How IS my Japanese?

A lot of people have been asking me how my Japanese is coming along. It is hard to say how bad it really is. The more I learn about Japanese the more I feel I don’t know. Ahhh sigh, so goes the way of life.

I’m pretty excited that I can write this: あなたのカルマわロシアにあります。ところでバクダんがあなたのカルマのなかにあります、but it’s a comment I don’t see myself using very often. Unfortunately, in my current state of immersion, I believe I am fully saturated with effortlessly acquired Japanese. Unless I sit down and study it I probably won’t learn too much more.

At this point I can talk to some first graders, so I am not really at a great place to coast on the Japanese I know for the next 8 months. I have been able to say that I like things, and comment on the weather for a while. By now I can also make small talk for the duration of a car ride, which is a HUGE relief from the completely new levels of awkward silence. It was really painful thinking you really need to say something, for the love of God anything, but can’t. I know probably about 20 kanji on their own, but would have a hard time figuring out how they are used in a sentence. I can read hiragana and katakana very very slowly. That accomplishment is diminished by the fact that kanji usually appears in what I am trying to read.

How am I learning by myself? The internet is helpful. I am recently experiencing a new wave of motivation. Never in my life did I think I would be spending time on a website called “Akemi’s Anime World,” but it has been one of the best at explaining Japanese. It taught me the phrase above, (pronounced “Anata no karuma was Roshia ni arimasu. Tokorode, bakudan ga anta no karuma no naka ni arimasu,” or in English, “Your car is in Russia. By the way, there is a bomb in your car.” Throughout the day at school I write down the new words I learn so I don’t forget them as easily and then I practice what I have learned that day on the awesome taxi driver lady that drives me home. She probably thinks I am crazy because I have no reservations about throwing phrases like the one above around just to see what will happen. Japan is one big experiment for me. The problem, not just with her, is that sometimes Japanese people have thought that I don’t know what I am talking about. Like when I told her I was going to “Korea” she kept telling me that I wasn’t. That in fact on Monday I was going to “Kita-chu” (my junior high school). So sometimes learning Japanese isn’t so rewarding.

But there is good news (if I want to believe in something)! Some Japanese friends told me that Goto people have smaller mouths and thus are very hard to understand relative to Japanese in other parts of the country... So I could possibly understand more Japanese if I were to go somewhere else, which I probably won’t.