Whining-- and then all is made clear.

[jedishampoo]

It's been so long since I'd taken a foreign language, I'd forgotten how frustrating it can be. :) Having a new alphabet to learn-- hiragana-- wasn't too hard: flashcards! But listening to spoken Japanese and speaking it was confusing as hell to me. I keep trying to speak FRENCH in Japanese class. Why is this? I used to be fluent in French but it's been 16 years since I took it! Does your brain have a "foreign-language" center that kicks into gear when needed or something? ;)

Last night I was so frustrated doing my homework that I got a headache-- we had to write countless sentences about eight different people, and what nationality they were, what university they went to and what year, and what their majors were. I SO DON'T CARE. My poor roommate, sharpeslass. She had to hear it all and hear me grating every sentence out and cursing (in English) when I forgot the "wa" or the "no."

But this morning, when I listened to my Japanese language CD that came with the textbook, I actually knew what they were saying! It was no longer gibberish to me! The conversations made sense! OK fine. So writing out the repetitive sentences seemed to work. My teacher knows what she's doing.

Ohayou Gozaimasu! :)

Comments

[scribblesinink]

Does your brain have a "foreign-language" center that kicks into gear when needed or something? ;)

Hmm. That would explain why English is the only thing that comes out when I need to speak German.

And wow, you're studying Japanese!

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

LOL! I guess if there's "dedicated brain space" then it makes sense. At least German and English are very close in some ways, so maybe your way works? ;) I just hate feeling dumb in class when I say "oui" when I should be saying "hai."

So how many languages do you know? I remember thinking I would never have thought you were not a native English speaker. :)

[scribblesinink]

So how many languages do you know?

I'd say, two-and-a-half :-) My mother tongue, of course, and English. As long as people do not require me to translate from one into the other, because I really, really hate doing that, it's too hard! And I can get by in German (though understanding it is much easier than speaking...).