Different!

I have been in Japan since December of 2000 and I think a good word that summarizes Japan, the Japanese people, and the Japanese language is... "different!" 


Oh, sure, a lot of other words could be used, and a lot of explanation given, but "different" is pretty near a Grade A good choice of a word to sum things up!! Yes, there are a lot of similarities between U.S. culture and Japan, but there are a lot of differences too!

I'd like to start this language-centric blog off with the easiest Japanese kanji there is... in my humble opinion. (kanji: a system of Japanese writing using Chinese characters.)

"1." That's right the number one, numero uno, nummer eins (German...I think?!)!!!

Here it is:

"One" or "ichi" as its called. (Sounds like itchy) Perhaps the easiest Kanji!

You draw the kanji left to right. You might think the direction is not important but it is. I won't get into why right now. If you look at this simple one stroke character, the number "1", do you notice something right off? Yes, you guessed it... it's different! Different than our number 1. In these two languages, Japanese and English, not even the most basic thing like the number 1 is the same!! It is laying down where as the English one is standing! And.. I will tell you "one" thing for sure, after "one" good study session of Japanese you'll be wanting to lay down yourself! Whew!