Catching Up Part 3 - May

A piece on my bike broke, I had to go to the shop and order a custom piece. I got a voicemail saying when it was coming in. I could understand ~40% of it but even my Japanese friends had to listen to it 3 times to decipher it. So apparently it wasn’t just my lack of skill.

Many things happened during my reading week. I stayed at my Japanese coworker’s parent’s house in Furakawa (古川-Sendai vicinity). It was really cool to have more a more authentic and traditional Japanese lifestyle. The parents didn’t speak any English, so it was a good practice for me and a good way to gauge my ability again. It really makes me wish I had done a home-stay forcing me to speak in Japanese. My speaking would probably be much better by now if that was the case. One noteworthy blunder was when the mother was doing work in the kitchen and I wanted to ask her if there was anything I could do. From iknow.jp I knew “youji”( 用事) meant errands and ”watashi ni”(私に) meant “for me” so I asked “watashi ni youji desu ka” (私に用事ですか) hoping that it would be clear that I was asking “is there a chore/errand for me?”. However this confused her and she asked me some questions. One of which was “who did you hear that from?”. In hindsight, I now know the “desu ka” sounded more like “there is. Right?” instead of “is there?” So by saying that question I was more of telling her that I heard she called for me. My co-worker explained “watashi ni nanika deskimasu ka” (私に何か出来ますか) would have been better. Although with my current knowledge I think even “watashi ni youji arimasu ka” (私に用事ありますか) would have been better understood. It’s hard to fully know the difference and when to use“だ”, ”です”, and”ある/いる”. I think I got it pretty well now, but something I highly recommend paying extra attention to understanding when you are learning.

I went to see another coworker's band play a concert. I ended up hanging out after with all the band mates and going to another bar with all of them after. Most of them spoke little to no English. I don’t know if it was because I was so tired or drunk but after 2AM I couldn’t even translate a simple sentence. There were also some other events that night which helped me realize that hanging out with the other gaijin is keeping me from meeting more Japanese people. I don’t want to have to pick one or the other, but realistically it makes sense. The gaijin not interested in learning Japanese have no interest in hanging out with a group of Japanese that don’t speak English and vice versa for the Japanese people.

About this time I had wasted too much time trying to find Japanese music I liked in order to have more immersion (like the AJATT method). Even to this date I have concluded it is impossible to find cool Japanese bands on the internet. Any charts, or recommendation software/communities have let me down. I’ve found some cool stuff I enjoy (and hopefully will be learning them on Kareoke soon) but it has all been found through friends recommendations.

May 17^th I reached 50 pages of kanji practice. (Today I’m at 68.) I'll write something later about exactly how I was practicing writing with iknow.jp and how it has changed over time.
Next an English teacher friend of mine and I biked to Tokyo (10 hours, ~100km). That night we ended up staying at my first capsule, meeting up with a Japanese guy and a Tourist. Again a good reality check to see how much better I was than a tourist and to see how much below my friend I was in conversation. (He has been here a little over a year.) We went to a hostess bar/cafe and I was mostly able to hold conversation for with the girls. However they kept switching in and out so I kept having the same conversation. Ice breakers, where are you from, how long are you going to stay in Japan, etc… About this time I had gotten to the point where I would call myself “Izakaya fluent” (居酒屋- Japanese Pub). I keep asking/answering the same questions. (work, weather, stuff like that) so I can understand and answer at high speed and people think I’m fluent. But as soon as we get into a real conversation it breaks down. I still haven’t figured out a way to get around this. I think soon I’ll just try and awkwardly force conversations with Japanese people. Kind of like toastmasters. Hopefully it doesn’t annoy them enough to stop talking to me…