![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Musings on my Japanese homework
Well, I've mostly finished my first Japanese homework of the new year. This is still the same class; since this is Harvard, winter break is followed by the usual study period before finals. So, this fall-term class doesn't have its final until January 18. And then the first class of the spring term will be on January 30. Wacky. I've signed up for that already, because I'm really enjoying learning Japanese, and it is being useful both for watching anime and for running tests at work, so it's fulfilling its purpose.
This assignment came from a handout we were given in class, and told to read with a partner. (That's a common technique in this class--pair up with one of the people sitting near you and alternate reading sentences out loud. The woman I was sitting next to is about as good a reader as I am (which is to say, not bad), so reading with her was enjoyable. There have been times when I've been paired with someone who reads painfully slowly, and that's just annoying because it means we usually don't get through the whole assignment.) We're currently working on a chapter called "Daily Routine", so the passage discussed getting up, eating breakfast (at a nearby cafe), going to various classes, and a part-time job. It was good that we were reading this in class, because neither my partner nor I could figure out that クロワッサン (kurowa-san) was supposed to mean croissant. (the dash in my transliteration indicates a brief pause). Really, I find that figuring out how to render non-Japanese words in katakana, and how to figure out what a katakana word is supposed to be, is more challenging than learning new vocabulary and grammar.
The homework for this assignment is to answer twenty questions based on the text. The questions aren't very hard, but it's sometimes challenging to figure out what they mean. I've come up with answers and typed them in Word; now I get to write them out on the assignment sheet (no, I can't just hand in the printout; I'm supposed to be learning how to write legibly, not how to use a computer.) But that's ok; the more hiragana I write, the faster I get it.
This assignment came from a handout we were given in class, and told to read with a partner. (That's a common technique in this class--pair up with one of the people sitting near you and alternate reading sentences out loud. The woman I was sitting next to is about as good a reader as I am (which is to say, not bad), so reading with her was enjoyable. There have been times when I've been paired with someone who reads painfully slowly, and that's just annoying because it means we usually don't get through the whole assignment.) We're currently working on a chapter called "Daily Routine", so the passage discussed getting up, eating breakfast (at a nearby cafe), going to various classes, and a part-time job. It was good that we were reading this in class, because neither my partner nor I could figure out that クロワッサン (kurowa-san) was supposed to mean croissant. (the dash in my transliteration indicates a brief pause). Really, I find that figuring out how to render non-Japanese words in katakana, and how to figure out what a katakana word is supposed to be, is more challenging than learning new vocabulary and grammar.
The homework for this assignment is to answer twenty questions based on the text. The questions aren't very hard, but it's sometimes challenging to figure out what they mean. I've come up with answers and typed them in Word; now I get to write them out on the assignment sheet (no, I can't just hand in the printout; I'm supposed to be learning how to write legibly, not how to use a computer.) But that's ok; the more hiragana I write, the faster I get it.
no subject
no subject
no subject
I was watching Spirited Away (subtitled, not dubbed) last night, and wondering how much of the dialogue you'd be recognizing without having to look up. I was trying to knit, so I had to look a lot.....
no subject