Just Like the Brochures...

I think I just realized how much a part of me all of this is now.

I just remembered writing Michelle's name in katakana on her whiteboard and being so impressed and surprised when she revealed that she'd already looked up all of the symbols for it. I think I felt flattered at that moment, like she'd just paid me a compliment by showing an interest in Japanese. I realized that I felt like it was a part of who I was, and then I wondered if I would always feel that way. I had been practicing some kanji.

Will I one day miss the feeling of writing in Japanese?

I think it was a couple of weeks ago that I was moving between writing a word in hiragana and one in English and it stunned me that the sounds the pencil made were completely different. The way I wrote the Japanese word sounded as short clicks against the paper while the English word was rapid scribbles. It's amazing for me to write in two completely different ways within seconds of one another, and with the same hand.

Will I miss that one day?

Miss attempting to write a Japanese word in romaji for the sake of my family and screwing up the first 3 or 4 times and writing こ　instead of k or something. It's happened a few times.

I don't want to give up this knowledge, but I don't think that I'm ready to make the sacrifices required in order to keep it.

I Heart Kanji

I fucking hate when there is kanji on the homework that we aren't supposed to know. It's so annoying when I have to go through the stupid book to find one kanji to do one problem. And sometimes, it's not in the book. It's not exactly like I can type it into the fucking dictionary and see what it is. Kanji dictionaries are not required to take this class, therefore I should not HAVE to use one while doing my homework. It's a waste of my time, and it's frustrates me to no end! Then I end up skipping the question and getting it wrong. I know that while studying a foreign language it's best to teach the students from one step ahead of where they are, but it doesn't work when they can't figure out what the fuck is going on, and they get so frustrated that they just give up.

I guess I'm just in a bad mood. I'm so oversensitive.

I Break for Linguistics

There was a bug in my room a few minutes ago. I sort of wandered away (deathly afraid of it flying at my face or something) and wandered the halls until I finally grabbed Eyrun and made her get rid of it for me. She's such a good friend. ^_^ I was actually considering spending the rest of the night in the study room....

Anyway, on to linguistics. One of the Korean kids in my Japanese class has the hardest time making the z-sound, it's adorable. He also doesn't distinguish between ch- and sh-, so instead of saying 'chigai' (different), he says 'shigai' (corpse). But the best thing is that he really really tries to pronounce it well, and when he says a word with a z- or ch- sound he smiles and sort of looks around at us and repeats it to make sure he got it right. It's adorable.

It's easy to hear the differences between Japanese pronunciation and non-Japanese pronunciation of Japanese words in other foreign students, but it's difficult to hear it in my own speech. It's been brought to my attention, though, that my most blatant give-away (not that I could pass for Japanese, but anyway) is my pronunciation of d- in the middle of a word. American English (standard and most non-standard dialects) replace the d-sound with a flapped r in the middle of words -- consider the difference in the d's between the words dime (hard d-sound) and puddle (flapped r). Unfortunately, in Japanese the flapped r-sound is practically identical to the actual r-sound, so I pronounce words like 'kudasai', 'kurasai'. It's physically difficult for me to make the d-sound in the middle of the word! It just seems like an odd problem to have, since the d-sound is such an easy one to make. It sure isn't he French r- or u-. I just naturally do the flapped r-.

My Babbling

I found out in Applied Linguistics last semester that people learning a second language go through the same steps as children learning their first language: babbling, testing sounds, words and phrases, making specific mistakes even after learning the rules, and things like that. So I'm not afraid to admit this.

I babble to myself in French.

Not like rambling on about something no one cares about, but babbling nonsensical phrases that have nothing to do with anything and changing one word or conjugation here and there just to see what it sounds like. And I do this not while I'm studying French, but while I'm driving to the store or taking a shower or drawing a picture. The most random things come out. My all-time favorite: "There is something like that here." This phrase, and various other forms of it with pretty much the same words, plagues my mind. I've never thought it or said it in reference to anything, only as random words that sound nice together to me.

Il y a quelque chose comme ça ici.

All day and night.

Babble babble babble.

So I believe I'm pretty much around 3.5 to 4 years right now. I should make some French toddler friends.