Marcel Winatschek

Tokyo Before Thirty

The life plan, as carved in stone: marry Nora Tschirner, achieve total world domination, flood Berlin, retire to Tokyo. Retire meaning no later than thirty. Live fast, die young, et cetera.

The obvious prerequisite for living in Tokyo without just mumbling hello and goodbye at strangers is actually speaking the language—so starting mid-September I’m taking a beginner’s course at the John Lennon Gymnasium here in Berlin with a teacher named Saki Matsuda. I want to know what Ayumi Hamasaki and Utada Hikaru are actually screaming into my headphones. My working theory is that it’s exclusively about death, destruction, and sex. I could be wrong.

Japanese is one of the most satisfying-sounding languages I’ve ever encountered, which makes the gap between appreciating it and understanding it more frustrating than it has any right to be. If you know good resources—books, flashcard systems, useful sites, actual humans in Berlin willing to eat sushi and correct my pronunciation—I want to hear from you.