I’ve
written before about how much I like my Japanese language class, even though I’m
not very good at it. Recently, I have
noticed our teacher speaking and reading faster and encouraging us to do the
same. She must hate listening to our
one-syllable-at-a-time robot speak.
Sometimes (often) I write my book's hiragana and katakana out in romaji
ahead of time, in an attempt to be able to read faster in class, even though I
know this isn’t helping. I happened upon
a giant book fair in the underground eki mae dori in Sapporo the other day and
bought six children’s books for 100 yen each. A happy elderly Japanese man
helped me pick them out. I told him I
wanted katanna hon (easy books) with
no kanji. Two of the books read from back to front and he said they are traditional
Japanese stories. My plan is to try to
read them out loud at home (try is the key word here) to improve my reading and
speaking in class.
My
teacher finished her bead necklace and wore it to class this week. She is very pleased with it and I am very
happy she liked making it. The teachers
who made this necklace said it was much easier than the beads and cross stitch
on perforated paper that they made before this one!
2 comments:
Oh I do sympathise with you. It is ever so much easier to read roman letters than katakana, hiragana or kanji. Good luck with your practice.
You have found some charming books! I hope the books will help you practise your Japanese reading skills. I used children's stories, too, at first. One problem can be that there is no gap between the words and it is impossible to understand where to make a little pause. The book on the top left, 'Akai kasa', has a space between 'red' and 'umbrella'. Hopefully the rest of the text is spaced, too, for easy understanding. Good luck!
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