Learning Japanese

As a JET participant, it is strongly encouraged that I study Japanese. In fact, CLAIR (another acronym, this time, the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations) provides JET participants with a free Japanese correspondence course if we sign up for it. I am presently at the end of book two and starting book three (of six). I'm taking the intermediate course, and finding it to be a good level for me. Finding time to study, however, can be a challenge. If I'm lucky, I can find time at work between planning lessons and grading papers. But when work gets busy I start to carry my books with me everywhere in the hope that I will be hit by the sudden inspiration to study on the subway, or at a restaurant. (McDonald's is about as popular a place to study as my college's library- on any given night most tables will be full of students, coffee, and notebooks.)

As any student of Japanese can tell you, however, book learning only gets you so far. Because most text-books will only teach you semi-formal Japanese. Casual Japanese is much shorter, and throws out the subjects of sentences with wild abandon. (Not to mention those carefully memorized particles!) Thus, in order to get at all conversational (something I am yet working on) you have to rehabilitate yourself from formal Japanese.

While I am constantly frustrated by how little of the language I know, there are some areas of improvement. For example, I'm starting to be able to understand native speakers going at normal speed. I may not be able to understand the complete meaning of a conversation, but I can usually pick out verbs and nouns that I know. This can only mean more confusion though, especially when these verbs and nouns do no seem to make sense together. For example, I once heard “baseball” “tigers” and “children” all in one sentence. I fervently hope that “The Tigers” are the name of a baseball team, or else Japan has taken a dramatic departure from the game I'm familiar with.

One part of language learning that can be frustrating while living in Japan, is the fact that most native speakers will be amazed that you can speak even the most basic of Japanese. I'm not sure if this is politeness, or the fact that many Westerners come to Japan as tourists and never bother learning the language. Intentional or not, this amazement can sometimes seem to border on condescension. For example, Japanese has two syllabic alphabets besides the use of Japanese Kanji. These “Kana” total about 90 characters or so, and most Japanese children learn these by the time they finish 1^st grade. A non-native student learning Japanese will learn all of these after 6 months or so. So the gasps I get (“Amazing!!”) when I write my name in katakana, or write a simple word in hiragana (something a five year old could do) are a bit trying on my patience.

I got my karmic comeuppance for being a grouchy stick-in-the-mud, however. At one such collective gasp from my students the other day, I turned around and flexed goofily to indicate how silly I thought their amazement was. My students misread this, however, and burst into wild applause. They now do the same anytime I write a character of Japanese on the board. So my advice? Don't fight the “oohs” and “aaahs”- they could give you a standing ovation instead. ^^;

To close tonight, I wanted to show you a sample of the short dialogues I write to practice new Japanese grammar. Usually they're between Alistair and me, mostly because the Volleyball from “Castaway” isn't answering my calls.

アリスター　：　アンドリュー！おなかがペコペコです！オムライスを作って下さい！

アンドリュー　：　今、仕事から帰ったばかりだから、ねむいです。オムライスを作りません。アリスターが作ったのほうがいいと思います。

アリスター　：　でも、僕もねむいです。うんどうしたばかりです。

アンドリュー　：　。。。

アリスター　：　。。。

アンドリュー　：　ピザを注文できます。

アリスター　：　やった！


Translation:
Alistair: Andrew! My stomach is growling! Please make me an Omelette with rice!
Andrew: I just got back from work, so I'm tired. I won't make an Omelette with rice. I think it would be better if you made one.
Alistair: But...I'm tired too! I just finished exercising.
Andrew: …
Alistair: …
Andrew: I can order a pizza.
Alistair: Hooray!