A Letter to an Old Friend

みなさん、お早う ！
 

このpost に寫給一個在台灣認識的朋友の手紙があります！私たち很久都沒有communicate了. Anyway, here’s the letter!

休みと映画

先週はサンクスギビングデーの休みです！うちに帰って両親に会いました。それと、たくさんリラックスをしました。ふだん宿題がたくさんあって、私はあまりテレビを見ません。でも先週は暇でしたから少しアニメを見ました。

それでパプリカを見ました！この映画はとてもきれいですが紛らわしいです。ほとんどのアニメシリーズは長すぎますが映画は一時間半ぐらいしかかかりません。短くていいですよ！

僕の大好きなアニメは宮崎の映画です！

 

To Review A Plan

It's now half-way through my first semester of Japanese, and as good a time as any to turn my head and look back on what I've accomplished so far.

I think the goals I originally set were realistic and attainable. I've made steady progress in my conversational skills with my teachers and classmates, and I feel that as I continue to practice and learn new vocabulary and grammar my speaking is becoming more fluid. I think I'm even succeeding in having fun while doing it...

My means of attaining these goals, however, may have been a bit unrealistic. I haven't been going to Japanese table, and I stopped watching Sword Art Online after it got weird during the second season. There's plenty of other anime out there that I could watch, but Princeton's omnipresent sense of never having time for anything has caused me to drag my feet. I have found that reviewing material on my own is a great way to keep old stuff fresh, and that speaking with the teachers before class individually has really helped my conversational skills. Thus in the future I'd like to spend more time in conversation with them, either before or after class or at office hours.

In my original plan I wrote that to make a plan is to give it force. I was a bit too optimistic when I wrote that. But all the same I am proud of my progress and am looking forward to what I'll learn in the rest of the semester.

ビデオ！映画！ :D

これは僕のブログビデオ！！！！！

我很少拍照，也很少拍電影，所以這對我來說是一個新的經歷！

Filming this was more fun than I thought! I am computer illiterate so this was kind of scary too!

Why I Don't Talk About Myself / 為什麼我不談我自己

Hey world, first off for those of you reading this blog for the sake of the Japanese class, this post is completely unrelated, so don't feel the need to read it unless you want to.

我們分手已經是一個星期以前了，我們還沒找到一個新的平衡。We've since decided to not return to a relationship with one another, but rather to 繼續做朋友。 It's strange. 我們也還是室友，所以我發完全避免彼此。我們都承認我們不要drift apart or stop being friends or whatever, so today we 吃午飯 together. We chatted a bit, and pretty soon it was back to our old habit; 她說，我聽。It's very natural, even comfortable, for me， 但是我不能否認這樣也很無聊。有一次她談起功課來說她什麼功課都很容易，不必go to lecture and 聽 the professor's 演講. To me it sounded arrogant, I mean I can't think of a time when I'd go up to a friend and tell them all about how I'm the fastest at recognizing カタカナ in class or how on top of my readings I was last week in my seminar. 反正，我問她為什麼要告訴我這些事情，她顯出有點不明白的樣子，不知道我這句話是要說什麼的。I explained in greater detail, 她就吃驚了，問了我我怎麼能 feel like she's bragging or something. I just made nice though and went on, 說穿了，說她自己怎麼樣就是她的習慣。

輪到我了，now I was the confused one. I couldn't understand why she was telling me these things. It is her habit, but 為什麼不是我的呢？為什麼我這麼難談我自己? Why don't I share my life with other people the way other people do? わかりません。我常常開玩笑說我的生活根本是太無聊了，沒什麼可說的，但是這 is utterly false. My life is at least as interesting as 我的同學和朋友。為什麼我不能像他們一樣拿我生活中最日常的事情來說成一件大事？I don't know. Je ne sai pas. 我不曉得。わかりません。But I intend to find out, because 我有談起自己來的權利, and I need to own it.

To Make a Plan

This post will be entirely English, for the sake of convenience in writing it but also for my teachers in reading, as the content is somewhat more objective than that of other posts.

What are my goals in Japanese 101?
To speak quickly and naturally with an accent easily understood by native people. I understand and accept that I will never speak Japanese like a native Japanese person and that is perfectly fine; perfection is too often the enemy of good enough.
To be able to hold simple conversations in Japanese and to be able to read basic Japanese writings.
To gain  a greater understanding of Japanese culture and modern society.
To enjoy myself while accomplishing the above goals.

And how will I get there?
By watching Japanese television (Folktales from Japan or Sword Art Online) once every two days for at least 30 min.
By becoming involved in Japanese cultural events on campus, such as JSA, perhaps attending one event every week.
By coming to Japanese table once every two weeks.
By reviewing Japanese writing systems on my own on weekends.
By using SpeakEverywhere to help me imitate the language of Japanese speakers from whatever Japanese media I watch. This means using Speak Everywhere to shadow more often, perhaps once every two weeks.

To write something down is to give it force. I only hope that I am disciplined enough to be held by these goals.

こんばんは！はじめまして！ハメル（はめる）です。Princetonなにねんせです。せんこうはあじあけんきゅうです。MarylandのAnnapolisからきました。どうぞよろしく！

That was my attempt at typing in Japanese. 希望能夠成功！Anyway in using this 部落格 to 發洩我的感情 I'm sure you my 最愛的讀者 will be upset to know that je suis celebre. 沒錯，我跟我女朋友 broke up了。 I'm still processing it but it should be 還好。我還有很多很複雜的感覺。Time will tell.

Changing 語言 Changing 顏色

I tried blogging once before. It didn't turn out so well. I am incredibly fortunate to be as privileged as I am, to study at one of the best universities in the world, to 享受親戚和朋友的愛，與跟女朋友互相照顧。有一次我去台灣留學，where I stayed for one year. My family wanted me to keep a blog so they could keep track of what I was doing 和我的學習怎麼樣等等。但是我從來是覺得我的生活rather boring, and not interesting enough for 別人花他們自己的時間去看。因此，沒多久我就放棄了我的blog. Oh well.

Anyway, I am keeping this blog 因為我要開始學日語。我女朋友是日本人所以 I 要 study Japanese to talk to her and 她家人 in addition to any 需要日語的工作 opportunities. My first few days have been rather 慢。The Japanese program here 沒有中文課那麼快。不過，上課的時候都very輕鬆，而且the teachers看起來like nice people. 讓我興奮的是能夠用日語更女朋友說話，但是I'm somewhat frustrated with the larger class size and 老是用太多英文了。Hopefully that'll change soon in the 學期。

This blog is called 變色龍的舌頭 for reasons that 現在應該很明顯. 我希望soon我會開始把English, 中文and 日本語mix在一起。