I Think I'm Learning Japanese, I Really Think So!

[elfie_chan]

I have gained a new sympathy for any Japanese person who is attempting to learn English. When I was a writing tutor, I often wondered why Asian international students, especially those students from Japan, seemed to have so much trouble learning English. I understood, on an intellectual level, that Japanese was different from English, but I didn't understand how different. Now that I'm trying to learn Japanese myself, I understand much better--Japanese has no articles and no tenses. Everything is communicated through context. Japanese sentence structure is totally different from English. Also, for the most part, Japanese sounds don't change, no matter what symbols are together in a word. English letter-sounds change all the time, often unpredictably. I have a feeling that, once I get the symbols down, learning Japanese will be much easier than learning English.

I really don't have to start studying Japanese until next fall, when I'm going to actually start taking the class. However, my goal is to get into accelerated first-term Japanese next year, and I want to learn as much as I can as soon as possible. My goal is to take all four years of Japanese, and if I can test out of part of it and move on faster, so much the better! I have to take two years of a foreign language in order to graduate from college, anyway. I figure that Japanese will be the one that I will find most useful and entertaining in my everyday life. Besides that, being bilingual opens a lot of doors, and not just if I want to be a teacher, though it helps there, too. I could be an international business translator. I could help translate Japanese video games, anime, and manga into English (fun!). There are lots of fun jobs out there if you know Japanese. It also helps that I love Japanese culture and I want to learn lots more about it. I feel like a little kid standing outside a candy store, peering in the window. Soon, the door will open, and I'll have access to everything. *_*

Alex has also been helping me a lot with my Japanese studies. He's in third-term Japanese now, and so he helps me practice different phrases. He also has lots of flashcards that he made to help himself study for the past two terms, so he quizzes me with those. It's fun and very helpful.

So, Japanese is one of my goals, though I haven't been studying it as much as I should have this week. This week has been busy, to say the least. My birthday was on Tuesday, so we had a spontaneous birthday party at our house. This, of course, involved housecleaning, which is one of my least favorite things to do. However, if we wanted people to have anywhere to sit, housecleaning had to happen. The party was fun. It was Asian-themed (big surprise). We had potstickers and bao (steamed pork buns) and Pocky. We also watched Laputa, or Castle in the Sky. Alex and I have to watch it again, as everybody was so excited to see each other that we talked practically all through the movie. Since we were watching it dubbed, this meant that some of us couldn't hear anything and had no idea what was going on in the story. Ah, well. I'm a subtitles fan, and the party was very fun anyway.

I got to hang out with arianadream on Tuesday, as well. We chatted and read some of each other's old stories. Unfortunately, the one I wanted her to read was quite long, so I'm going to type it up and e-mail it to her so that she can read it as she has time. I started re-doing the plot today...the story itself is almost embarrassing. I wrote it in 1995, though, and it is salvageable. It was very inspiring to sit and talk about story elements and what needs work and so on. It made me want to sit down and do some actual writing--not just jotting down ideas in my Idea Book, but actually taking those ideas and writing actual stories. I have several old stories that need working on, if only I could find them. Ah, well. Before I do much of that, I really ought to finish writing up those thank you cards for the wedding presents. We still haven't finished those. ^_^;;

On Wednesday, Alex and I cleaned up from the anime party and got ready to have my parents over for dinner. That was kinda weird. Mom and Dad hadn't been over to our house since the wedding, and it felt really strange to be entertaining them as guests. Still, dinner went really well, and everybody had fun.

Today is finally a day where Alex and I can just relax at home and spend time with each other. I'm finding that this is one of my favorite things--planning to have no plans. If we want to, we can just sit and play video games all day. We can practice Japanese. We can read together. The nice thing is that we don't have to do any of these things. I love that. ^_^

Well, I think this entry has gone on quite long enough. Until next time!

P.S. Kazaa Lite is being obnoxious and not letting me play any of the songs I downloaded! Aargh!

Comments

[saraphina-marie.livejournal.com]

I took a Japanese language course in New York and yes, once you get the syllabary down, its very easy to pick up. But I am very rusty already...I don't get enough practise. But learning Japanese reminded me very much of learning music. Where you have everything at a set value and its all in how its arranged.
I need to get back into it, then I can go over to Epcot and pratise talking to the girls who work over at the Japan Pavilion. But it seems to me, that beyond learning to swear, I suck at learning languages.
Good luck to you, though.

[elfie-chan.livejournal.com]

I like how you put that...it makes sense.

*giggles* Swear words are the easiest to learn, methinks. I already know how to say "Dammit!" in Japanese.