Catch-22

Sometime ago some people asked me "How I get to become so good with the English Language." I answered him, "Because I read a lot!"

Now, I am learning a new language, one with the reputation of being both difficult and popular, Japanese. In both grammar and usage, I indeed find it very hard. "Hard as in how?" "If it's so hard, why didn't I just improve it like how I did for my English?" my detractors said.

Wish it were that simple. Allow me to explain. In order to improve my Japanese skills, I first need to read more. But in order to do that, I first need to understand more of what I read, and for that to happen, I need to understand the text. But before I can even begun to understand them, I need to know how to read them. To know how to read them, I need to be exposed to their usage everyday, but for that to even start to happen, I need to read which, unfortunately is back at the initial problem that I had.

Catch-22.

However, there is a way to break out of the circle. Through several years of slow, steady learning accompanied by light reading. First, it is imperative that I know how to read, especially kanji, the hardest of the three Japanese scripts. Only after adequately mastering kanji can I be reasonably capable of reading full Japanese texts.

Ahhh, when will I be able to both read, write and converse fluently in Japanese, I wonder...?