2 pass 1 fail

So yesterday I got all happy during class when everyone was reading aloud together. I don't remember what the sentence said because I was barely following along, but the verb at the end was something-o shiteimasu, and David next to me (who was also probably not paying attention) said, instead, o shitteimasu. Oh fascinating. Right. So it was such a tiny difference, but (possibly because I hadn't been paying attention to the context) I immediately heard the verb for 'to know' instead of 'to do'. The conjugation makes them sound so very similar that I don't think I would have normally picked it up, but I IMMEDIATELY heard the difference, and then I got all excited about it, but how am I supposed to giggle over something so small? And with David, who would probably be confused and a little insulted that I brought up his mistake.

Then today we were playing a game in class called shiritori, which I've seen on Japanese game shows but never played. One person says a word and the next person takes the last syllable of that word and has to say a word using that as the first syllable and so on, like "shiritori" then "ringo" then "golf" or something like that. Anyway, I realized tonight while I was doing my homework (which includes a small game of it) that while we were doing it in class, with the teacher standing right next to me, I had no apprehensions or troubles coming up with words. My vocabularly is for shit, but it's a least big enough to continue the game, and the two guys I was playing with each lost once while I kept going without a problem. It's nice to know that I can at least do that much in Japanese.

And to bring it all to a point, some Japanese guys came and sat with Eyrun and me today to interview for us for a paper their writing, and during the maybe two hours of conversation, despite the urging of them AND Eyrun, I refused to speak Japanese. I just didn't want to start something I couldn't finish. I understood them when they were talking to each other in Japanese, and the few things they said to me, but not enough to be able to respond appropriately. I am feeling more confident...just not that confident.