Mr. Hayashi has said that learning a foreign language is like launching a rocket into space. He says that it takes a tremendous effort to get off the ground, but as you get higher and higher, things get easier and easier. He knows a lot about studying foreign languages – he’s been studying English since he was a junior high school student more than 40 years ago.
Over the past month or two I feel like I’ve been getting close to the point where things improve exponentially. After a little more than two years of Japanese language studies, I can speak broken but conversational Japanese. I can read about 500 kanji characters, and have no difficulty reading simple Japanese. The more I study, the more I find things that just seem to make sense, and words that I had learned and forgotten are now bubbling up to the surface at just the right times.
Most of all, I’ve found that I really enjoy learning a foreign language. It’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. I often hear from Mr. Hayashi that I’m working too hard, that I don’t really need to know Japanese, that it’s useful only in Japan, that it’s a waste of my efforts. Today I had a conversation over lunch with one of my teachers that until today hadn’t said a word to me. I chatted with him about the weather, his hobbies, his weekend, and my background in California. This is someone that I never would have been able to get to know – someone that was waiting for me to break the barrier. It made me feel great to be able to do that, and made the hours and hours of study seem worthwhile.
Some of my teachers sleep in between classes. Some smoke and gossip. Others play solitaire on their computers. I study so hard that I can feel the wrinkles in my brain forming.
It’s not all wine and roses, though. I continue to struggle with long conversations, I rely on the same set of limited vocabulary – my brain seems to resist using the new words that I memorize each day. I overuse the Japanese words for “but…” and “many”. My accent continues to identify me as a foreigner, even over the phone. Mr. Hayashi has been helping me with that.
In two weeks I’ll be taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in Kobe. I’ll be going for Level 3. Level 2 is the next step, and Level 1 is said to be impossible for people not of Asian descent. My goal is to pass Level 2, but it’s a lofty goal. Whether or not I pass level 3 in December, I’m going to continue to study Japanese in a big way.
The Japanese focus a lot of attention on achievement tests and proficiency exams. People have given me lots of advice on how to pass the exams, and what to do to squeak by, but in the end my goal is not pass an exam, but to speak and understand Japanese well – “ãºã‚‰ãºã‚‰” in Japanese.
Tomorrow I’m planning on continuing my search for shoes that fit in Tarumi with Kuniko. It’s a holiday to celebrate Labor/Thanksgiving, whatever that means. It nicely cuts up my week and will make it easy to slide through to the weekend.
Success or failure, I’ll report on my shoe shopping exploits tomorrow!
