I have 7 days to teach myself hiragana. Today was my first day back in my Japanese class since winter vacation and because of my unusually "lucky" year I sat at the wrong table. I saw my teacher from last year and just assumed he would be teaching the same class.
I was wrong. Very wrong. I was a mediocre student in the previous class and this class, which is just one step above the last one, is not really catering to my mediocre nature. My teacher refused from the beginning of class to write anything in romaji (in English letters). He would only write in hiragana and at one point even broke off into a few kanji (satanic characters from china). To say that I was confused would be an understatement. I only know the kana (symbols) for my name and a few other really common kana. I thought I would die, but within myself I decided a couple of things:
1. Although I was at the wrong table I would not allow my classmates to view me as a quitter so I refused to get up and wander over to the much easier lesson that was taking place about 2 meters from me.
2. I must decode this fucking language immediately. Preferably by the next class. 7 days.
So starting tomorrow after karaoke with my friends I will clean my apartment and endeavor to commit at least twelve of the hiragana kana to memory. Saturday will be another twelve and I will go on like that until I have mastered all 50 and then I will spend the last few days reviewing the vocabulary from last year and all of the kana.
***I am the king of making sensible plans, but never sticking to them. So this little sermon I'm giving is probably just attracting an earthquake to me right now.***
Oh yeah. I don't think my teacher is that good. For starters he only has basic, very basic, English skills. Now I know that is not really necessary for teaching Japanese, but I have questions and until I can develop enough skill to ask them in Japanese I will continue to rattle on in English. I need him to keep up with me, because his razzy-worthy acting is leaving me in the dark.
And his little teaching aid lady sucks. In class today he was trying to make the example for this crazy sentence as simple as possible and this floozy... nice woman seemed determined to muck it up by throwing in names and what not. I mean I understood what she meant, but I was focusing so hard on the really dumbed down example that Oguwa-sensei was giving us that I had to stop and stare at her for a moment just to understand. I don't like her. I wish the aid from last year was there. She was cute and spoke English.
I was wrong. Very wrong. I was a mediocre student in the previous class and this class, which is just one step above the last one, is not really catering to my mediocre nature. My teacher refused from the beginning of class to write anything in romaji (in English letters). He would only write in hiragana and at one point even broke off into a few kanji (satanic characters from china). To say that I was confused would be an understatement. I only know the kana (symbols) for my name and a few other really common kana. I thought I would die, but within myself I decided a couple of things:
1. Although I was at the wrong table I would not allow my classmates to view me as a quitter so I refused to get up and wander over to the much easier lesson that was taking place about 2 meters from me.
2. I must decode this fucking language immediately. Preferably by the next class. 7 days.
So starting tomorrow after karaoke with my friends I will clean my apartment and endeavor to commit at least twelve of the hiragana kana to memory. Saturday will be another twelve and I will go on like that until I have mastered all 50 and then I will spend the last few days reviewing the vocabulary from last year and all of the kana.
***I am the king of making sensible plans, but never sticking to them. So this little sermon I'm giving is probably just attracting an earthquake to me right now.***
Oh yeah. I don't think my teacher is that good. For starters he only has basic, very basic, English skills. Now I know that is not really necessary for teaching Japanese, but I have questions and until I can develop enough skill to ask them in Japanese I will continue to rattle on in English. I need him to keep up with me, because his razzy-worthy acting is leaving me in the dark.
And his little teaching aid lady sucks. In class today he was trying to make the example for this crazy sentence as simple as possible and this floozy... nice woman seemed determined to muck it up by throwing in names and what not. I mean I understood what she meant, but I was focusing so hard on the really dumbed down example that Oguwa-sensei was giving us that I had to stop and stare at her for a moment just to understand. I don't like her. I wish the aid from last year was there. She was cute and spoke English.
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