There’s a neighborhood in Kawasaki called Mizonokuchi.  At first I thought it was Mi*zu*nokuchi, or literally “mouth of the water”… maybe where a creek emptied into a river, or a river into the ocean.  Romantic.  Poetic.  Then I looked up the kanji:

溝ノ口

It turns out mizo actually means “ditch”.  Mouth of the ditch.

Not so poetic.

When I first started studying Japanese I watched a lot of anime. I got hooked on the likes of Cowboy Bebop, Inuyasha, Fruits Basket, and Escaflowne, all with English subs. Some fansub groups write transliterations of song lyrics so you can sing along even if you can’t read Japanese.  It can be hard to follow, though:

Nee, aishitara dare mo ga konna kodoku ni naru no?
Nee, kurayami yori mo fukai kurushimi dakishimeteru no?
Nanimo kamo ga futari kagayaku tame, kitto

Blech. I would loop the song over and over, trying to get my tongue to match the crazy mashup of letters. I went over it enough that I ended up memorizing the sounds but had no idea what I was saying.

Every once in a while after that I would go through the original lyrics and see how much I could read. The Japanese looks much prettier, by the way:

ねえ　愛したら誰もが
こんな孤独になるの?
ねえ　暗闇よりも深い苦しみ
抱きしめてるの?

何もかもが二人輝くため
きっと

As the years went on I grokked more and more. Today I reached a milestone – I can read and write all of the lyrics. The last kanji to fall was 闇, or darkness. There is a whole lot more to Japanese than a single song but I still feel like I conquered a small, personal corner of the language.

Oh, I couldn’t leave you without the song!  It’s the opening for Escaflowne and is called 約束はいらない or “No Need for Promises”.  All of the spoilers are in the last 30 seconds if you care about that kind of thing.

The song lyrics are here, along with a translation of passable quality.