Yes, it has been a long time since I’ve updated. Things have become rather busy since I’ve started work and I just haven’t quite gotten around to the blog. I also think my entries perhaps need to be short, but more frequent.
My job, like many jobs, got off to a rough start. The first two and a half days were spent largely feeling out what I needed to do. After a couple rough lessons I finally found a good pace that works and I feel much better about the service I am providing. I remember when being interviewed I was asked if I thought that teaching a class of several people or individual lessons would be harder. At the time I said teaching a class would be harder because there are so many variables to juggle in such a setting.
I might have to revise my opinion now that I am 33 lessons into my job. It’s true that there are a lot more variables to consider in a class than in private lessons, but eventually you come to understand the character of a class and know how to handle it. Thus far, I have taught 32 different people, which means every lesson I have to come to understand a new person, each one a different from the last. Now eventually I should have repeat customers and therefore I won’t have to worry so much about this. But perhaps at the end of the day neither class nor individual lessons a re harder, they’re just different.
Other than that I am enjoying Tokyo. The Japanese are an extremely considerate and respectful people. It is amazing how the people in Tokyo live so densely together in such great harmony. This morning I talked down to the nearest 100 yen store and I couldn’t help but marvel how quiet things were for such a large and busy city.
I do have some pictures to share, I’ll post them shortly, but that’s all for now.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Asakusa and then some
Today marks my second week in Japan. It’s was a good first week. I know in my last entry I said I would post again “tomorrow” with more pictures. Initially I thought I would write an entry about the rainy season. What I neglected to mention in my last post was that while I was running around doing my errands on Friday, it was pouring down rain. The rainy season in Tokyo lasts from about the second week in June, till the end of the third week of July. Since I arrived during the third week of June, I showed up just in time to catch almost all of rainy season. After Friday I thought I would dedicate an entire post to the rainy season. After all, it seemed at the time that rain would very much define my first month in Japan. Also, I really wanted to post a picture of a man riding down the street, on a bike, wearing a suit, holding an umbrella, in the rain. I haven’t gotten my picture yet (there is still plenty of time for that). However, since Friday, it has only really rained one other time. Actually, right now the weather is downright beautiful. The sky is clear and the sun is shining. As I passed my Japanese neighbor to do laundry (yep, laundry day is the one with the best weather) he commented, “いいお天気です,” literally, “It is good weather.”
So instead let’s talk about Asakusa. On Tuesday I met up with a very nice woman named Kaoru, who was introduced to me by an acquaintance back in the states. She took the time to show me around Tokyo a little First she showed me around a couple of small Shinto shrines in Koutou, an eastern section of the city along Tokyo bay. It was pretty cool. The second shrine had a monument in honor of sumo from the Edo period (approximately 1600-1860). She also showed me the portable shrine, each town has its own portable shrine. The shine itself was rather large, gilded in gold and had a couple of dog statues on it with diamonds for eyes. It looked like it would take at least 100 people to pick it up. More surprising still was that Kaoru informed me that the one for her town was even bigger and one of the largest around. After the shrines, Kaoru kindly treated me to some Japanese soba noodles. I am happy to say that I am off to a good start sticking whatever is put in front of me into my mouth.
Following lunch we headed over to Asakusa, which was clearly a much more touristy area. First, in the subway station we saw a much smaller portable shrine for Taitou, (if you are wondering Tokyo is divided into many smaller “towns”). Here she showed me the Sensou-ji, a massive Buddhist temple dedicated to the Bodhisattva Kannon. A bodhisattva is an enlightened person in Buddhism, in Japan they’ve essentially been deified. The gate that preceded the temple was massive and quite impressive.
http://picasaweb.google.com/102396568831353572903/6222010Asakusa?authkey=Gv1sRgCKys54q90qSNSA#5485508041052146898
Something that struck me as rather curious though was that at this Buddhist temple people were throwing money into what I can only describe as a large offering box, bowing twice, clapping twice, and then bowing a final time. But they also did this at the Shinto shrines, which is a separate religion. (80% of Japanese say they are Shinto while 80% say they are Buddhist, which is clearly more than 100%). I picked up my fortune while I was there. Your fortune is told by picking up a metal container, shaking it, and then withdrawing a single stick from a small hole. On the stick is a number that corresponds with a drawer and inside the drawer is your fortune. My fortune was big luck, the best you can get, although I’m pretty sure the guy in front of me got the same number. When people get bad luck they take the fortune, fold it up, and tie it to a tree (or in this temple, a metal stand). It has occurred to me now as I write this, that I really needed to take more pictures.
After Sensou-ji we took the picture below of me holding that rather heavy food stand, and then headed off to a traditional Japanese coffee shop called Starbucks. At Starbucks I discovered, to the horror of my wallet, that vanilla frappachinos are really really good.
My trip to Asakusa concluded with a department store and me picking up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in Japanese (I brought my English version with me). All in all it was a great day and I am very thankful to have met Kaoru.
Other than that I am still looking for a gym… must find a gym. Also, the driers in my building are way too expensive and ambulances thank you for stopping over a loudspeaker when they pass through intersections. Until next time, じゃね(bye).
So instead let’s talk about Asakusa. On Tuesday I met up with a very nice woman named Kaoru, who was introduced to me by an acquaintance back in the states. She took the time to show me around Tokyo a little First she showed me around a couple of small Shinto shrines in Koutou, an eastern section of the city along Tokyo bay. It was pretty cool. The second shrine had a monument in honor of sumo from the Edo period (approximately 1600-1860). She also showed me the portable shrine, each town has its own portable shrine. The shine itself was rather large, gilded in gold and had a couple of dog statues on it with diamonds for eyes. It looked like it would take at least 100 people to pick it up. More surprising still was that Kaoru informed me that the one for her town was even bigger and one of the largest around. After the shrines, Kaoru kindly treated me to some Japanese soba noodles. I am happy to say that I am off to a good start sticking whatever is put in front of me into my mouth.
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| From 6222010 Asakusa |
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| From 6222010 Asakusa |
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| From 6222010 Asakusa |
Following lunch we headed over to Asakusa, which was clearly a much more touristy area. First, in the subway station we saw a much smaller portable shrine for Taitou, (if you are wondering Tokyo is divided into many smaller “towns”). Here she showed me the Sensou-ji, a massive Buddhist temple dedicated to the Bodhisattva Kannon. A bodhisattva is an enlightened person in Buddhism, in Japan they’ve essentially been deified. The gate that preceded the temple was massive and quite impressive.
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| From 6222010 Asakusa |
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| From 6222010 Asakusa |
http://picasaweb.google.com/102396568831353572903/6222010Asakusa?authkey=Gv1sRgCKys54q90qSNSA#5485508041052146898
Something that struck me as rather curious though was that at this Buddhist temple people were throwing money into what I can only describe as a large offering box, bowing twice, clapping twice, and then bowing a final time. But they also did this at the Shinto shrines, which is a separate religion. (80% of Japanese say they are Shinto while 80% say they are Buddhist, which is clearly more than 100%). I picked up my fortune while I was there. Your fortune is told by picking up a metal container, shaking it, and then withdrawing a single stick from a small hole. On the stick is a number that corresponds with a drawer and inside the drawer is your fortune. My fortune was big luck, the best you can get, although I’m pretty sure the guy in front of me got the same number. When people get bad luck they take the fortune, fold it up, and tie it to a tree (or in this temple, a metal stand). It has occurred to me now as I write this, that I really needed to take more pictures.
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| From 6222010 Asakusa |
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| From 6222010 Asakusa |
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| From 6222010 Asakusa |
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| 2010-06-24 |
After Sensou-ji we took the picture below of me holding that rather heavy food stand, and then headed off to a traditional Japanese coffee shop called Starbucks. At Starbucks I discovered, to the horror of my wallet, that vanilla frappachinos are really really good.
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| From 6222010 Asakusa |
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| From 6222010 Asakusa |
My trip to Asakusa concluded with a department store and me picking up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in Japanese (I brought my English version with me). All in all it was a great day and I am very thankful to have met Kaoru.
Other than that I am still looking for a gym… must find a gym. Also, the driers in my building are way too expensive and ambulances thank you for stopping over a loudspeaker when they pass through intersections. Until next time, じゃね(bye).
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Day 2: Getting Down to Business
Don’t be fooled by the single entry, this blog post has been completed in two sittings. It’s funny though, because I’m typing this during the first sitting and there is nothing past tense about my writing at all. One this is very clear though, I do not have the energy to finish this up tonight, much less proofread it. Even more importantly, I don’t have all the pictures I want yet to post along with this entry, maybe I can get them tomorrow.
Alien Registration and Health Insurance
I’ve started writing this the same day of my last entry, only at the end of it rather than the beginning. If you recall, I unwillingly woke up at 4:30 AM. It is now 8:00 PM and I am coming to a whole new understanding of what it is to be tired. The time my sophomore year that I stayed up 37 straight hours never felt like this does right now. The decision to stay up the night before my flight, the intermittent sleep on the plane, and the unproductive night of sleep last night have finally taken it’s toll. Right now, I’d like nothing more than to be asleep in bed, but I feel like every hour I can get closer to 11, the faster I’ll deal with the jet lag and get on a local schedule. If I can make it to 9 I’ll consider it a win. In short, jet lag is really uncool.
Today I ended up having a pretty productive day. My suitcase ended up arriving at 11:50, ten minutes before the close of three hour delivery window, in the same way that the four hour time blocks you schedule with the Time Warner technician really means the last 30 minutes of that block. At any rate, I was thrilled to see rest of my stuff arrive… so I could leave it untouched because I don’t own any hangers yet. Since it was noon, and I was hungry, I made my first trip to the supermarket. I’m going to have to get better at this, as what I came home with was pretty insubstantial and didn’t really live up to the images in my head. I only have myself to blame though.
With some food finally in my stomach I set out to obtain my alien registration card and get enrolled in the national health insurance program. This wasn’t the smoothest operation I’ve had since I arrived here, though it went slightly better than my attempt to ship my bag and definitely smoother than the Citibank adventure which is coming up shortly. My time at the Nakano City Office has taught me one very important lesson though, I need to find a Japanese conversation partner and fast. I seem to have three major deficiencies with the Japanese language. First, my vocab just isn’t very large. This is understandable, and will only correct itself through exposure and use. Secondly, I need more confidence. I know the grammar and I can string along a few phrases but my lack of confidence with the language has left mumbling incoherently more than I should. I will just have to the language more and is the primary reason I need a conversation partner. Finally, I have trouble picking out all the words when they’re spoken in real time. This probably will correct itself over time. At the end of the day though, I managed to get applied for my registration card and get enrolled in the national health insurance program, so big success. I am, however, less clear on when I pick up my alien registration card, or when I am supposed to pay the premiums for my health insurance. This is something I will have to investigate soon. (Mystery solved as I have now read the booklet they gave me for the health insurance and I know when to pick up my card. Amazing what a night of sleep can do for your brain).
The Citibank Adventure
I have to get three things done before I can move forward with my job: applying for the alien registration card, enrolling in the national health care system, and opening a bank account. When I finished with the health insurance it was a around 3, so I thought the best thing to do would be to knock out the bank today and then I could spend Saturday trying to get a cell phone. Before I headed off to Citibank, though, I needed food. Apparently my lunch had been too insubstantial and I really needed something to eat. I felt light headed and lethargic. In the past this has always happened when I haven’t eaten in a while, so logically I went to eat food to make my head feel better. Now that I sit here on the other side of dinner feeling the exact same way, it is apparent that this has more to do with being tired than it does with needing food. At any rate, having eaten some food, I headed out of Citibank.
Banking is a bit of a strange beast in Japan from what I can tell. Citibank and Shinsei are the only two banks that can really be considered “nationwide” banks. That being said, Wachovia seems to have about as many branches in Charlotte alone as Citibank has in all of Japan. This is probably because the Japanese do most of their banking through the post office (which is very ubiquitous), so it just isn’t worth the money for private banks to build the number of branches we do in the US. Also, the ATMs are not open 24/7. After examining the Citibank site I decided that the financial center near Shinjuku station was the best one for me to head for, it was close and I had conveniently been through Shinjuku station the day before, so I had some familiarity with the place.
That familiarity ended up counting for nothing. Shinjuku station is absurdly confusing for first (or in my case second) time visitors. It has about 6 different exits and the station itself apparently expands all the way to the next station on the Marunouchi line. Today I was looking for the east exit, yesterday I had used the west exit and knew that the east exit was near it, so easy enough right? Sadly that was not the case. The signs leading you to the west exit take you right up to the stairs that put you out on the street. The signs for the east exit suddenly disappear and you are left with signs like “A9 (the one I needed) and “B8”. Furthermore, if you look at the map of the station where it says “West exit” there are some stairs, and if you take them you go out onto the street. However, the stairs where it says “east exit” actually enters back down onto the metro.
After looking at the map I concluded correctly, that I wanted to take A9, and then promptly became lost. I ended up going out the south exit, saw a landmark from the previous day, made my way around to the west exit (by walking around the outside of the station), and found myself back where I had previously been. I ended up talking to an attendant, who said take A9. My mistake at A9 had come at the top of the stairs. Once I got up the A9 stairs I continued further into the station and got myself confused. Turns out all I had to do was look behind me to see a second set of stairs leading up to the street.
Having finally made it out the east exit, I managed to get to Citibank only to discover there was no one there to help me open an account. I thought maybe I had misread the branch services on the website. So after my adventure in Shinjuku station I ended up just taking the metro back home. Once I got home I rechecked the website. Had I been reading more carefully I would have noticed that you can open accounts from 9-3 and 5-7, I had arrived at the bank around 4. By the time I got back to my room I was too tired to head back out during the evening rush. Instead I got dinner and sat down to write this. I made it to 8:40 before I gave up the ghost by the way. I woke up at 1, 2:30, 3:30, 4:30 and got up at 6. I did manage to get some sleep though, and 6 is far better than yesterday’s 4:30. I am feeling much better this morning and hopefully I’ll have the jet lag out of my system tomorrow. On tap for today, Softbank (cell phone), the hyakuen store (dollar store), and perhaps finding a gym.
Now that I see how long this post is I’m going to forget the pictures and put them in a separate post tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
Alien Registration and Health Insurance
I’ve started writing this the same day of my last entry, only at the end of it rather than the beginning. If you recall, I unwillingly woke up at 4:30 AM. It is now 8:00 PM and I am coming to a whole new understanding of what it is to be tired. The time my sophomore year that I stayed up 37 straight hours never felt like this does right now. The decision to stay up the night before my flight, the intermittent sleep on the plane, and the unproductive night of sleep last night have finally taken it’s toll. Right now, I’d like nothing more than to be asleep in bed, but I feel like every hour I can get closer to 11, the faster I’ll deal with the jet lag and get on a local schedule. If I can make it to 9 I’ll consider it a win. In short, jet lag is really uncool.
Today I ended up having a pretty productive day. My suitcase ended up arriving at 11:50, ten minutes before the close of three hour delivery window, in the same way that the four hour time blocks you schedule with the Time Warner technician really means the last 30 minutes of that block. At any rate, I was thrilled to see rest of my stuff arrive… so I could leave it untouched because I don’t own any hangers yet. Since it was noon, and I was hungry, I made my first trip to the supermarket. I’m going to have to get better at this, as what I came home with was pretty insubstantial and didn’t really live up to the images in my head. I only have myself to blame though.
With some food finally in my stomach I set out to obtain my alien registration card and get enrolled in the national health insurance program. This wasn’t the smoothest operation I’ve had since I arrived here, though it went slightly better than my attempt to ship my bag and definitely smoother than the Citibank adventure which is coming up shortly. My time at the Nakano City Office has taught me one very important lesson though, I need to find a Japanese conversation partner and fast. I seem to have three major deficiencies with the Japanese language. First, my vocab just isn’t very large. This is understandable, and will only correct itself through exposure and use. Secondly, I need more confidence. I know the grammar and I can string along a few phrases but my lack of confidence with the language has left mumbling incoherently more than I should. I will just have to the language more and is the primary reason I need a conversation partner. Finally, I have trouble picking out all the words when they’re spoken in real time. This probably will correct itself over time. At the end of the day though, I managed to get applied for my registration card and get enrolled in the national health insurance program, so big success. I am, however, less clear on when I pick up my alien registration card, or when I am supposed to pay the premiums for my health insurance. This is something I will have to investigate soon. (Mystery solved as I have now read the booklet they gave me for the health insurance and I know when to pick up my card. Amazing what a night of sleep can do for your brain).
The Citibank Adventure
I have to get three things done before I can move forward with my job: applying for the alien registration card, enrolling in the national health care system, and opening a bank account. When I finished with the health insurance it was a around 3, so I thought the best thing to do would be to knock out the bank today and then I could spend Saturday trying to get a cell phone. Before I headed off to Citibank, though, I needed food. Apparently my lunch had been too insubstantial and I really needed something to eat. I felt light headed and lethargic. In the past this has always happened when I haven’t eaten in a while, so logically I went to eat food to make my head feel better. Now that I sit here on the other side of dinner feeling the exact same way, it is apparent that this has more to do with being tired than it does with needing food. At any rate, having eaten some food, I headed out of Citibank.
Banking is a bit of a strange beast in Japan from what I can tell. Citibank and Shinsei are the only two banks that can really be considered “nationwide” banks. That being said, Wachovia seems to have about as many branches in Charlotte alone as Citibank has in all of Japan. This is probably because the Japanese do most of their banking through the post office (which is very ubiquitous), so it just isn’t worth the money for private banks to build the number of branches we do in the US. Also, the ATMs are not open 24/7. After examining the Citibank site I decided that the financial center near Shinjuku station was the best one for me to head for, it was close and I had conveniently been through Shinjuku station the day before, so I had some familiarity with the place.
That familiarity ended up counting for nothing. Shinjuku station is absurdly confusing for first (or in my case second) time visitors. It has about 6 different exits and the station itself apparently expands all the way to the next station on the Marunouchi line. Today I was looking for the east exit, yesterday I had used the west exit and knew that the east exit was near it, so easy enough right? Sadly that was not the case. The signs leading you to the west exit take you right up to the stairs that put you out on the street. The signs for the east exit suddenly disappear and you are left with signs like “A9 (the one I needed) and “B8”. Furthermore, if you look at the map of the station where it says “West exit” there are some stairs, and if you take them you go out onto the street. However, the stairs where it says “east exit” actually enters back down onto the metro.
After looking at the map I concluded correctly, that I wanted to take A9, and then promptly became lost. I ended up going out the south exit, saw a landmark from the previous day, made my way around to the west exit (by walking around the outside of the station), and found myself back where I had previously been. I ended up talking to an attendant, who said take A9. My mistake at A9 had come at the top of the stairs. Once I got up the A9 stairs I continued further into the station and got myself confused. Turns out all I had to do was look behind me to see a second set of stairs leading up to the street.
Having finally made it out the east exit, I managed to get to Citibank only to discover there was no one there to help me open an account. I thought maybe I had misread the branch services on the website. So after my adventure in Shinjuku station I ended up just taking the metro back home. Once I got home I rechecked the website. Had I been reading more carefully I would have noticed that you can open accounts from 9-3 and 5-7, I had arrived at the bank around 4. By the time I got back to my room I was too tired to head back out during the evening rush. Instead I got dinner and sat down to write this. I made it to 8:40 before I gave up the ghost by the way. I woke up at 1, 2:30, 3:30, 4:30 and got up at 6. I did manage to get some sleep though, and 6 is far better than yesterday’s 4:30. I am feeling much better this morning and hopefully I’ll have the jet lag out of my system tomorrow. On tap for today, Softbank (cell phone), the hyakuen store (dollar store), and perhaps finding a gym.
Now that I see how long this post is I’m going to forget the pictures and put them in a separate post tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Day 1: The Arrival
Well, I’ve made it to
I did manage to doze off a few times, so I did get some sleep, just not a lot. About 70 miles from Narita, I opened the window shade to the vast expanse of the
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| From 2010-06-18 |
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| From 2010-06-18 |
Everything was going smoothly at the airport to begin with. No problems at immigration or customs, I got through it in a timely manner. My only real problem of the trip came after that. I wanted to have my checked luggage delivered to my apartment so I wouldn’t have to drag it through the train system. The problem was, they wanted a local telephone number, which I obviously did not possess. Eventually I managed to get the phone number of the guesthouse I am staying out and was able to use that. Another issue with the shipping is that they wanted the address in kanji and I only had it written down in romanji. Now, they were able to write it down in kanji, but I am still slightly concerned. I suppose I’ll find out in the next three hours, as that is when it is supposed to be delivered.
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| From 2010-06-18 |
After I finally had my luggage dealt with, I hopped the express train to Shinjuku and made my way to the Sakura House office. At this point I was absurdly tired, dragging my laptop bag and carry-on luggage around. They got my room all set up and sent me on my way. After some initial difficulty with the metro (I had the wrong line) I made it to my room, met my suitemates, and hit up 7-11 for a small dinner. I’m clearly going to need a few days to work out the Jet lag. I went to sleep at 10:30, woke up at 2:30, and again at 4:30 (no more sleep after that). So by tonight I will probably be pretty dead. Here are some pictures of my humble home (and shared kitchen).
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| From 2010-06-18 |
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| From 2010-06-18 |
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| From 2010-06-18 |
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| From 2010-06-18 |
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| From 2010-06-18 |
Also, Japanese toilets are crazy. As you will see there is a sink on top of our toilet so that when you flush water to wash your hands with runs immediate. Genius I say!
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| From 2010-06-18 |
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Springtime in Charlotte and My Future Plans
With March now squarely in the rear-view mirror, it seems like we've left the cool weather behind and can look forward to... well summer, which is actually worse. In the meantime though we have Spring, as fleeting as it may be. I picked up my final Christmas present today, a new camera and I took it out for a test drive today. Fun stuff.
That's all minor stuff. Much bigger news is that I have accepted a position teaching English in Japan. Nothing is guaranteed yet, the Japanese Immigration Bureau still have to approve me for a work visa, but if that happens I'll be off to the land of the rising sun. It's pretty exciting stuff. This has been in the works for well over a year now and I'm really excited that things are coming together.
Of course, now I have a nice new camera to take with me, and hopefully I'll be updating this blog somewhat regularly with my exploits in Japan.
Don't think that just because I haven't updated my blog since January that I haven't been working on my Japanese either, I have. I took a break from Rosetta Stone to read through an introductory grammar book on Japanese; it was an excellent decision. I think if you are learning another indo-European language Rosetta Stone's system of not directly addressing grammar is fine, but it doesn't work so well in Japanese. The idea behind Rosetta Stone is that you learn the language in the most natural way possible, by being exposed to it with contextual information, just how we learn our first language. The problem I found is that, as adults, we come with baggage, expectations based on knowledge of our own languages. In my case, my problem came from English's emphasis on word order. English grammar is all about word order, and the order we put our words in decides the meaning of the sentence. This is not the case in Japanese. Other than the need for the verb to come last, word order is VERY flexible. Instead, Japanese grammar is based on particles that are tagged onto the end of words that indicate what that word's function is.
は is a topic marker.
に indicates direction of an action or location of existance.
で indicated location of actions or by which means an action is done.
明日、私は海岸に車で行きます
Rather than translating, if you were to swap out words it'd look like this.
Tomorrow, I (topic marker) beach (direction marker) car (by means of marker) go.
Of course, translated this says, "Tomorrow, I will go to the beach by car."
There's a lot more to it than that, but that will give you an idea.
Needless to say, Rosetta Stone just dives in throwing the particles around, but it never became clear to me how exactly each particle was functioning. Now that I understand the particles though, I'm back into Rosetta Stone learning more than ever.
That's all minor stuff. Much bigger news is that I have accepted a position teaching English in Japan. Nothing is guaranteed yet, the Japanese Immigration Bureau still have to approve me for a work visa, but if that happens I'll be off to the land of the rising sun. It's pretty exciting stuff. This has been in the works for well over a year now and I'm really excited that things are coming together.
Of course, now I have a nice new camera to take with me, and hopefully I'll be updating this blog somewhat regularly with my exploits in Japan.
Don't think that just because I haven't updated my blog since January that I haven't been working on my Japanese either, I have. I took a break from Rosetta Stone to read through an introductory grammar book on Japanese; it was an excellent decision. I think if you are learning another indo-European language Rosetta Stone's system of not directly addressing grammar is fine, but it doesn't work so well in Japanese. The idea behind Rosetta Stone is that you learn the language in the most natural way possible, by being exposed to it with contextual information, just how we learn our first language. The problem I found is that, as adults, we come with baggage, expectations based on knowledge of our own languages. In my case, my problem came from English's emphasis on word order. English grammar is all about word order, and the order we put our words in decides the meaning of the sentence. This is not the case in Japanese. Other than the need for the verb to come last, word order is VERY flexible. Instead, Japanese grammar is based on particles that are tagged onto the end of words that indicate what that word's function is.
は is a topic marker.
に indicates direction of an action or location of existance.
で indicated location of actions or by which means an action is done.
明日、私は海岸に車で行きます
Rather than translating, if you were to swap out words it'd look like this.
Tomorrow, I (topic marker) beach (direction marker) car (by means of marker) go.
Of course, translated this says, "Tomorrow, I will go to the beach by car."
There's a lot more to it than that, but that will give you an idea.
Needless to say, Rosetta Stone just dives in throwing the particles around, but it never became clear to me how exactly each particle was functioning. Now that I understand the particles though, I'm back into Rosetta Stone learning more than ever.
Friday, January 08, 2010
Breaking Through
I'm closing in on the end of the first level of the Japanese Rosetta stone, I only have the final fourth unit to go, and I've come to a realization; I'm really enjoying learning Japanese. This is a big deal, mainly because through seven years in grade school and two terms at Furman I never once enjoyed learning Spanish. It always seemed like a chore to me, something I had to do to graduate but didn't really want to do. When I set out to learn Japanese I knew that I was already at an advantage in that I wanted to learn, but I was never really sure if I would enjoy learning the language. I am happy to discover that I am enjoying learning Japanese, and I think this, more than anything, will help me along.
Learning a language takes discipline, there's no doubt about that, and you need to be regularly working with the language if you want to make any real progress. But the more something feels like a chore, the less you want to do it. The fact that I am enjoying learning Japanese turns that chore into something I want to do, and makes it easier for me to devote my free time to it. I remember making the comment once that I would prefer for everyone to just learn English because learning a foreign language was too much of a hassle. My Spanish professor thought that was a short sighted view and was a poor outlook on language learning. I'm happy to discover seven years later that he was right, it is a poor outlook, I just didn't like his language. So for those people who never felt like they could master a language other than their own, I'd encourage you to give it another go. There was never any doubt in my mind that I would be unable to learn another language, I am happy to be proving myself wrong.
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