A couple days ago, I had my Japanese breakthrough, and today I had another little significant moment. You know when someone asks you something, and you answer before you’ve really processed what he or she asked? I do that a lot with Japanese, and if I end up giving the other person wrong information that is not really important, then I don’t correct myself. Today, however, my host mom asked if I had to change trains to get to Tokyo. I answered no, and then I thought to myself, “That’s not true,” and I told her that I had misunderstood her and that, yes, I have to change trains about six times. I was really proud that I took that step, and I was going to write a very positive blog entry about it.
But tonight, as I brushed my teeth in my pajamas, my host mom’s cousin’s son arrived for his stay here.
!!!!!!!!!???!!!!!!!!!!
Why didn’t anyone tell me that some dude from Canada is coming to stay over when I’m wearing my pajamas?!?!?
The dude from Canada is actually very nice.
But as he spoke amazing Japanese to my host family and turned to me every now and then to translate, I became more and more negative about studying Japanese. All this vocab that I’ll have to learn, thousands and thousands of words, not to mention grammar patterns and cultural implications and kanji, all for a society that won’t accept me as its own anyway. And it doesn’t help my confidence when the only thing I understand in a conversation is when my host dad good-naturedly tells our guests that I don’t understand anything they’re saying.
Why didn’t my mom just speak more Japanese to me when I was growing up?
But I suppose I have more sympathy now for my Japanese friends who are learning English. Like the Canadian dude did for me tonight, I do my best to help my friends understand English conversation, but now I want to try to do more for them.
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