Elementary kids are the cutest

I visited my big elementary school on Wednesday. I taught the 3rd graders and had lunch with them. At the end of lunch I noticed my name on the board and asked the teacher what the kids had written. 

Her translation of this was that my students' goal for the day was to be my friend. Isn't that cute? 

水曜日に大きい小学校へ行った。3年生が教えた。そして、一緒に昼ご飯を食べた。その後これを見た。

先生の通訳は「レベッカの友達になる。」ぐらい。かわいいですよね！

 

Sea of clouds

On Saturday morning, a friend and left town at 4am so owe could see the Sea of Clouds in Tomamu.

土曜日に友達と４時に雲海を見に行った。

When we were driving my friend kept talking about ‘unkai.’ So I decided to look it up. The kanji are “sea” and “clouds.” She was surprised that I understood the kanji, but not the actual word. Those are super easy kanji, but together I wouldn’t have thought they’d be read like that.

運転中に友達は「うんかい」よく言った。　私はうんかいが分からなかったから、辞書に探した。　漢字は「雲海」！　漢字は分かり安い。　でも、読み方は難しかった。

This was the view on the way up.

上へ行ったの眺め。

This direction isn’t the main thing to see, but if we could just get a little higher, I think it’d be really pretty too.

この側にもきれい。

My friend and I.

友達と。

The view on the way down.

帰る中に眺め。

After we got back, it was about 8 am and time for a nap.

帰ったの後に８時ぐらいけど、昼寝の時間。

First homework assignment

Last night I finished my first homework assignment, and actually today I’m almost finished with my homework until Sunday!

昨日最初宿題ができた！日曜日の宿題も今すぐ終わり！

The first assignment was to make a timeline of L2 learning (for me Japanese). Many of the events are recent and while I've been in Japan. Here are a few of them.

最初のは日本語を習うのタイムラインを作る。たくさんイベントは日本でした。この後少ないのある。

Leaving for the JET program, with not nearly as much Japanese as I would actually want to have.

JET Programのため日本へ引っ越した。その時日本語あまりできなかった。自己紹介だけぐらい。

The garbage poster. Figuring out how to sort my garbage was a difficult thing.

ごみは難しかったけど、必要。

Riding the train. I was so worried about getting lost that I used wikipedia to look up all the city kanji and put them in my phone’s ‘notes.’ 

電車を乗る。最初時にウィキペディアで全部市の漢字が探した。携帯に漢字を入れた。

Coming back my first year and realizing how much my Japanese abilities had grown (my first ski lessons were my first weekend back).

最初の冬休みの後の方が来る時より日本語できた。そして、最初スキー教室した。

Joining choir. I could barely keep up when I first got here, and even though I’m still far from perfect, I have a lot of fun singing with these ladies.

合唱。最初にあまりできなかった。今も完璧じゃないけど、とても楽しい！

Going to see the lavender fields and telling people we were doing ‘hanami,’ which means ‘flower viewing’ but it’s specific to cherry blossoms.

最初の夏に友達とラベンダー場へ行った。先生と話に「今週末花見するつもり」と言った。理由は花と見があるから、花を見る時に花見でしょうと思った。違った。桜だけは花見。

My car accident. It was a major pain, BUT I was able to explain what happened in Japanese! 

Thankfully God provided and I didn't have to try to explain to my supervisor – a family in town showed up and took care of me.

車の事故。ててもめんどくさい。でも、警察に説明ができた！キリストは与えた。町から家族が来た、私が手伝った。

Moving on up to intermediate level textbooks!

中級の教科書がはじめた。

Learning the word for snow plow and finally being able to use it. I have no snow plow pictures that I could find, so the dump truck of snow was the best picture – dump trucks of snow were completely unfathomable when I lived in the Portland area.

除雪車の言葉が習った。その写真がない。でも、日本来るの前にこのぐらい雪は考えなかった。

Finishing two novels – Alice in Wonderland and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

日本語で２つ小説が読んだ！

And, best of all, making Japanese friends and being able to talk to them!

１番楽しいことは日本の友達と話している！

Fun moments in the classroom

In Japan, students and their teachers eat lunch in the classroom. It’s a fun time to get to chat with the students about whatever is going on and usually a good chance to practice my Japanese.

日本では生徒と先生と教室に給食を食べる。生徒と話したながら、日本語を練習した。 楽しい給食時間を過ごした！

Yesterday, I walked in to the 2nd year classroom (where I eat my lunch), and one of my students was singing my name, “Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca!” I didn’t know why, but it made me laugh.

昨日２年生の教室へ行ってから、１人生徒は自分の名前が歌った、「レベッカ、レベッカ、レベッカ」。なぜか分からなかったけど、びっくりから、私は笑った。

After a few times of this, I decided that if he was going to be silly, I could be too. So I started singing his name back to him, “D~, D~, D~.” He got a laugh out of that, too.

数回の後、その面白かったら、私もできる。　だから、私もその生徒の名前を歌った、「D～、D～、D～」。　彼も笑った。

*  *  *  *  *

The second year teachers!

２年生の先生たち。

多分よく間違ったから、教えてください！

Photo Challenge Day 27

March 27: 5pm

At 5pm today, I was a few pages into the 5th chapter of Narnia.

Reading in Japanese was difficult, but fun.

Photo Challenge Day 26

March 26: Collage

Random bits of my day. I studied Japanese and drank tea. I attempted to edit the HEC videos – unfortunately with two cameras they were in two different formats. But, switching to my PC meant getting them off the camera took 15 minutes rather than 45 with my tiny work computer. Last, but not least, I found a bunch of super cute Japanese chocolates to eat this afternoon.

Other than that, I had choir today – the difficult song is difficult!

Also, we had a long-awaited Google Plus hangout with the crazies. Not everyone was available, but it was good times anyways! Here are a couple of “group shots!”

At the top: Ben. Across the bottom: Me, Ben (in New Zealand), Jess and Kenzle (in the US).

Round 2: OC and Jess. Bottom: Me , OC & Jess, Kenzle.

JLPT N3 results

I passed!

It's not exactly new news if you're friends with me on Facebook, but I just got the little result sheet today, I passed!

It's very good news because I had no idea whether I was going to pass or not. And it's very much improved from my N4 pass by one point, this time I passed by 11!

Here's the proof:

Stress

Signs of stress in my life:

1. The only food I can think about is chocolate. I’m hungry . . . where’s the chocolate?

2. When 10 pm hits and all my “stuff” is done, I think what fun thing can I do for a few minutes before bed? Then suddenly it’s midnight and I haven’t gone to bed (waaaay too late for my 6:00 am alarm). Which usually leads to . . .

3. Getting out of bed with the bare minimum amount of time to get ready and get to work, causing morning stress.

4. Letting the fun and creative things I love to do fall to the side while I'm busy.

This week some of the craziness at work finished and the JLPT will be over on Sunday. Just a few more days . . .

* * * 

In other news, I decided to quit for the evening tonight and read for fun. I've now passed my goal of 80 books for the year, with one more month, what should I change my goal to?

2012 Reading Challenge

Becky has completed her goal of reading 80 books in 2012!

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81 of 80 (101%)

view books

Japanese fail

In fifth grade English classes recently, we have been working on "What's this?" and answering "It's a ~." I use this question all the time, so they understand it, but they always forget the "It's a" part and just answer "pen." 

Anyways, today we played a Mystery Box game where the class would ask and one student would reach in the box through the hole and have to tell what it is. Then we played a game where they had to figure out what a picture was when they could only see part of it. 

The kids had a whole lot of fun and one student asked me what the name of the game was when she was trying to write her reflection (this class does this at the end of every English class). I wanted to tell her (in Japanese), "you can call it whatever you like," but my answer came out in a big jumble of words. She nodded that she understood and we both giggled a little. 

It took me a minute to sort out the correct way to say what I was trying to say (or at least a sensible one): 「何の名前使ってもいい。」 (Nan no namae tsukatte mo ii). 

After I thought of it, I went back and confirmed it and she gave me an ok. 

When I make silly mistakes, my students see that trying is more important than getting it right all the time. 

ナイトdeライト

This weekend my church hosted a band for a concert on Friday night. I decided to go and I’m glad I did.

The band was ナイトdeライト (nighto de raito = light in the night). They were a lot of fun to watch and it was a lot of fun to listen to them along with a bunch of the people from church.

Here is their YouTube video:

Japanese study update

After all the tough-ness of speaking so little Japanese when I came, lots of good, encouraging Japanese moments have happened recently.

A few weeks ago, I realized the manga a friend recommended was getting pretty easy, it was still a bit tough, but I could understand most of it. So I decided to start working on reading my first Japanese novel. A friend was with me who had seen the movie Brave and thought the novel version might be good. I’m currently 4 pages into it!

With lots of friends having just left and making new ALT-friends, I’ve found myself in a couple of moments when I had the highest level of Japanese. Before, that was very rare. Now it’s because a lot of those friends have left or I’ve been in groups with mostly newbies, but I’ve never been in that situation before.

I signed up for the JLPT (the Japanese Language test of DOOM! aka the Japanese Language Proficiency Test). Which I’ll take the first Sunday in December. I’m taking N3, which is the middle level they offer. It’s going to be a challenge to get ready, but I think I can do it.

And last, this weekend we were sitting around chatting at a hostel in Sapporo when a guy from Tokyo asked if either of us (Liz and I) could speak much Japanese. The hostel owner, pointed at me and said “She can.” It took me a moment to realize he must be talking about me!

Now it’s time to study some more so I’m ready for this crazy test!

Blueberries!!

Every time I see blueberries in Japan, they are marked as being from Oregon and they are super expensive, so opt not to buy them.

A couple of weeks ago, on my way to church I saw signs that read “ブルーベリー”. I was quite excited and decided to stop on my way back home.

When I turned off the road at the sign, I found a small farm. When I drove up the farmer was working in the fields, but he came to greet me.

He was so kind and friendly. He used as much English as he knew – which was a surprisingly large amount (He said he learned from movies and TV).



I miss summer berries a lot and it was nice to find a small piece of home in Hokkaido.

Another reason I hate Katakana

Today, I discovered another reason to hate katakana.

Katakana (カタカナ) is the Japanese alphabet for loan words, words that come from other languages. banana becomes ba-na-na (バナナ), pineapple becomes pine (パイン). Sometimes this makes learning Japanese really easy, because it's just a very broken up way of pronouncing English. On the other hand, it makes my students believe that we will understand them when they speak Katakana English to us (not true).

But, other times katakana words come from other languages. Stapler, for example becomes ホチキス Ho-chi-ki-su, from the name of the guy who invented it. Part time job becomes アルバイト, a-ru-ba-i-to, from the German word for it.

Even other times, Japanese is put into katakana, because it looks cool. I think these are the most difficult words, because I sit there sounding them out trying to figure out what English they could be and they're not (I'm as bad as all of my kids, I expect katakana to always be English words). The Japanese words are the hardest, because they're not usually in the dictionary like that.

So today, my students are supposed to be practicing "Do you . . ." sentences. I look over one's shoulder and he's written "Do you play fagot?" I ask him what he means (assuming it's a mis-translation) and he says it's a katakana word and does the motion to show me it's an instrument. We can't figure it out and even the teacher is thinking I might be crazy for not knowing this word, but I know that this word cannot be what he means. I'm not completely sure of it's meaning in English, but I know it's a pretty bad insult.

After class, my teacher pulls out her dictionary and looks up what he means, bassoon, it comes from the word in German. She also looks up fagot and is surprised to find that it's such a terrible word in English.

Yet another reason why I dislike katakana.

A new word

I was driving to work today and I spotted the following kanji on a flag: 山火事注意

I knew all the kanji, but not what they meant together. The last two (注意 - Chuui) mean caution and are currently my favorite kanji because I can read them and find them everywhere*. The three before them mean: mountain (山), fire (火), and thing (事). So be cautious of mountain fire things?

While I liked that translation, I was quite sure it was wrong and very much wanted to know what they had paired with my favorite kanji.

Giving it my own translation seemed to work well because when I made it to the office and sat down at a computer, I was able to look it up. I typed in the readings for all of those things to get each kanji within the word (it's like a compound word in English - textbook, crossroad, backpack, etc).

What did it say? According to jisho.org, it means brushfire. So be cautious of brushfires. Makes sense.

Today I learned a new word and all because I gave it some crazy translation to remember it long enough to get to a dictionary to find it. Both definitions are now stuck in my head.

Guess what happened on the way home from work this time? That's right, I found it on several more signs, but I previously hadn't known what it was.

I like learning new words.

*Everywhere in this case includes (but is not limited to): my shower door handle, my toilet seat, my microwave, my stove, train doors, road signs and warning labels. It's fun because I see these two hard kanji that I'd probably make a mess of if I tried to write them and I can read them!

More English learning laughs!

My first year high school students are currently working on skits. Today, they were working on them during class. I was helping a group of four girls. We were chatting a bit (with very limited Japanese/English). All of a sudden one of the girls reaches into her pocket (she’s wearing a skirt). I tell them I’ve never had a skirt with pockets (might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s been a VERY long time if I have). This is one of the reasons I hate dressing up, is the lack of pockets. The girls were amazed and one asked the others (in Japanese, so this is my understanding of the conversation – mostly from gestures) where you carry your handkerchief. She considers the pocket in their jacket, but can see that I’m obviously not wearing a jacket (and rarely do). Then they think of the bathrooms that have automatic hand dryers (not at school). They continue with this line of thinking to decide I must blow on my hands to dry them. When I showed them that I just dry my hands on my pants, they were utterly confused.

After school, I was invited to practice with the badminton club. When I arrived, they were stretching. One of the girls started pushing on her friend (apparently to help him stretch). He started screaming, “Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Scream! Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Ahhhh!” I’m sure they thought I was the worst ALT ever, laughing while a kid is screaming, but I could tell he was not seriously hurting. He then wanted to know if he had used the wrong word and I had to explain that we don’t usually stop screaming to say “Scream.”

December Goals

So this evening I was reflecting on how fast November went and how I didn’t feel near as homesick as I had in October. What changed? I added a blog a day as a challenge and tried to keep up with my Japanese during that month. Two very big goals.

Possibly a little too big. I had a really hard time keeping up with both. The Japanese book was above my head and sometimes took more time than I had available in my usually free days. I know I stayed up way to late often because of trying to do so. On the other hand, I also felt less homesick which is huge.

I realized I need some new goals for December. In part to keep me focused on what the Lord has before me and in part just to push myself to grow. In thinking about the coming month and what is coming I’ve decided to stick with two goals:

Study Japanese everyday. I’ve seen great improvements in the last month and I want to continue to improve in December. Also, I want to have book 2 finished before I go home (right now I have a test and one section of a lesson left to do. Is this do-able? I’m not entirely sure, but I really want to be able to take book 3 home with me and work on it super leisurely.

Sleep enough. I don’t want to arrive home burnt out and barely rested. That would likely mean I would get sick too, which would be a terrible way to spend the holiday.

Study Japanese everyday and sleep enough. Can I do it? I hope so.

Blessings today

This morning I woke up about half an hour before my alarm went off (supposed to go off at 4:30 am). I had gone to bed late enough last night that even my alarm time was too early. I wasn't able to go back to sleep and didn't have a good attitude about the whole thing.

But the day turned out well. I was able to get ready early and talk to my dad on his lunch break. We had a really good conversation. My walk to the train station in the snow wasn't terrible. I wasn't freezing (I now have enough layers for being outside in the snow).

I made all my connecting trains in all the new cities and stations. The train ride was long, but I had some good time with the Lord and very much enjoyed looking out the window at the beautiful countryside. Snow was falling as we rode past and it just seemed magical.

The best part though, was when I was able to speak Japanese to the lady next to me on the train enough to ask where the bathroom was. She pointed me in the right direction and away I went. When I returned, she tried to share some snacks with me, but I already had the same thing in my bag. Instead I shared a random snack I found at the station with her. She smiled and talked to me more, which I didn't quite understand, but she was so sweet!

English Class today

Today I got to visit what is probably my favorite school, mostly because when I go, I get to spend the entire day at the school and really get to know the kids (which is incredible). The students are one sixth-grade boy, two third graders (girl and boy), three third graders (2 boys and one girl), two second grade girls, and two first-grade girls. They are an insanely fun group.

I was informed about the English lesson moments before going into the classroom. The teacher wanted me to pronounce the cards with the animals on them and then read the story. That got my brain going. If I was going to read this story, which the students weren’t likely to understand all the words to, how was I going to keep them engaged? (Keeping students engaged is always a big question for me, because it cuts down on management problems).

We got into the classroom and I asked, “How are you?”, “How’s the weather?”, “What’s the date today?” (the regular set of questions). As usual, most of the students do not know the month to be able to say the date. I have one third grader who seems to be particularly gifted in English who can almost always answer the question (maybe he studies at home?).

Then we pronounced the words, kids repeated (pretty standard way to start). After some questioning of students on the words, we moved on and played karuta. Karuta is a game I was introduced to in my high school Japanese class. The teacher calls a word and the first kid to slap the flash card wins it. The kid with the most cards at the end wins. We played a few rounds, with me being silly at the end and calling random non-animals (like carrot) when there was only one card left, to see if they were really listening.

After Karuta, came the story. It was about animal noises. To solve my earlier problem, I decided to pass out the cards with the animals. Each student was responsible to hold up her/his card when she/he heard the animal’s noise.

Please remember that as they were being asked to do this, most of the animal noises that we use in English are different than the ones that Japanese people use for animal noises. So as we went through the story, a few of the students held their animal up for every noise, until they got it right, and a few actually tried hard. They stayed engaged the whole time though. That was the best part; I didn’t lose any students while reading a story which most students didn’t understand.


My view a couple of mornings ago.

Confessions of a Janken player

“You’re a strong Janken player” is what one of my students said about me (as translated by the English teacher). The funny thing is I have learned how to win or lose at Janken in Japan on purpose.

Janken, for those of you not in Japan, is Rock, Paper Scissors. Japanese people have an incredible chant that goes with it, I don’t completely have it down and I’m pretty sure I’m mis-pronouncing the words when I do say them.

Different from home though, is the fact that EVERYTHING can be decided by Janken here. Which team are you on for a sports game? Janken. Who just won the card in the game we’re playing as a class? Janken. I’ve even heard rumors that it’s used in Japanese business meetings (obviously I’m not present, so I’m not so sure).

Anyways, I figured out that I can decide whether to win or lose when I was first playing with students shortly after arriving. It was about a week after school started and all the elementary students from my four small schools came together at Shimokanayama Elementary, for a grand total of 29 students.

On this day, we had a big tournament where each time you won, people hooked onto your back and you kept going with this train of people behind you. Well the first few times I didn’t really have the chant down and I didn’t know when to show my symbol. So somehow, I ended up with paper. Then I realized I was winning each time. My elementary students were always playing rock first.

I thought, there’s no way, someone has to play something different. But can I win the whole thing only playing paper? Sure enough, who was the winner? Me. So in a battle against teachers and students, the foreigner who was playing for the first time in Japan won. Awesome!

Today, we played a game that used it as well. It was a game where we had flash cards laid out and the two teams were starting at either end of the line, when they met they had to say “Dom!” then Janken (used as a verb here). The loser went back, their team started from the beginning, and the other team continued. The goal was to get to the other end.

I based what I played on where we were in the line. If I was less than half way through, I would play paper and win, if more than that, I would play scissors and lose, giving the students who aren’t native English speakers a fair chance. Most of the time this theory worked. My team never did get to the other end, but I did find a few students who played something else and won or lost when I wasn’t expecting to.

At the end of class, students share their impressions. One girl commented that I am a “strong Janken player.” I had to laugh on the inside because she must have just met me each time when I was “winning” rather than “losing.”

Should vs. Had Better

Today, my JTE asked me the difference between these two ways to say the same thing. At first my response was they’re exactly the same. They do mean basically the same thing, but then I continued to ponder this. If they’re exactly the same, why does the students’ use of “had better” sometimes strike me as strange?

My thinking continued. Where do I hear “had better?” It seemed that I usually hear had better from older people. I was thinking like grandmother types. I continued to ponder. Does that mean it’s English that older people would use? Or does that make it English that you use to someone who is younger than you?

When do I use it? It seems like I would usually use it with someone if it were something that was super important for them to do or there would be bad consequences. For example, “you had better take your coat” (on a cold day). Except, I think I would still use should. Where would I use this phrase? In what contexts would I use this phrase? I’m still not even sure.

The eventual explanation I decided on, was that you’d use had better with people younger than you and should with your peers and for older people, I’d usually stick on an “I think” (i.e. I think you should . . .). Even that, seems a little funny, because I rarely choose to use “had better” and would use should almost across the board, with a few exceptions.

What do you think? Was my explanation right? Are my thoughts crazy? (probably!) Is there something I’m missing or an official explanation somewhere?