the television gradually morph from obscure signs into characters with meaning and personality is really enjoyable.

I like looking at train station`s signs which are in both Japanese and English. I use them to help assimilate them into my head. For example I remember the character ME by knowng it is the middle character in Umeda which is a central Osaka station. On the television they will often print the conversation in large cartoonish characters onto the screen as they are being spoken. This happens especially when they are saying something funny or important to the programme.

I got given a learn to write hiragana textbook intended for very young Japanese children but it doesn`t have the sound transcribed into English so it was a bit haphazard. I am now working my way down through the table as below. Today I did SA, SHI, SU, SE and SO. They`re bloody hard.