Japanese 101

Last week my sister, who teaches middle school Spanish, had a conference in the suburbs of Chicago. She emailed me and asked me how far I am from the 'burbs. I told her that she was welcome to stay here, but she would spend far more time in traffic than she would in the actual conference. Then I said, "BUT I could come stay with you. haha" She called me and said, "SHUT UP! Would you really do that?" Hell yes I would! Then, it evolved into a girls' week because my mom was joining us. THEN, it evolved even farther because she asked if we wanted to take a 3 day Japanese class. That sounded like great fun. I only speak English, as does my mom, so....I was a bit apprehensive thinking I wouldn't learn a thing.

The entire conference was based on Blaine Ray's TPR Storytelling technique. You learn a language by listening to the instructor telling a story. At the end of the three mornings of our class, we were able to hear and read a story and translate it to English. I'm not kidding you! This was crazy. Here is a story that I wrote (it's very rudimentary, but it gets the point across.) I'll translate it after I tell it in Japanese. ;)

Dawn wa murasaki no doresu ga hoshii. Dawn wa pinku no doresu shika nai. Dawn wa naku. Dawn wa depaato ni ikitai. Dawn wa murasaki kawaii doresu o sagasu. Dawn wa murasaki kawaii doresu o miru. Dawn wa totemo ureshii desu.

and now in English:
Dawn wants a purple dress. Dawn only has a pink dress. Dawn cries. Dawn wants to go to department store. Dawn looks for a cute purple dress. Dawn sees a cute purple dress. Dawn is very happy. :)

The class was a lot fun. Our instructor was so sweet. She is Canadian, but lives in Japan with her Japanese husband and teaches English, I believe.

After class each day, we had lunch, then Mom and I went to our room to do our homework while Margie continued on to her seminar classes. We were totally amazing ourselves with our Japanese language skills. Are you impressed? ;)


Margie, Melinda (our instructor), me, Mom....having a blast!