I’ve mentioned before that City Pop is a big reason why I started learning japanese (long story short: I was in a bad place. one day I started listening to Anri, and thought to myself: “why don’t I know this?” And the rest is history).
Music has always been a bit iffy since singing is different than speaking. But I’ve played with translating and learning songs for my own amusement and as a way to get a bit better at speaking. So for funsies I started learning the city pop icon Tatsuro Yamashita’s “Ride on Time.” If you even listen to the bareminimum of City Pop (i.e. if you listen to anything other than Plastic Love), you’ve no doubt heard this song.
It’s just so freaking good. Everytime I listen to it I just get swept up into a more innocent, nostalgic time. So I went and learned the damn thing and spent time practicing singing along with the song. After feeling comfortable, I decided to sing along to simply an instrumental version of the song
And by george I did it. It says how much I’ve come when–with lyrics in front of me–how comfortable I can read japanese. And that I no longer need to think when it comes to certain Kanji. That’s the cool part–I was reading it like I was reading regular english. This is what keeps me going; even though I know I still have a long way to go, I’m committed.