Letter to host family

I submitted a rough draft that the teachers edited, but I lost the corrections so I tried to correct it as best as I could. lol

Japanese Class

私の　日本の　じゅぎょう

My Japanese Class

毎日　ごご　じゅうにじはんに　フリストで　私の　日本の　クラスが　あります。　私の　へやから　フリストまで　ごふん　かかります。　フリストに　たくさん　きょうしつが　あります。日本の　クラスは　フリスト　３０７に　あります。その　きょうしつは　あかるくて、　ひろいです。

This is where my Japanese class is. Its actually a very pretty building.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 私の　日本の　じゅぎょに　たくさん　おもしろい　人が　いいます。　たとえば　あざんさんと　コルテスさん。わたしの　クラスは　たのしです。にほんごの　じゅうぎょうの　あと　たいてい　私は　ひるごはんを　たべます。　

I like it when my Japanese teachers play Japanese music or videos before class. Sometimes I will look up the music afterward, so I am starting to listen to some random J-pop songs here and there. One of my teachers played this song before class and I have been listened to it quite a bit now.  

In this song I can pick out the word "Romance," but not much else other than a few words like ぼく　etc. Can someone tell me what this song is about?

Reflection on speaking goals

Half way through the semester, its time to reflect on my speaking goals and review how I'm doing. I don't think that any of my goals have changed, but some of the activities that I will use will be a little different.

 

Goals for the year

     Over the course of this year I hope that my Japanese will become decently natural and fluent, so I will practice several things to improve.

Goals

1. Be able to speak and understand at speeds near average for Japanese speaker

     I think that I have become much better at this.

2. Improve my rhythm and pitch, so that I sound more like a natural speaker

     I also think that I am much better at this now.

Methods to be Used

1. Go to Shibata Sensei's office hours at least once ever two weeks (one if possible).

      I never even went once :(. I plan to go more office hours over the last half of the semester.

2. Go to Japanese Table every week (I live in Mathey so this will be easy)

      I did this! I should make more effort to speak at Japanese table though, not just eat.

3. Do anime shadowing at least every three days every week.

      I ended up doing this once a week. On the recommendation of しばた先生　I will now start doing

      some of the interactive parts of the "speak easy." 

4. Watch an episode of a fun Japanese show (anime or otherwise) once a week 

      I did this!

Overall I think that I did an alright job, and that I am still getting better.

じゃまね
ジャック　オルフグラム

An attempt to introduce myself in Japanese

I had a lot of interesting ideas for the video, but in the end I was too shy to do them. I am actually very shy to talk in Japanese and I had difficulty talking in front of the person holding the phone. I think that the video still went O.K though. I can tell that my speaking is better and more natural. Thank you all for watching and please tell me what you thought!

Goals for the year

     Over the course of this year I hope that my Japanese will become decently natural and fluent, so I will practice several things to improve.

Goals

1. Be able to speak and understand at speeds near average for Japanese speaker

2. Improve my rhythm and pitch, so that I sound more like a natural speaker

Methods to be Used

1. Go to Shibata Sensei's office hours at least once ever two weeks (one if possible).

2. Go to Japanese Table every week (I live in Mathey so this will be easy)

3. Do anime shadowing at least every three days.

4. Watch an episode of a fun Japanese show (anime or otherwise) once a week 

If someone could give me a good example of a show that is in Japanese please let me know! I look forward to posting more on this blog, and also reading my classmate's blogs too. 

じゃ　また！

～ Jack Wolfgramm

P.S 

I looked up "Funny Japanese Music Video" and this is what I got:

What is happening here? What is this song about?

こんいちは！

はじめまして　Jack Wolfgramm　です　どうぞ　よろしく。

わたしは　Hawaii　の　Hana 　から　きました。

Princeton　だいがく　の　がくせい　です。

わたしは　いちねんせい　です。

じゃあ、また　

Beginning to learn Japanese!

　　はじめまして Jack Wolfgramm　づす. I am taking Japanese 101 at Princeton University. I chose to learn Japanese because I wanted to learn a new alphabet, am interested in the culture, and think the Japanese language sounds nice. Basically, I have no good reason for taking a hard language.  I am very interested in learning how the Japanese sounds and grammar are different from English. I am very worried by the fact that Japanese has three alphabets and over one thousand characters. I wanted to learn a new alphabet but that is too much! Also, when I try to write hiragana my handwriting is very bad. Despite these things I am still very optimistic about the class and think that I will have a fun time!

When I looked up "Princeton University Japanese" this is the image that came up. What kind of tree is this?