Realistic Japanese dialogue
I realized I haven't talked about Japanese tutoring in a while, so here's an update!
I had a rather long period in September when a variety of things, like my tutor being unexpectedly out of town, stomach trouble, and Yom Kippur kept me from meeting for a month, but since then I've gotten back into the groove. I mentioned to Aya-sensei in the first class that I could study up on grammar and vocab on my own time, and what I really needed was someone to actually practice all those words and bits I use, so class is mostly just us talking about whatever comes to mind. She's been giving me articles from NHK's Easy Japanese News section, and sometimes we stick to the topic, and sometimes we don't.
For example, last week's article was about a robot that supposedly can read people's moods and provide recommendations about restaurants and so on and we didn't say two words about it. Instead we ended up talking about Shabbat and what softlykarou and I do for it--ろうそくを点けて、ワインを飲んで、パンを食べて、祈ります--how long it takes, why Jews go out to Chinese food on Christmas, etc. And I actually really like that we get sent off on tangents so easily, because in a real conversation I'm not going to be able to refer to a script or prepared materials most of the time, I'm going to have to think on my feet, and talking about totally random topics definitely does that.
My stomach still ties up in knots on the way to class every week and I'd rather be hit by a meteor than go, but when I get there it's fine. I mean, that's pretty much the story of my mind, right? Everything is terrible until it happens and things turn out better than expected.
I had a rather long period in September when a variety of things, like my tutor being unexpectedly out of town, stomach trouble, and Yom Kippur kept me from meeting for a month, but since then I've gotten back into the groove. I mentioned to Aya-sensei in the first class that I could study up on grammar and vocab on my own time, and what I really needed was someone to actually practice all those words and bits I use, so class is mostly just us talking about whatever comes to mind. She's been giving me articles from NHK's Easy Japanese News section, and sometimes we stick to the topic, and sometimes we don't.
For example, last week's article was about a robot that supposedly can read people's moods and provide recommendations about restaurants and so on and we didn't say two words about it. Instead we ended up talking about Shabbat and what softlykarou and I do for it--ろうそくを点けて、ワインを飲んで、パンを食べて、祈ります--how long it takes, why Jews go out to Chinese food on Christmas, etc. And I actually really like that we get sent off on tangents so easily, because in a real conversation I'm not going to be able to refer to a script or prepared materials most of the time, I'm going to have to think on my feet, and talking about totally random topics definitely does that.
My stomach still ties up in knots on the way to class every week and I'd rather be hit by a meteor than go, but when I get there it's fine. I mean, that's pretty much the story of my mind, right? Everything is terrible until it happens and things turn out better than expected.