りょうしんに手紙

りょうしんに手紙を書きました。りょうしんは日本語を分かりませんが、いい書くれんしゅうですね。

サンクスギビングの休み

サンクスギビングの休みはとてもよかったです。うちにかえりませんでした。でも、きょうかいの家族とばんごはんを食べました。おいしくて、たのしかったですよ！私の好きな食べ物がありました。ターキーとグリーンビーンとパイがたくさんありました。

サンクスギビングの日にあたらしい友達を会いました。デラウェア大学の大学院生を会って、話しました。いっしょにサンクスギビングのばんごはんを食べました。

今週は、じゅぎょうがあります。さー、べんきょうしましょう！

Update on my Learning Goals (PE7)

Earlier, I posted about my goals for learning Japanese this year, and what activities I would do to accomplish those goals. Here's an update on how things are going.

Listening Goal: "Getting the gist of native Japanese"

• On the bright side, it is easier for me to pick up on words that I know when I watch anime with English subtitles. 
• However, when real people speaking Japanese in real life, I get very lost almost every time. I can't even gather the main idea of what they are saying. 

      I said earlier that I would watch an episode of Japanese TV every week. I regret to say that I have not done this, except over Fall Break, when I watched the anime Cowboy Bebop with my brothers. My plan for the future is to set aside a little time every Sunday night to watch a bit of something like NHK.

Speaking Goals: Speed

• Positive: There are some practiced sentences that I can say fluidly.
• Negative: There are still very large, unnatural pauses when I speak (to a degree that is much worse than when I speak English).

     As for my activities, I have not been watching TV shows and shadowing them, and I haven't been learning songs, except for the intro lines to ぼくはくま and うえをむいて. I have gone to Office Hours, but not often enough to accomplish my goals. Every week, when I plan out my schedule, I will include Office Hours on my list of things to do, so I will be sure to make time and remember to do them.


** Update on Speaking Goals - Speed of Mind ** 

My earlier Speaking Goal Statement included various topics such as pitch, rhythm and "naturalness."  This semester, for pitch and rhythm, I will be mindful of those things as I talk and listen, but they won't be my focus. For me, my utmost priority in my speaking is improving how quickly I can produce the Japanese words that I am trying to say (speed of mind, not necessarily speed of tongue).
     In order to do this, I need to practice speaking with people a lot. I am getting to know my classmates better, so I will find opportunities to practice with them on a regular basis. Also, as practice for speaking quickly, I will find Shadowing exercises that stretch my abilities for talking speed.   

ビデオ

A little video so y'all can get to know me better!

Fun Japanese Song!

こんばんは！
Here is a fun song that has so far taught me how to say one sentence: エビはかにじゃない。 Maybe this will come in handy someday when... I'm differentiating between seafood? I don't know when it will be useful sentence, but it's still a great song!


Kitasono Minami has quite a few other songs on SoundCloud that I like, so you can go check him out.

Another tip: I learned about this song from http://www.tofugu.com/ , which is a really great blog about learning Japanese language and Japanese culture.

PE2: My Goals for Learning Japanese!

As I start out learning Japanese, I have goals for both listening to and speaking Japanese. I am very excited to learn more Japanese, so I will let that excitement help motivate me to reach these goals!

Listening Goal:
To be able to get the gist of Japanese speech produced at a natural speed.

As a beginner, I have to have people slow down a lot in order for me to understand them. I need to be exposed to fluent speeds more, and to have more practice parsing out the meaning of quickly-spoken speech. I want to be able to understand the general idea of what Japanese people are saying, even if I don't know every word.

• In order to help with this listening goal, every week I will watch one episode of either a Japanese game show, Japanese weekly show, or Japanese news. This will let me hear conversation between real-live people.

Speaking Goals:
To reduce my pauses and have a more natural rhythm.

When I speak Japanese now, there are always long pauses in the middle of my sentences because I am not sure how to finish what I want to say. This goal has two parts: The first part is having mastery of saying sentences (feeling natural with their structure, etc.). The second part is having an actual rhythm that sounds like native Japanese speech.

The second speaking goal I have is to have good intonation. For me, good intonation means that most of my sentences will have the correct overall pitch form. I might not be able to know the correct pitch for every word, but I want my questions to sound like questions, and I want to be able to control how I do the pitch in my sentences.

• For these speaking goals, I will practice shadowing a bit on the Japanese TV shows that I watch (see Listening Goal), and I will also practice with the "Let's Speak Japanese!" dialogues. 
• I will also go to office hours once every two weeks to get specific attention on my rhythm and pitch when I talk.
• I will learn a new Japanese song (or poem, if I can find a recording) every two weeks. This probably won't help with pitch, because songs have pitches of their own, but this should help me with syllable pronunciation (and vocabulary). 

 And here's to a fun year of learning Japanese!

じこしょうかい

はじめまして！わたしはじょしゅです。ぷりんすとんだいがくのいちねんせいです。みしがんからきました。にほんごのいちねんせいです。せんこうはぶつりです。
どうぞよろしく。 

はじめまして！
I am excited to finally take a course on Japanese! I have been waiting for this ever since I was in elementary school. In those days, I was primarily interested in Ninjas, Samurai, and Nintendo. Throughout middle school and high school, every time I saw something interesting concerning Japan, it increased my resolve to someday visit there. So, I will learn Japanese and someday go to Japan and see all of the different and similar things in that country.