Rombor-san?
Well, we did it! We had out first Japanese class last night, and it was pretty funny! The teachers are all volunteers from the community and none of them speak much English. The lady from the Fleet and Family Support Center (hosts of the class) asked them to introduce themselves, which they did in Japanese...and then tried to translate into English. Our teacher introduced herself and translated it into, "I am Mrs. Yamagata. I am pleased to be you." She then began calling names of the people in her group and had to say my name several times because it sounded like "Rambor-san" (no l's in Japanese and they add san to every name instead of Mr., Mrs., or Miss) and for some reason I didn't realize she meant me! Ahh...a great start!
They had us split into groups. The six of us from the middle school got to stay together in one group, so we were glad. The lady began by teaching us to say our names and how to ask what other people's names are. She had us introducing each other and things like that. The only problem was that she had a hard time translating what she was teaching us into English and then she would ask us a question in Japanese and expect us to answer in Japanese. It was a rather confusing class, but since one of the other "students" in our group had been taking some written Japanese, she was able to help us some. At one point she was trying to explain how to say, "You're welcome" but she couldn't think of it in English so she said, "De nada" which is actually Spanish (one of the few words I recognize from high school). And I thought it was confusing when she was talking in English (because it still sounds like she is speaking in Japanese), so the Spanish really sent my head spinning!
We wrote down lots of notes and aren't totally sure if we know what it all means, but hopefully we won't begin some national crisis by calling the Japanese harlots. That actually came up because the Japanese word for housewife sounds a lot like the Japanese word for harlot and Kathleen - the wife of one of the new teachers - was saying it wrong. The teacher was very funny and didn't know how to tell us what the translation was and so she had to take out her fancy translator and show us. It was definitely the highlight of the lesson!
Most importantly, though, I learned how to say, "Watashi wa Nihon-go ga wakarimasen." (I don't understand Japanese.) :)
They had us split into groups. The six of us from the middle school got to stay together in one group, so we were glad. The lady began by teaching us to say our names and how to ask what other people's names are. She had us introducing each other and things like that. The only problem was that she had a hard time translating what she was teaching us into English and then she would ask us a question in Japanese and expect us to answer in Japanese. It was a rather confusing class, but since one of the other "students" in our group had been taking some written Japanese, she was able to help us some. At one point she was trying to explain how to say, "You're welcome" but she couldn't think of it in English so she said, "De nada" which is actually Spanish (one of the few words I recognize from high school). And I thought it was confusing when she was talking in English (because it still sounds like she is speaking in Japanese), so the Spanish really sent my head spinning!
We wrote down lots of notes and aren't totally sure if we know what it all means, but hopefully we won't begin some national crisis by calling the Japanese harlots. That actually came up because the Japanese word for housewife sounds a lot like the Japanese word for harlot and Kathleen - the wife of one of the new teachers - was saying it wrong. The teacher was very funny and didn't know how to tell us what the translation was and so she had to take out her fancy translator and show us. It was definitely the highlight of the lesson!
Most importantly, though, I learned how to say, "Watashi wa Nihon-go ga wakarimasen." (I don't understand Japanese.) :)
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