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

[hollywdliz.livejournal.com]

Yav always jokes that her brain has two settings: "English" and "Other." "Other" is whatever language you learned first, which is why Yav kept trying to speak Spanish in Tunisia and why I kept trying to speak French in Mexico! You get past it, though.

[yav-14.livejournal.com]

That is so true! More times than I count in Switzerland I'd be going along in German and get to a place where I didn't know the words and switch seamlessly to Spanish. You will get past it though. Just keep at it.

[raykel.livejournal.com]

I was going to say the same thing Liz and Yav said. I used to be nearly fluent in American Sign Language and have some knowledge of French, so when I was in Italy I caught myself trying to ask where they bathroom is by saying "Ou est la salle da baines?" while simultaneously signing the ASL for "where." LOL!

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

Oh man, that's hysterical! So voiced language doesn't have a monopoly on the brain wiring?

Anyway, I'm certainly glad to know that I'm not the only one. I really felt stupid slipping into French. I figured that when I didn't know a word I'd substitute English but that ain't so. :)

[raykel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sign language fits into that "other" category same as spoken languages. I suspect the reason this happens is because unless you're so fluent in another langauge that you actually think in it, you're pretty much thinking in your native language and trying to translate into the other language. So you think "Where is the bathroom?" and start to try and translate, and the first thing that's going to come up is the language you most frequently translate into. (For me, ASL first and French second.)