Studying Japanese at UCLA

Once I had my sights set on moving to Japan I knew I had to learn Japanese.  As I mentioned I had learned a few phrases before that first fateful trip - and I just seemed to take to the language. As I was dead serious about moving to Japan a dead-serious program to learn the language seemed the only way to go.  UCLA has a great extension program in foreign languages, so I enrolled.

Friends who have an interest in the Japanese language often ask if I have any advice on studying Japanese.  My advice?  Don't.  Studying any foreign language is tough - Japanese is an incredibly hard language to learn.  For example, "I am going to the store" when directly translated into Japanese comes out "I store to going am".  Then, in order to really be able to study the language, you have to learn to read and write Japanese.  We have one alphabet - 26 letters.  Japanese has three writing systems - hiragana, katakana, and kanji.  You need to know at least 2000 kanji to be able to read a newspaper.   But I just dove in.

During my three years at UCLA I became a professional student.  Simply put, I studied my rear end off.  I did well - straight A's the entire three years.  But it was tough.  Studying kanji alone requires hours of sitting and writing.  I would get up every Saturday morning and write kanji from 7AM until noon.  By the time I was done at UCLA I could write about 800 kanji.  Kanji looks like this - 日本語 - which means the Japanese language.  Kanji is simply impossible.  One kanji can have different meanings and pronunciations depending on its position in a word. 

Sometimes I think if I'd known then what I know now.... but I didn't know, so I just kept studying.  My teachers at UCLA were maniacally strict Japanese women.  This was a great help actually, not only in learning the language but how the Japanese think.  Even though the entire three years was a struggle I never lost sight of my goal and could see gradual improvement.

Looking back, these were three of the best years of my life.  I was never much of a student - but I totally immersed myself in the study of Japanese.  I love the language.  Now after living and working in Japan for almost 15 years I often think my Japanese sucks.  I imagine it doesn't - but it's sometime disheartening to know I'll never be 100% fluent.  But my Japanese has, in the end, served its purpose.  Without it I would have never been able to move to Japan - so I see my Japanese ability as destiny fulfilled.

Next blog - the move.

My first trip to Japan

In 1992 I was teaching bass guitar at Musicians Institute in Los Angeles.  At the time we had an exchange program with two schools here in Japan - Osaka School of Music and Tokyo School of Music.  These schools had a two year program for Japanese students where the students would spend one year here and one year in Los Angeles at our school.  Every summer the schools would have open houses to attract new students, and they would have a group of our teachers come over to play concerts to promote the exchange program.  In 1992 heavy metal was popular here, and as I was teaching a metal performance class I came over with a group of teachers. 

To this day I cannot really describe what my first visit to Japan was like.  I often tell people it was like the scene in The Wizard Of Oz where it goes from black and white to color.  I was just enthralled with every aspect of Japan.  The buildings, the people, the food.  I felt such a connection to Japanese people.  Every morning when everyone else was sleeping in our hotel I would get up early and go out and just walk among Japanese people.  Sounds odd, I know.  For reasons I still can't describe I just wanted to live and breathe Japan. 

I had learned a few phrases in Japanese before the trip, and for the kids we were playing for the combination of a long-haired American rock musician who could speak even a little Japanese seemed to have great appeal.  For me, this was like catnip.  After years of playing the Sunset Strip with less-than-spectacular results suddenly kids were clamoring for me.  I just thought this is where I have to be.  The path of my life took a hard left, and from that point on I had one vision - one goal.  To live and work in Japan.

Next blog - studying Japanese at UCLA.