I can’t let one failure bring me down, but man, it’s so hard to understand my students! I’ve had such great chats with teachers and adults, but today I stayed after school to practice with the kyudo club (which went okay, at least I learned one tiny new thing) then I got to talking with students in the rugby club. I was encouraging their English, but of course there was Japanese mixed in and I hardly understood a word. Even when I was going solo with one boy who was willing to slow down, it just didn’t sound familiar! Is the casual form really that different? Still, we had a good conversation in English and sand drawings, but I was sad that it basically showed that I don’t know any Japanese! Gambaru! I will fight!

Posted by harp on Friday, March 17, 2006 at 6:42 am | Edit
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So the Japanese carry the separation of teen/adult vocabulary to an extreme. Older folks traditionally complain they can't understand "young people these days" -- but in Japan it really is a different language....

Posted by SursumCorda on Friday, March 17, 2006 at 9:04 am
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