works of wanderlust

Tag: second languages

  • japanese, part two

    How’s it going?

    Hajimemashita  はじめまして。 

    Yesterday was oddly milestone-ish for my language learning. Not only did I hit the two hundred consecutive days in Duolingo, but my second night at my in person language classes went a lot better than the first. Bank on that also in the last couple weeks we have secured tickets to both Ghibli Park and Tokyo Disneyland for our upcoming trip, my immersion into the culture of Japan recently has taken up a good chunk of my brain space.

    Last night in class we spent the first hour working through some common greetings and expressions, and of course the culturally appropriate ways in which to use each of them. I now have a long list of two or three word phrases that I should probably spend the week working to memorize.

    After the break we focused on some of the hiragana and numbers. It’s basically like kindergarten, singing the count to ten song and learning how to draw basic characters.

    Though, I suppose, every technique I’ve tried to date has had a wildly different approach. Duolingo treats you like a cross between a rushed tourist and a language scholar and works through the foundations of the language basics to build grammar and understanding. That audiobook I bought started by throwing complex thoughts at me, like “I’m going to eat sushi at the restaurant tonight with Hana,” and then shifting the words and ideas around in the hopes that understanding is uncovered. My flashcards, of course, are all about rote memorization. And this language course, as it turns out, seems to be a kind of building-blocks of conversation approach where we learn simple phrases and then add to it as we go along.

    My brain is less of a sponge for any of this than I was anticipating. 

    I have been learning words and phrases one day and then feeling them there on the tip of my tongue the next but unable to spit them out. It’s been a grind. Japanese is not for the feint of heart. 

    Many of the people in my class are relative pros, of course. I’m having trouble parsing the participation matrix in this particular set of people which seems to range from absolute beginners (like me, guys who have been dabbling with apps for six months or so) to folks who have obviously studied the language in the variously distant pasts so much so that some seem to have a firm grasp on what we are doing: as if a grade two student showed up in kindergarten and flummoxed the other kids with their proficiency at tying their shoes. You know? 

    I don’t expect proficiency, but having a few dozen things comfortably (and permanently) lodged in the ridges of my grey matter would sure be a quality result here. 

  • japanese, part one-ish

    I have written here previously about a couple of my self-study efforts to start learning Japanese, in part for our upcoming trip to Tokyo, but also just as—well—something interesting to pursue. Skills, languages, all that stuff—it broadens the mind, right?

    I figured I would make my updates a bit more formal because as of last week I signed up for actual in-person lessons. Right-o. Things are getting a bit more serious all of a sudden. The local Japanese Society, a cultural organization made up of and supporting Japanese immigrants happens to have a series of courses to teach the language to anyone interested in learning.

    The first class of my introduction to Japanese is tomorrow evening.

    We have a homework, tests, and cultural things to do in between classes.

    I just passed something like day 175 in Duolingo, and my hiragana and katakana skills are starting to settle into a comfortable familiarity—by which I mean I have about fifty percent recognition of the characters and their sounds. This is probably more-so with the hiragana, for now, but I’m starting to be able to look at characters when I see them out in the wild and sound things out. I mean, I usually don’t have the vocabulary to know what the word means, but I can sound it out—which is a great start, I think.

    I also bought myself a dictionary. That’s it. Nothing special to add about it, other than like any time I bought a translation dictionary it is a fun time looking up words and just flipping around through the pages looking for curiosities. 

    And, less useful but maybe interesting as the project progresses, our next door neighbours are hosting an exchange student from Japan for the year and she has already poked her nose over the fence to say hi (mostly to meet the dog, of course) and maybe there will be some opportunities to speak to her in Japanese when I get some lessons (and verbal confidence) under my belt.

    But the core of it, really, I think is the lessons. Eight weeks of three hour focused instruction before we go, and then I can try the test for the second level course and keep going in the new year and when we’re back from our vacation. By next summer I suppose I could have some serious progress.

  • Wanderlust

    There was a moment in time, however brief, when this blog was almost called “the Wander Guy” wherein I wrote about wandering through the world and between those adventures got distracted by taking pictures, cooking great food and other things… rather than, y’know, the other way around.

    wawn - derr - luhst

    The yearning and all-consuming desire to walk and travel about, see the world, and explore the universe.

    There are many languages from which we English-speakers borrow concepts. Many of the ones I am familiar with are derived from German origins.

    When I was about twenty years younger I took some German language courses to fill my evenings. One root of my family tree traces back a couple hundred years and multiple generations to some soil in that particular area of Europe. I was one of those guys who, in his twenties, started digging around those roots and trying to find some cultural branches through which I could climb and explore. This all resulted in an opportunity to travel about through Germany for a few weeks while those lessons were still fresh in my head. I have some very distinct memories of time spent wandering through Berlin, Munich, and other various small towns, learning and immersing, seeking some connection and grounding… but mostly eating currywurst and drinking lots of beer.

    Words like wanderlust are among those perfectly distilled concept words derived from another language that we haven’t bothered to replace it with something other.

    I’m glad for that.

    Being struck by a lingering case of wanderlust that has gripped around my heart for now most of my life, and finding some vague-and-fuzzy connection to a fragile root of my own personal history, I feel like I can slot this word into my own vocabulary in a purposeful way.

    There is a bit of me that often aspires to be more of a “wander guy” and nurture the wanderlust that lurks behind that. To travel. To explore. To put on a trusty hat and good shoes. To find a trail, sidewalk, cobbled road, or dusty route. To wander away from home, far and wide, and cure the longing behind that.