Japanese and Crossing Borders
Sep. 27th, 2005 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabular_rasaTonight is my study-night in.
I have so much to do. I have about an hour total study time tomorrow, and an exam on Thursday, so, hence, most of all of my studying must take place tonight.
I don't like this gap in the system, though.
The whole Japanese situation is just so weird. I hate every minute of the class, almost, sitting in there and knowing I'm failing and hearing things and understanding it, and yet, when she comes to me, being unable to say anything, and stuttering and stammering and having her correct me and knowing I knew it and hating her and resenting her and wishing she would call on me when she wouldn't and not call on me when she would and jumping and leaping at the chance to say something else beyond the ridiculous, retarded "Core Conversations" and getting it wrong if I try anything else within it.
Maybe writing will actually BE better. I learned Japanese backwards, you know; I learned some kanji first of anything, interested first in Chinese, and then I taught myself the syllabaries. I spoke a little Chinese as a 5th and 6th grader, but didn't say my first Japanese words until 7th grade exploratory Japanese, when I realized "desu" wasn't actually pronounced "desoo" but "des" (I remember, in fact, even asking Elizabeth Wynn when she came *home* from Japan one year whether "me" was "meh" or "mee," having no way of knowing with the supplies I had). Yet though I spoke nothing, I could spell all the names of the world, and even write out sentences in the few little grammar patterns I knew, spelling "konnichiwa!" and "sayounara!" and "arigatou gozaimasu!" with pride.
Even now, I write it better than I speak it, able to phrase myself with the time to think. Maybe that's where I go wrong: When I write to people, they think I'm phenominal; yet, when I speak to them, face to face, they humor me for my wrongness in expecting that deep down I must know it because I can write it.
(Speaking of which, I still don't understand-- and probably never will-- why they spell it "arigatoo" in so many textbooks-- it's either that or with the o overlined, which makes more sense but still not a whole lot-- when it's clearly spelled in Japanese, in hiragana, "arigatou" . . . why not make it easier for the poor English-learning students and spell it "arigatou" when they're learning romanized forms?)
Maybe in all of this trials, I'm supposed to be enlightened to provide a new way of learning Japanese that actually makes sense. Maybe I'm supposed to be tormented by the struggles of my own learning of it, to come up with some refined, better system.
Maybe teaching Japanese (or English-- and I've heard tell that the Japanese schools are million times worse about language-learning) is still on-- and with renewed, heightened force.
Anyway, I have Crossing Borders homework to do-- the first exam of my college career, ever . . . I'm really quite scared. I have no idea of what to expect from this exam, and it's one-third of our grade. At least one-half of it (the exam, no; not the grade, lol . . . ) is take-home and in bizarre essay-format with a group project that requires six people to work together on one essay-report of 15 pages and make it sound coherent like one person wrote it, lol . . . I get to concern myself with pre-Westphalian borders-- basically, borders before nation-states existed, which apparently is like before the dawn of time, to this class, lol . . .
Whoever keeps calling Carol needs to realize that she's NOT going to pick up, no, not even on the 18th try, because she's not here . . . and that her cellphone ring might possibly be damn annoying to her roomate when it keeps going off, in excess, lol . . .
If I weren't afraid of phones, I might pick up and be like, "SHE'S NOT HERE!!!" *SLAM PHONE DOWN.*
. . . but I am.
On another complaining sidenote, my ear hurts like a motherfucker. I have no idea what's wrong with it. It squelches when I try to mess with it, and it just generally hurts, yet I don't think it's an earache or anything remotely fixable . . .
I have so much to do. I have about an hour total study time tomorrow, and an exam on Thursday, so, hence, most of all of my studying must take place tonight.
I don't like this gap in the system, though.
The whole Japanese situation is just so weird. I hate every minute of the class, almost, sitting in there and knowing I'm failing and hearing things and understanding it, and yet, when she comes to me, being unable to say anything, and stuttering and stammering and having her correct me and knowing I knew it and hating her and resenting her and wishing she would call on me when she wouldn't and not call on me when she would and jumping and leaping at the chance to say something else beyond the ridiculous, retarded "Core Conversations" and getting it wrong if I try anything else within it.
Maybe writing will actually BE better. I learned Japanese backwards, you know; I learned some kanji first of anything, interested first in Chinese, and then I taught myself the syllabaries. I spoke a little Chinese as a 5th and 6th grader, but didn't say my first Japanese words until 7th grade exploratory Japanese, when I realized "desu" wasn't actually pronounced "desoo" but "des" (I remember, in fact, even asking Elizabeth Wynn when she came *home* from Japan one year whether "me" was "meh" or "mee," having no way of knowing with the supplies I had). Yet though I spoke nothing, I could spell all the names of the world, and even write out sentences in the few little grammar patterns I knew, spelling "konnichiwa!" and "sayounara!" and "arigatou gozaimasu!" with pride.
Even now, I write it better than I speak it, able to phrase myself with the time to think. Maybe that's where I go wrong: When I write to people, they think I'm phenominal; yet, when I speak to them, face to face, they humor me for my wrongness in expecting that deep down I must know it because I can write it.
(Speaking of which, I still don't understand-- and probably never will-- why they spell it "arigatoo" in so many textbooks-- it's either that or with the o overlined, which makes more sense but still not a whole lot-- when it's clearly spelled in Japanese, in hiragana, "arigatou" . . . why not make it easier for the poor English-learning students and spell it "arigatou" when they're learning romanized forms?)
Maybe in all of this trials, I'm supposed to be enlightened to provide a new way of learning Japanese that actually makes sense. Maybe I'm supposed to be tormented by the struggles of my own learning of it, to come up with some refined, better system.
Maybe teaching Japanese (or English-- and I've heard tell that the Japanese schools are million times worse about language-learning) is still on-- and with renewed, heightened force.
Anyway, I have Crossing Borders homework to do-- the first exam of my college career, ever . . . I'm really quite scared. I have no idea of what to expect from this exam, and it's one-third of our grade. At least one-half of it (the exam, no; not the grade, lol . . . ) is take-home and in bizarre essay-format with a group project that requires six people to work together on one essay-report of 15 pages and make it sound coherent like one person wrote it, lol . . . I get to concern myself with pre-Westphalian borders-- basically, borders before nation-states existed, which apparently is like before the dawn of time, to this class, lol . . .
Whoever keeps calling Carol needs to realize that she's NOT going to pick up, no, not even on the 18th try, because she's not here . . . and that her cellphone ring might possibly be damn annoying to her roomate when it keeps going off, in excess, lol . . .
If I weren't afraid of phones, I might pick up and be like, "SHE'S NOT HERE!!!" *SLAM PHONE DOWN.*
. . . but I am.
On another complaining sidenote, my ear hurts like a motherfucker. I have no idea what's wrong with it. It squelches when I try to mess with it, and it just generally hurts, yet I don't think it's an earache or anything remotely fixable . . .
