Japanese I haven't felt like posting in a while, I think because it's getting harder and harder to switch between languages, mostly because I don't have a foreign coworker anymore, so I rarely ever just sit and speak English with anyone anymore (whereas before, my foreign coworker and I both had a pretty light class load and had time to sit and talk while preparing for classes every day except Saturday...). But most of my time to just sit and talk is on the weekends, and I see more Japanese people on the weekends. And like today, I basically just talked to my Japanese teacher for two hours, mostly in Japanese. So, I end up thinking more in Japanese, but then not being able to post it in Japanese because I can't express myself well enough in Japanese to get down everything I'd want to say nuanced the way I want to say it the way I can in English, but to post in English, I end up having to translate a lot of the more common Japanese phrases into English, which don't always translate so well. It's been interesting to see my Japanese lessons from a language teacher's point of view. My lessons started off powering through the basics two chapters of the textbook a class, then gradually slowed to one and then half, and then less than half because we ended up talking or reading for most of the lesson. And while it seems strange that I'm paying to talk to someone in Japanese, the fact that I'm paying makes me speak Japanese more. And makes the person I'm talking to actually correct me while I'm talking and tell me about grammar things I need to look out for while talking. Usually, it's hard to get people to correct my Japanese when I'm talking to them because anything is fine as long as we can understand each other. Which is great for normal conversations, but not as helpful in knowing whether or not I'm speaking correctly. But I have some students who pay just as much, if not more, to just come in and talk to me in English. Those are some of my favorite lessons, and there really is something helpful about being able to do this on a regular basis that's different when it's a free lesson or just talking with your friends. It is also good to use the book if there's a textbook that's the right level for the student, but a mixture of both provides the best practice, in my opinion. I also had practice today listening to phone messages and trying to write the important bits down. I got really confused at first because I couldn't write fast enough in Japanese to keep up with the parts I understood because after I understood it, I was trying to come up with the kanji for it or I wasn't sure what language I should write in (like a message from a guy named Paul about a meeting where "Paul" and "meeting" are both pronounced basically the same in Japanese, except with extra vowels and an unvoiced "t"). I managed to get most of it after two listens, though, except for the one where the woman was using extra-polite Japanese, because the way she talked reminded me of an actress in a play I just watched when she played a woman working in a maid cafe, and I have a hard time understanding extra-polite Japanese anyway. So I was laughing at my ineptitude and her tone of voice and hardly caught anything the first time around except her name and half of her phone numbers. (Numbers are easier because I don't feel the need to translate them into English as much because they're written the same, so there's less of a conflict of languages there.) Anyway, I'm glad I feel like I'm improving, albeit slowly, but that's also why I've been less inclined to blog lately. Gomen ne, minna* ^^; *Roughly translates in feeling to "Sorry guys" :P

I haven't felt like posting in a while, I think because it's getting harder and harder to switch between languages, mostly because I don't have a foreign coworker anymore, so I rarely ever just sit and speak English with anyone anymore (whereas before, my foreign coworker and I both had a pretty light class load and had time to sit and talk while preparing for classes every day except Saturday...). But most of my time to just sit and talk is on the weekends, and I see more Japanese people on the weekends. And like today, I basically just talked to my Japanese teacher for two hours, mostly in Japanese.

So, I end up thinking more in Japanese, but then not being able to post it in Japanese because I can't express myself well enough in Japanese to get down everything I'd want to say nuanced the way I want to say it the way I can in English, but to post in English, I end up having to translate a lot of the more common Japanese phrases into English, which don't always translate so well.

It's been interesting to see my Japanese lessons from a language teacher's point of view. My lessons started off powering through the basics two chapters of the textbook a class, then gradually slowed to one and then half, and then less than half because we ended up talking or reading for most of the lesson. And while it seems strange that I'm paying to talk to someone in Japanese, the fact that I'm paying makes me speak Japanese more. And makes the person I'm talking to actually correct me while I'm talking and tell me about grammar things I need to look out for while talking. Usually, it's hard to get people to correct my Japanese when I'm talking to them because anything is fine as long as we can understand each other. Which is great for normal conversations, but not as helpful in knowing whether or not I'm speaking correctly.

But I have some students who pay just as much, if not more, to just come in and talk to me in English. Those are some of my favorite lessons, and there really is something helpful about being able to do this on a regular basis that's different when it's a free lesson or just talking with your friends. It is also good to use the book if there's a textbook that's the right level for the student, but a mixture of both provides the best practice, in my opinion.

I also had practice today listening to phone messages and trying to write the important bits down. I got really confused at first because I couldn't write fast enough in Japanese to keep up with the parts I understood because after I understood it, I was trying to come up with the kanji for it or I wasn't sure what language I should write in (like a message from a guy named Paul about a meeting where "Paul" and "meeting" are both pronounced basically the same in Japanese, except with extra vowels and an unvoiced "t").

I managed to get most of it after two listens, though, except for the one where the woman was using extra-polite Japanese, because the way she talked reminded me of an actress in a play I just watched when she played a woman working in a maid cafe, and I have a hard time understanding extra-polite Japanese anyway. So I was laughing at my ineptitude and her tone of voice and hardly caught anything the first time around except her name and half of her phone numbers. (Numbers are easier because I don't feel the need to translate them into English as much because they're written the same, so there's less of a conflict of languages there.)

Anyway, I'm glad I feel like I'm improving, albeit slowly, but that's also why I've been less inclined to blog lately. Gomen ne, minna* ^^;

*Roughly translates in feeling to "Sorry guys" :P