do you ever have those days where school just kind of kicks you in the butt? yeah, that was yesterday.
I guess for every day that you get the concepts right away, there has to be a day where things don't come so easily, you stumble over simple phrases, and you realize that you spilled coffee on your shirt on top of it all.
For me,Japanese is one of those classes that is only 1/4 of the credits I am taking, but takes up 60% of my homework/study time. Unfortunately, I'm also taking Chinese 401, and that is exactly the same way. Besides that, Classical Chinese takes a decent amount, and so does Portuguese. Especially because its not a regular intro to Portuguese class, but Intensive, which means we are doing a whole year's work in one semester. So where does that leave me? At about a 70% deficit.
Of course, I shouldn't complain. Not because it's annoying and doesn't serve a purpose, but because the majority of students at UVa are in the same boat. I guess that's what I get for coming to one of the top ranked State Universities in the country. My favorite quote about UVa is, "The University of Virginia, where your best hasn't been good enough since 1819."
I really am enjoying Japanese tho. My mom speaks pretty well, and it's cure to hear how excited she gets when I call home and we have broken conversations. It mostly goes that she says something something something, and I answer with, aa, something wa nandesuka? and she explains, and we go on from there. Lucky for me, after those mini-lessons, she hands over the phone to my dad where the similar thing happens in Portuguese and Chinese.
Languages are fun. I wonder if I inherited that?
So, the other day in class, I made a small language mistake.
I was in a dialog with Sato Sensei about what time I woke up in the morning. That day I got up at 1030. We discussed and verified that fact, and then I asked her what time she got up. She got up at 7.
"At 7?" I asked.
"Yes, at 7" she replied.
"Oh, 7, is it" I verified
"7 it is", she (re?)verified.
So at that point I felt like mixing it up with a new vocab we learned. hmm, how do you say early, I thought to myself. ahh, yes, I remember now.
"Yasai desune" I said. hmmm, that sounded...not quite right.
oh whoops. wrong word. I def just called Sato Sensei a vegetable.....
Language mistakes happen all the time. A few years ago I would have been very self conscious, but it's happened so much that it just rolls off me now. I def. said some inappropriate things during my Korean class first year.
It reminded me of something my brother told me. He used to take Japaneses in college as well. one day during Japanese class, one of his classmates wanted to say, "there are seven people in my family".
he said, "My family is carrots".
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6 comments:
it's soooo awesome that u can speak so many different languages! hahha... that mistake was kinda funny~
Wow, I'm completely jealous of how many languages you're exposed to. I want to have a conversation with you in Chinese sometime. :) I think we're all a little self-conscious in class...so the only thing we can do is just to laugh off our mistakes, after all we are in JAP101. There's not much expectations there. ha.
I can't believe you're taking three languages - how can you keep track of them all? For me, even if some languages help each other (when I took French in high school, I was able to use some of the things I learned in Spanish in elementary school because they're both romance languages) I can't learn two at once.
But I guess one thing you can do that can be fun is splice the languages... it's probably not a good thing to do unless you have a decent grasp on each one, but you can make up your own language with parts of each. It's good if you want to confuse people, and I guess if you do it right it can also help you understand the differences in grammar between different languages
Yeah i know what you mean. All these people come to UVA cause they were top in their school and they find here their average. Right now I feel somewhere between average and mediocre. It sucks. Its really cool you can have conversations with your mom in Japanese though, I'm sure they will become more fluent soon.
It seems like you have an interest in many languages. Do you know any others besides the ones mentioned in your post? (not that that isn't plenty). I'm in the process of learning four myself.
I've also started having (limited) conversation with my mom since I started studying Japanese, and I can tell it makes her pretty happy. When I call her up she asks if I need any help with my homework.
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