Japan Style

Nihongo is the national language spoken in Japan, although I know there are many ethnic groups who are using different languages. Nihongo is I think a combination of 2 words Nihon and gengo which literally means: Nihon（日本）= Japan + Gengo = Language = Japan Language. According to history most of the characters used by the Japanese are originally from China, the reason why if you will compare the characters of the 2 language, certain similarities will be observed (that's why a Chinese friend of mine adapt with it so easilly :-D).
Nihongo language is represented in 3 sets of characters: Hiragana, which is the usual way to write Japanese entities, etc (eg. Books=hon=ほん); Katakana, which is used to write foreign words like my name Edward (Edowarudo＝エドワルド :-?); and finally Kanji, which like I said originates from Chinese, Hiragana can also be represented in Kanji (eg. book=hon=ほん=本). Oftentimes Kanji writings shorten an object written representation :-D. But it's hard to memorize and I think there are thousands of them (if I remember right, I only know about 700 of them).
Compared to the set of alphabet that we usually know (BTW I'm a Filipino and our alphabet set is almost like that of the English -a b c.. etc), don't you think that's too much? Hiragana and Katakana has around 45 each + hundreds or even thousands from Kanji :-D.. Nevertheless I enjoy learning it. Writing their character is like an art, I remember when I was in college I always got low grades on writing cause my sensei was very specific on strokes.
Well, that's the basic Nihongo Language for you. In the future I will try to discuss each set one by one with examples :-D.

When I was a child, animation shows from Japan and other countries were so popular here (Philippines - around 90's), that all the television channels featured them. So as I child I got caught up and followed several series like Cedie (The Little Prince), Sarah (The Little Princess), Daimos the infamous Voltes 5 and many more. Today we have the gundam series, naruto, samurai x and many many more.

For example with Sarah and Cedie, I got really interested in the place (Europe), culture and people that were depicted. So often I will read books that were related to them. And then I told myself that someday I will visit these places. Growing up Japanese anime has really captured my interest and for that reason I took Nihongo classes way back when I was in College - though it was pretty basic (Konnichiwa :-D).

After graduation, I had the change to work for a Japanese firm here in the Philippines so I took that opportunity to learn there ways and culture. While doing that I also went to a Japanese school that offers Nihongo classes (they have good Senseis - it's somewhere in Makati). Though I was always tired, I am happy that I took that opportunity to learn.

In this blog I will try to document those that I have learn from my friends, boss and senseis about Nihongo, so hopefully I will not forget them. And if a third time come for an opportunity to work in Japan, I can use this knowledge that I have acquired (personal ranking - I am somewhere between level 2 and 3). No backing out :-D.

Disclaimer:
The author is not an expert in the language but is just trying to document what he learned. It was a combination of his own learnings, from senseis, from anime, books, google, etc.