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！

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:

November 2nd

It's November, which means I have exactly 1 month to cram in as much Japanese as I can before my big Japanese test - the JLPT. I have no idea if I'll be able to pass, but I hope so!

In other news, we had a PTA enkai this evening and it was a lot of fun. I got to talk to some of my teachers, and a whole bunch of parents I hadn't met before. Unfortunately, I met so many parents it's unlikely I'm going to remember which kids they go with.

Some iphone fall colors (sorry for the terrible quality). 

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!

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.

I did it!

Yesterday, despite being sure I was going to fail because I didn't know the grammar and all the listening practice tests were too hard. I took the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test).

Despite the assurance of failing before hand, I understood most of it! I may or may not have passed, but even that I wasn't expecting. This level of Japanese, that would have been gibberish to me at this time last year, I listened to, read and understood!

And now I hope to get a certificate looking something like this: (These are NOT my results, but an image found online)

Image found here.

JLPT

Next month on December 5, I'm taking the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). I have a bit over a month to go and SOOO much studying to do.

I don't know if I'll pass it, but I have to try!

Japanese Learning - an update

Last year I posted here about my difficulties with Japanese Language learning. I was taking a course that was too hard and was really struggling. After failing the first test, I quit the course. I realized I was in over my head and was done trying to work at that level and went back to work that was at my real level (Genki Japanese textbooks).

Anyways, I decided that I wasn't going to let the books conquer me that I had to finish what I started and re-enrolled in the class again this year. Well, it turns out by the time one is beginning the 17th chapter of the Genki textbook, they will have a lot less trouble with the JET course.

This year, if I tried to use the five finger rule, which I teach elementary students at home. Anyways, enrolling in this course again this year, even if it's not an amazing course (more about that another time) is great because it shows me how much I've grown.

Learning is hard

This evening I worked on the Japanese course that, as a JET, I can take for free. It seems to be good so far, but the material is way over my head.

As a teacher, I taught my students the five finger rule. As you read, you put a finger up for each word you don’t know. If you have no fingers down by the end of the page, it’s too easy. If you have all 5 down before you get to the end of the page it’s too hard. These books are far enough above my head that I don’t have enough fingers (or toes) to use this rule.

The teacher in me says, you wouldn’t give a student a book which is this far over their head because it would be way too hard for them, why aren’t you setting these aside and coming back to them when your Japanese level is more up to speed? The part of me that knows there’s a test that goes with them and really wants to be able to take the advanced level next year says, get it done and don’t get behind!

As of the moment, neither one of them is winning completely, I’m behind but I’m struggling through each lesson. Which is better for my learning? I’m not sure. I’m going to have to learn a lot if I’m going to keep up with these every day.

The good news is I’m missing the vocab, not the grammar. This means I can look up most of the words in the passage and still make sense of the sentences. I was able to understand all of the grammar except for the teaching point. I thought I was missing the grammar and so I texted my friend Heather, who is basically fluent in Japanese (though she wouldn’t admit it). She gave me a great explanation via skype . . .

Then I continued the lesson . . . and found the explanation of what Heather had just said. I felt a little silly, but I’m good at doing silly things and later realizing that I didn’t need to do them.

In the end, I finished the lesson. How much of it will I retain when everything is new and a little difficult? I’m not sure, but I’m going to continue and try to learn as much as I can from these books. Hopefully my Japanese will improve quickly and I be able to use what I know.

When things click

Today, I was sitting at the elementary school and realized that over the course of the day, I had understood several Japanese conversations around me. I didn’t catch every word, but I was able to catch enough to make sense.

After realizing this, I was left alone to wait for lunch; I decided to check out the lunch menu to see if I could figure it out. (In the past, I have been able to figure out milk and maybe one other thing)

It read:
どんこラーメン
牛乳
ミックスゼリー
チーズ

Translation (at that point):
Some kind of ramen – didn’t really matter what kind, I had read it!!!
Milk
Milk Jelly (which is strange jelly stuff with fruit – I actually like it)
Cheese
It does help that everything besides milk was in Katakana, but I still understood the whole thing!!

Side note – we got to lunch and I went to open my ramen. I opened the package, but apparently with too much force. It plopped right out of the package and onto the floor. Luckily, they had extras.

Anyways, the best part of this is when the two sweetest little girls, came in and asked the principal how to say “let’s play” in English. Not only was I was able to pick up on most of the conversation, but after they very quietly while they painfully try to get out “Let’s play” (these two are a second and third grader), I responded with “あそびましょか。” The looks on their faces were hilarious, when they realized that I could understand “Let’s play?” in Japanese. I’m pretty sure the last time I was here, I was barely understanding super basic Japanese and now, all of a sudden (for me too), I’m understanding what’s going on around me.