Adventures in Japanese
You know, I've worked hard to understand as much Japanese as I do today. Although I studied fanatically for two years in college, I don't study anymore in the traditional sense. I live in a small town 45-minutes from the nearest Japanese language class, so it would be difficult to attend regular classes. Most of the learning I do these days I do through osmosis--that is, I absorb the language randomly rather than seek it out with a specific purpose. Now I can proudly say that I have as much of a grasp of the language as a five-year-old native Japanese speaker. This is a fact that fills me with joy and makes me feel like a moron simultaneously.
My Japanese has improved since I arrived in Japan. A year ago, I hardly understood anything going on around me. Now I feel confident that I grasp at least 50% of the ambient conversation at any given moment. When someone is speaking directly to me, my comprehension rate jumps to about 75-90% (depending on the person talking to me.)
Being in the country helps immensely. There are words and phrases that I could have only learned by being in Japan; they aren't in any textbook or dictionary. As an example, the following conversation is an excerpt from this morning's staff meeting here at the Board of Education. Thrill at all the interesting things I overhear these days.
BOE Chairman: The first on this morning's agenda are the reports about the toilet paper situation.
Everyone: [acknowledging sounds]
BOE Chairman: As you know, we have a new budget this year. A new money-saving idea is to have the schools use single-ply toilet paper instead of two-ply.
My Supervisor: Right. Single-ply costs less, but because it's so thin, the students may have to use more.
BOE Vice-Chairman: It is a dilemma.
BOE Chairman: The City Council is meeting next week and this issue will be one of the topics. Please write up a report stating your position to be reviewed by the council.
Everyone: [polite grumbling]
Yep. These are the kinds of private conversations I am privy to by being here at the BOE and understanding what I do. All my hard work pays off in these situations.
And then there is the Tale of The Mysterious Announcement. Every weekday at 3:15, an Announcement comes over the loudspeakers throughout the entire town. For a long, long time, I had no idea what this Announcement was saying. Not a clue. But if it was being broadcast all over town, it's probably important, right? I asked the English teachers whenever one was around at the time of The Announcement: "What is this announcement about?" The reaction was invariably the same. The teacher would stop everything she was doing and listen closely as if hearing this Announcement for the first time in her life. She'd scrunch her eyebrows, concentrate intensely, then say to me: "Oh, this. It's not important. Just ignore. Every day same thing." Yes, I know it's the same thing every day. Just tell me what it means. It was like being unable to see the illusion in one of those Magic Eye pictures and even being denied the text on the bottom that tells you what is hidden inside.
Over the months, I began to understand bits and pieces of the mysterious Announcement. Now I can exclusively reveal to you the meaning of The Announcement:
"This is a message from the Board of Education. The school day has ended. Let's all stay vigilant as the children head home. I will now repeat this message. This is a message from the Board of Education. The school day has ended. Let's all stay vigilant as the children head home."
A painfully simple message, no? I don't know which is more frustrating: the fact that I didn't understand this message until recently or that no one would tell what it meant and I had to find out myself. This is almost as bad as when I spent almost an hour translating a document on my desk that I thought was something important for school and it turned out to be a flier from an insurance agency.
Obviously my comprehension of Japanese is still on a primary school level, but I take solace in the fact that I am learning. I think I've fallen a bit short of what I expected to learn in the year that I was here, but I'm still happy about my progress. I can only hope to learn as much next year as I've learned this year. Maybe then I'll be able to read the sign outside the staff parking lot that everyone says I shouldn't bother trying to read.
My Japanese has improved since I arrived in Japan. A year ago, I hardly understood anything going on around me. Now I feel confident that I grasp at least 50% of the ambient conversation at any given moment. When someone is speaking directly to me, my comprehension rate jumps to about 75-90% (depending on the person talking to me.)
Being in the country helps immensely. There are words and phrases that I could have only learned by being in Japan; they aren't in any textbook or dictionary. As an example, the following conversation is an excerpt from this morning's staff meeting here at the Board of Education. Thrill at all the interesting things I overhear these days.
BOE Chairman: The first on this morning's agenda are the reports about the toilet paper situation.
Everyone: [acknowledging sounds]
BOE Chairman: As you know, we have a new budget this year. A new money-saving idea is to have the schools use single-ply toilet paper instead of two-ply.
My Supervisor: Right. Single-ply costs less, but because it's so thin, the students may have to use more.
BOE Vice-Chairman: It is a dilemma.
BOE Chairman: The City Council is meeting next week and this issue will be one of the topics. Please write up a report stating your position to be reviewed by the council.
Everyone: [polite grumbling]
Yep. These are the kinds of private conversations I am privy to by being here at the BOE and understanding what I do. All my hard work pays off in these situations.
And then there is the Tale of The Mysterious Announcement. Every weekday at 3:15, an Announcement comes over the loudspeakers throughout the entire town. For a long, long time, I had no idea what this Announcement was saying. Not a clue. But if it was being broadcast all over town, it's probably important, right? I asked the English teachers whenever one was around at the time of The Announcement: "What is this announcement about?" The reaction was invariably the same. The teacher would stop everything she was doing and listen closely as if hearing this Announcement for the first time in her life. She'd scrunch her eyebrows, concentrate intensely, then say to me: "Oh, this. It's not important. Just ignore. Every day same thing." Yes, I know it's the same thing every day. Just tell me what it means. It was like being unable to see the illusion in one of those Magic Eye pictures and even being denied the text on the bottom that tells you what is hidden inside.
Over the months, I began to understand bits and pieces of the mysterious Announcement. Now I can exclusively reveal to you the meaning of The Announcement:
"This is a message from the Board of Education. The school day has ended. Let's all stay vigilant as the children head home. I will now repeat this message. This is a message from the Board of Education. The school day has ended. Let's all stay vigilant as the children head home."
A painfully simple message, no? I don't know which is more frustrating: the fact that I didn't understand this message until recently or that no one would tell what it meant and I had to find out myself. This is almost as bad as when I spent almost an hour translating a document on my desk that I thought was something important for school and it turned out to be a flier from an insurance agency.
Obviously my comprehension of Japanese is still on a primary school level, but I take solace in the fact that I am learning. I think I've fallen a bit short of what I expected to learn in the year that I was here, but I'm still happy about my progress. I can only hope to learn as much next year as I've learned this year. Maybe then I'll be able to read the sign outside the staff parking lot that everyone says I shouldn't bother trying to read.