Monday, July 14, 2008

Konnechiwa....Watachi wa Jennifer

So, that might not be how you spell it exactly, but you get the drift. John and I have had two Japanese lessons so far and we go again tonight. Our first lesson was last Thursday, we were both excited, but a little apprehensive. My last language lesson was in high school with Mrs. Haberli and one of the few words that I retained from that experience was cervesa, just to give you an idea.

We meet our sensai, Ti-san, do the traditional bowing and konnechiwa (hello). Then we sit down and he starts pointing to pictures of things in a book and we start repeating after him...no instruction beforehand, just like we were learning how to talk for the first time. It was an experience. After the class I was on cloud nine...I could talk in Japanese. Didn't matter that the only words I knew were inu (dog), nekko (cat), pen (pen...my personal favorite), hando baggue (hang bag - a must know) and a few others in the same vein....I had mastered some Japanese.

Our last lesson captured primary colors and how to tell people where we were from. Stanley-san wa Amerika-jin desu. But after all these words, my favorite is still Hai (yes), said in a clipped manner that lets you feel in charge of the situation.

Ultimate Japanese language victory is going to be ordering sushi in the restaurants with the sliding doors that have no prices on the menus which are in symbols. Good times.

Alas, there is more to do today.

Sayonara...Jenn

3 comments:

Elizabeth said...
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Elizabeth said...
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Elizabeth said...

you may be bored at home but i'm bored at work. imagine my surprise when i was checking up on my blogs and discovered you had posted. congrats and welcome to the world of blogging. i will be your first official blog stalker. anyway, when traveling abroad, i like to order things with name brands... that way i don't have to remember what means what. bebida doesn't always come to me that quickly but evian and coke... well, those are universal! i'm sure prada is too, jenn, so not to worry!! (sorry about deleting my earlier comments... don't know how all of this works exactly but the good news is that this has taken up the better part of 20 minutes of my work day!)