Japanese Class

22/10/07 - Mon

Today Funato san brought us to a recycle mart and finally I get myself a 2nd hand bicycle which cost around RM150. There’s no worry of buying 2nd hand things in Japan. They will examine properly and fix the stuff before they re-sell it again. So I’m going to get my bike tomorrow morning as they will only send it by then.

We bought a 2nd hand TV at the same price with my bike. The TV box we bought is not compatible with the port here, and we kept on having problems with watching DVD. Otherwise we’ll have no entertainment at home lo. We saw a whole shelf of the porn movies at the recycle shop. I think that’s funny. They don’t sell other tapes but just the porn.

We went to attend the Japanese language class at International House in the university at night. It’s on the other side of the uni so we took about 30 minutes walking there. Half way walking there’s two guys came forward asking us about the direction to the International House. So coincidentally they are also going for the Japanese class. Their name is Jim and Greg. :) coming from L.A., they are working in a company in downtown. Americans are very out-going and daring people. They adapt themselves easily everywhere.

The class started at an unexpected way. The instructor (who actually can’t speak English) asked us to make a big circle and started by throwing a snoopy doll to one of us saying ‘konbanwa’ (good evening). So we gotta keep the ball rolling by saying ‘konbanwa’ if the doll is on our hands. Then she start the 2nd round by introducing herself, and so do we. Then the 3rd round is where we are from, so on.


The girl standing on the right is our instructor. A very cute and pretty girl. The others who are standing behind us are helpers, but they hardly express anything.

I found it kinda weird as they didn’t explain to us the meaning, it’s the students besides us explaining to us. Some of the students, like Jim & Greg, they have been here for few weeks so they know more than us. When there are students who don’t understand what is going on, the instructor have difficulty to explain, the other students will explain. This is very awkward to me.









On the right that's Jim, on the left that's Greg. they picked two person each round to act on the conversation they created. It's funny when you see a guy wearing an apron which is obviously too small for him. ;D

They didn’t start by teaching us the Hiragana or Katakana, but they are helping us to be able to communicate in Japanese. Nevertheless, they do put in efforts to teach us, with pictures, and the items they prepared, and even acting, we do learnt sth. They make sure every students speak. Japanese used a lot of foreign words, especially Chinese and English, modified into their own pronunciations. And I find Japanese put in a lot of words in their sentences, making the sentences very long. That’s why you find them talking a lot while we can actually conclude in few sentences only.