typos im sure.

[suga_bay_bee]

im currently a  rotary exchange student living in fukuchiyama kyoto. i`ve only been here about a month...  but i have questions:

1. my host mother spent a very long time trying to get the message across of saying "unzari"/"taikutsu(?)" ..is ok at home... but with other people.. i shouldn`t say it. i was confused as to what to say instead.. (

Comments

[evilbluecat]

Hello. Everyone has pretty much answered all of your questions but when I was in japan I hung out a lot with other exchange students. There was one other at my school and another in a different one. It was nice to be able to talk to people who were in the same situation. Do you know anyone else from rotary near your school? I also went to the English club after schoool. I met a lot of cool people there who were willing to help me out. Also if you bring cool American stuff to class the students love looking at them.

Like someone said earlier purikura is a great ice breaker. They have machines everywhere and they don't take that long so you can do them after school. They also make the best soveiners.

The text book is also a good idea. I spent most of my class time studying or reading. Also you can ask your classmates for help with any troubles your having or just to check over your work.

I hope that helps a little bit. I was in Japan as a high school student as well so if you have any questions about anything don't hesitate to post in my journal or email me at silly_kitty@mac.com

[saikou_dani]

When I was there as an exchange student there weren't any other English-speakers in my school (besides ALTs who were there through JET to teach) and so I spent a lot of my first few months feeling lonely and bored. I didn't speak Japanese at all so it was hard for me to make friends. Eventually I started picking it up a little - mostly by trying to talk to my host mom while using a dictionary that I couldn't read because I bought it in Japan so there were lots of kanji. Once I could converse in Japanese I started going out more (karaoke, purikura, etc) and that's how I made friendships that I still maintain now, five years later.

It is my personal opinion that befriending other English speakers, especially other exchange students, is a mistake that will affect your Japanese language skills and your overall experience. About six months into my stay another American came to my school and we became friends at about the same time that I reached the bottom of the U-Curve. At the time I thought it was nice to have someone to bitch to about all the negative experiences I was having, but looking back I see that having that only reinforced my negativity and made it more difficult to move beyond it. It also caused me to forget a lot of the Japanese I had learned, and I was less diligent about studying in my free time.

I was there when I was sixteen as well, and my language situation was the same as yours - I had taken German and French in high school but no Japanese. You'll be surprised looking back in a few months at how quickly you picked things up.

Like everyone else, I'll offer up my e-mail address if you have any questions. danisaikou@gmail.com