I was always pretty certain that I was going to study 日本語 in college, but what confirmed it for me was my month long trip to 東京 (Tokyo) this summer. 東京で、日本語のべんきょうしました。がくせいでした。たかだのばばでわたしのがっこうでした。なかのしんばしで、わたしのアパートでした。School was very difficult because all of the classes were conducted entirely in 日本語, with pictures and gestures to try to explain a lot of the concepts. The students at the language school came from all over the world, mainly from ドイツ, フランス、かんこく、and たいわん, so naturally there was no real common language to teach in. However, I found the challenge to be extremely useful because I was forced to try to understand what was being explained from a Japanese person's point of view, without being able to ask for clarification in English. The teachers also never wrote in romaji and immediately started with ひらがな, so I constantly had to keep consulting a chart of the characters, and my writing was awful at first. By the end of a month, though, writing had become much easier and I felt like I had mastered ひらがな. Knowing ひらがな has definitely been very useful these first few weeks. I am really enjoying learning more vocabulary, which was something we did not do much of in school. 日本語のべんきょうだいすきです！
ありがとうございます！じゃまた！
I once travelled Japan with my friends, and even though I could not
ReplyDeletespeak any Japanese, I had such a good time.
I even learned some of the Japanese phrases and words from the street by listening to people and asking people.
I learned "(place) wa dokodesuka?" to find the place that I wanted to go.
I would ask this question and when someone explained to be the direction
I would not be able to understand what one wanted to say and got confused.
I feel like knowing ひらがな is a huge first step in learning how to express yourself in Japanese. Because by that point, you will be able to form your own original ideas on paper. Anything you know how to say, you will know how to write (in ひらがな at least).
ReplyDeleteパトリークさん、東京で なにを べんきょうしましたか？
ReplyDeleteすみません。* パトリック * ..misspelled your name
ReplyDeleteI am a student at Notre Dame btw :)
ノートルダムだいがくの にほんごの がくせい です。
こんいちはジョーイさん。すみません if I spelled your name wrong in カタカナ。
ReplyDelete東京で、日本語のがっこうで日本語をべんきょうしました。
みずかしでした。せんせいは、えいごをはなしません。ひらがなとカタカナをもらいました。そして、basic vocabulary like some nouns and adjectiveをもらいました。おもしろいでした。