Reflection on the beginning half of Japanese class.

I have been able to remember a lot of new vocabulary this semester. It helps to only write the nouns that I didn't already know and then just study those. There have also been a lot of new verbs (like 落ち込む、乗り遅れる、アイロンをかける etc.) We learned a lot of new grammar too, which has been fun. Thins like ～ておく、A時B、といいですね、といいんですが、みたいです。The hardest one out of all of those was probably A時B, and it took a lot of practice to get that right (and still not entirely sure if I've got it.) However, Yuki-sensei's video helped and the amount of practice we did in class did as well. It is more hard to make my mind think of it in a different way from English, than to actually do it. Because it does not really make sense from English, so the trick is just teaching your brain to think of it in a different way. ～ておくwas also a little confusing to make sense of, because we don't have an equivalent expression in English. I think I understand that one though. We did a lot of in class practice and homework on that one too. The amount of time we spent on each of the grammars felt proportionate to how difficult they were and that was a big help. :)

The most effective thing for my learning is just thinking about the vocab and grammar in my head. For confusing grammar it is trying to work out a way of thinking of it that makes sense. Also studying the grammar pages that Yuki-sensei hands out in class helps too, as they have all the rules on one page, and they are easy to find in my folder. For the next half of this semester I don't think I am going to do anything different, as the system I've got seems to be working so far. I will be sad when this class is over though as it is my favorite. :( It's been a good time.

おちこんだ時、何をしますか？
ジェームズさんはおちこんだ時、お酒を飲みます。
メリットさんはおちこんだ時、テレビゲームをします。
ジャックソンさんはおちこんだ時、アニメをみます。

Reflection of When Movie

I understood the grammar through the movie. The video is not confusing at all, a visual of the grammar in action helps. Especially the one with Masashi coming to the house. Depending on when you clean your room you just change the form. The one thing that I still am a little confused about is, does the verb at the end of the sentence always stay present tense? Or are there situations in which it would be past tense? The way to structure this grammar makes a lot more sense now though. I think of it the same way as presented in the video and can not really come up with a way that would make more sense to a native english speaker. You just have to thing of what is happening first in the sentence, and after practice it'll definitely become easy.

Blog Entry #12
This week we practiced more くれる、もらう、あげる。After a lot of practice these became easier to understand and to use. We also learned new grammar ～たらどうですか。Which is another way to provide advice to someone. It basically means "if ___ how is it?" or in better English "How about if you did ___?" an example is 宿題をしたらどうですか。"How about if you did you homework?" Suggesting that someone do their homework. In class we watched videos of Japanese students for some project they had and we got the chance to make our own response video, introducing ourselves and giving them some brusque advice using  ～たらどですか。That was kind of fun but also confusing to try and get on the internet and see the videos because Akron's wi-fi sucks. Also a lot of people didn't come to class on Thursday so it was not as fun. The new grammar is very cool though and really easy to construct as it is just short form past tense with たら added to the end.

Blog Entry #11
This week we learned the new grammar かもしれません。 This means "may." We also learned how to use different verbs to express the different perspective of giving things to people or receiving. The verb くれる means "to give (to me)." あげる means "to give"  and もらう means to receive. One of the hard things about the first grammar is that with nouns and na adjectives you don't add na or da at the end but just add かもしれません That will take getting used to as there is no short form involved.


クリスマスにこの本がほしいです。
１．クリスマスにお母さんは、僕にほんをあげるかもしれない。
２．クリスマスに僕は、お母さんに、ほんをまらうかもしれない。
３．クリスマスにお母さんが本をくれるかもしれない。

１１月６日１４年木曜日　Blog Entry #12

This week we learned and practiced a few new grammar concepts. The first one, and the most difficult, was なら。It was hard because there is no direct translation in English. You use なら, for example, if someone asked you if you went to England and you said no, then you could use another country you have been to + ならto mean but I HAVE been to X country to kind of emphasize it. Another fun way we learned to use it (which is still tricky) is a way to be more humble. You can say 

お酒を飲める。ビールなら飲みます。Which is like saying "Yeah I drink alcohol, but only if it's beer." It's a humble way of saying what you can do. なら is one of the more difficult grammars to understand as there is no direct translation in English for it. This one will take practice. However, we learned a new grammar　Xがほしいです which is a lot easier to grasp. This just basically means I want X. "I want a toy" would be おもちゃがほしいです。Pretty simple. The only slightly difficult part is when you talk about 3rd person wants. It's just like たいです。 you have to add がっている to the end of the いadj. So it would be ボブさんはおもちゃをほしがっています。You also have to use を in this construction because がっている is  verb taking an object. Over all some cool grammar this week and the number of things we are able to say in japanese is increasing :)

1.What does your mother want for her birthday?

お母さんはたんじょうびにふくをほしがっています。

２．子供の時、何が一番ほしかったですか？

テレビゲームがいちばんほしかったです。

３．時間とお金と、どちらがほしいですか。なぜですか。

お金が時間を買えないので、時間がほしいです。

Blog Entry #9
１０月２３日木曜日
In class this week we learned how to say "looks like" using そうです。you can use it with adjectives, verbs and nouns! An example would be このコンピュウタは高そうです。and これは高そうなコンピュウタです。Or この本はおもしろそうです。and これはおもしろそうなほんです。

 On Tuesday a Japanese guest came in! We got to interview her and ask some questions, it was really cool. She has traveled to many different places and is a government worker. We have to use our interview questions in a final project for the class. We also had a practice kanji quiz which was pretty easy, so the real quiz should be easy too :) I look forward to learning more next week!