Reading:
this quarter we were given japanese folktales to read. I found it rewarding to be able to read somthing in japanese and understand it. although reading my folktale was no easy task. I had to look up nearly ever third or fourth word, although I knew the majoity of the gramatical stuctures. I found that if I just tried to read it through with out trying to understand it, I would sometimes have a general idea of what was being said. I thought that the picutres helped with the understanding, although I certainly found it frustrateing to have to look up every fourth word in the dictionary. I think overall I need to read more in japanese in general, and with my current level of reading folktales like these cater to my low level of reading skills. I'm not a very visual person and so my reading skills in japanese are poor at best.
The story was called いっすんぼし and it was about a thumb sized boy. While he did grow older, he did not grow in height. one day he decided to travel to the capital. He recieved a sowing needle from his mother as a sword and set off to the capital in a soup bowl boat. when he reached the capital he became a friend to the princess there and protected her from demons. After defeating the demons the princess used the demon's magic hammer to make issunboshi grow to normal size. After this they get married and isunboshi's parent's came to live at the capital.
ぼくのみんかんでんせつの名前は「いっすんぼうし」です。それの物語の中で４６のページがあります。おもしろいの物語ですが読むことはむずかしです。いっすんぼしはとても小さいな人です。しかし、このみんかんでんせつの終わることにいっすんぼしは大きいがなります。いっすんぼしはひめさまをけっこんします。
Reading this article was also difficult for me. I found that, again, I had to look up words often; most often the case was that I didn't understand the kanji so I had to reference it in my workbook. Again my reading skills are poor, and I need to work on my kanji memorization as well. As I had to look up words often I found reading this slow and boring, I suppose that will change with time, but I feel like I would learn more if I read something that was more interesting, or at least had more pictures so that I had an easier time with context clues.
この話を読むことはむずかしです。この話の中で多い漢字がわからなかった。だから、この話はおもしろくないですよ。おもしろいの話を読むと、読むことはやさしいをなります。ぼくは読むことをれんしゅうするつもりです。
writing:
Throughout this quater, simlar to last quater, we traveled to lincon elementry school and worked with kids there. This quarter we did several things, we read them folktales that we had already read, we helped them write folktales themselves that were similar to japanese folktales, and we translated their folktales into japanese. The translating wasn't really all that difficult, the hardest part being deciding whether or not to translate what they said directly or to add in parts they had left in the gaps. In addition my kids had differnt story lengths and so deciding which parts to translate from which story was difficult as well. If I were to get another chance to translate the stories I would translate each individual story and try to add in parts that the kids had left out, to at least make the story comprehensible in one language.
みんかんでんせつはみじかくてへんです。ので竜と忍者がいます。忍者は竜をころします。
This next peice is a story I wrote to show my understanding of the giving and recieving verbs in japanese, as well as other structures like making suggestions and prohibiting things. While it is short I think that it shows that I have a decent grasp of the gramatical structures used. Although if I had the chance to write it again I would make it longer and include more grammer, perhaps writing a story with an actual plot.
物語はちょっとみじかいです。つぎの物語は長くておもしろいつもりです。
Listening:
One of the things I have been doing for a good eight years is watching anime. It is a rule of mine to watch anime with subtitles becuase then, not only do I not have to deal with bad american voice actors, but I also hear the tone quality of the actual japanese voice actors behind what I am reading and am able to understand more of the culture that way. As my enthusiasm for anime has grow I have grown fond of downloading songs from anime and listening to them by themselves. I find now that I take japanese I can sometimes peice together what is being said in the songs. Below are some examples of songs that I listen to often.
ぼくはよくアニメのうたを聞きます。うたのlyricsをちょっとわかります。日本のうたを聞くことはぼくのはつおんとlistening skillsをよくしました。ただし、そのうたは日本の文化をただしくつたえないかもしれません。Thinking about it, アニメは日本の文化をただしくつたえないかもしれません。
After listening/ watching a listen comprehension video from our moodle site I felt pretty confident. I found I could understand almost everything being said, and the things that I didn't understand completely I mostly picked up from context. The video was an instructional vidoe on how to make rice in a rice cooker. The lady in the video told you what each of the components of the process were: the rice cooker, the cup for measuring rice, the spatual etc. You have to put three cups of rice into the cooker and makes sure to wash the rice three to four times. You cook the rice for anound 30 minutes and then wait for five minutes. After this you move the rice around with the spatula and then wait for another five minutes, then your rice is ready to eat!
http://larcdma.sdsu.edu/languages/japanese/index.html
このビデオはとてもりかいできる。ごはんを料理することはやさしいように見ます。ぼくは日本へ行く時、ごはんを作ることをしっています。
Speaking:
For the past couple of weeks in japanese class we have been doing presentations on the spot in class so as to increase our comfort and ease with speaking. While these are useful, I feel like they are too scripted, as we get to prepare for them and write down things to say. I think that If we were to Just have the occasional conversation in Japanese It would be better, the big difficultly is that it is hard to get all the members of the class invovled in a conversation with out having them say the same things and it losing it's sponteneity. However, these everyday presentations are better than nothing, my biggest difficulty being in thinking about what to say and how to say it. All in all I feel like these presentaions are difficult if one actually tries to be spontanous when doing them, however, if one is not spontanous then the presentations have little use.
さいきんの日本語のクラスに私たちはon the spotはっぴょうをします。はっぴょうはむずかしいです。日本語の会話はより多いやくにたつ。
Over the winter break last year my friend had a Japanese exchange student stay at his house. She had very little experience in speaking english, so I tried speaking with her in Japanese. It was very difficult and kind of nerve racking as I couldn't think of how to say what I wanted to say. It was as if my mind was stuck in english mode. I found this to be very frustrating, but I think that if I am listening to Japanese all the time it will be easier to make connections between what I want to say and the Japanese Translation. I think that my speaking skills have improved since then, as my working vocabulary and knowlege of gramer has grown, however my thinking and translating it to japanese has not gotten any easier.
去年の冬の休みに日本人を話しました。かのじょはforeign exchange studentです。かのじょはぼくの友だちの家で住みました。かのじょを話すことがむずかしいです。かのじょは英語をちょっと話せました。ぼくはしんけいしつでしたbecuase i didn't know if she could understand me。