nihongo wa sukoshi shika dekimasen

("I can only speak a little Japanese.")

I thought it would never happen, but Tuesday night I finished Book I of Japanese for Busy People -- the equivalent of finishing a year of college-level study. Up next: Book II, which will prove to be a bit more of a challenge because parts of the book, including the dictionary, are written in kana; and starting the daunting challenge of learning to read and write kanji, the alphabet consisting of thousands of Chinese characters. I'm working from a book called "Easy Kanji," which is a ridiculous oxymoron. It's from the same series as the "Easy Hiragana" book I mocked in an earlier post, but I have to admit, that book, and its companion, "Easy Katakana," did teach me those alphabets. So I was kind of superstitious about sticking with the same series for kanji. But I've already realized -- I'm going to need a LOT more books. Muzukashii desu! (It's difficult.)