janestarz | Japanese class, lesson 2

Last night was our second lesson of Japanese. NoKey and I agreed to meet in the city, because he comes from Rozenburg for the last time this week, and it's easier to eat in the city than to travel home, and then back to the city for class. We went to the Wok to Go (already being lovingly called Wokki Wokki by yours truly) and had a lovely dinner there. NoKey had vegetarian Tjap Tjoy with bami and OJ, and I had Cha Sieuw with nasi and a tub of B&J. All that and some krupuk was only € 15,- and I didn't even get to finish my nasi, it was too much. A good and cheap dinner it was, and they have chopsticks to eat with too!

After the wokki wokki we went to Coolhaven where we noticed the Volksuniversiteit wasn't open yet, so we went to a nearby bruin café to have tea. I took the opportunity to do my homework. The fill-in-the-blanks exercises aren't much good, since Japanese often repeat most of your sentence when you ask "is this Tanaka's book?". So when the only word missing in the question is "hon" and you see the answer is "Hai Tanaka no hon desu"....fucking duh!
I loved doing the translation from English to Japanese though, because you actively have to think about what to use, which particles, and where you put it.
Last night was our second lesson of Japanese. NoKey and I agreed to meet in the city, because he comes from Hellevoetsluis for the last time this week, and it's easier to eat in the city than to travel home, and then back to the city for class. We went to the Wok to Go (already being lovingly called Wokki Wokki by yours truly) and had a lovely dinner there. NoKey had vegetarian Tjap Tjoy with bami and OJ, and I had Cha Sieuw with nasi and a tub of B&J. All that and some krupuk was only € 15,- and I didn't even get to finish my nasi, it was too much. A good and cheap dinner it was, and they have chopsticks to eat with too!

After the wokki wokki we went to Coolhaven where we noticed the Volksuniversiteit wasn't open yet, so we went to a nearby bruin café to have tea. I took the opportunity to do my homework. The fill-in-the-blanks exercises aren't much good, since Japanese often repeat most of your sentence when you ask "is this Tanaka's book?". So when the only word missing in the question is "hon" and you see the answer is "Hai Tanaka no hon desu"....fucking duh!
I loved doing the translation from English to Japanese though, because you actively have to think about what to use, which particles, and where you put it. The best one yet was:
Japanese: (anata no) Kaisha no denwa-bango nan-ban desu ka?
Literal translation: (you (of)) work (of) telephone number what number is?
English: What is your work telephone number?
Told you it is Yodaspeak *grin*

But a practicing session like that really helps, being actively busy with the particles (wa, ni, o, ka) and building your sentences. I now also know how to introduce the daimyo (or anyone else). Kochira wa Yoshida no Daimyo-san desu
I also wrote out my last name in hiragana, which was wrong; I am a westerner and should write it in katakana. But I wasn't far off. The table I had made with hirahana and the phonetic sounds had 'i' to close to 'u' so I mixed those up. Ogata-sensei corrected me though, and he had less trouble to pronounce it during the lesson.

As soon as there is one person in the room, he starts the ressun and doesn't stop until he's in the subway. *grin* He immediately started bombarding us with Kore wa Wout-san no chocolat o desu ka? (Is this Wout's chocolate?)
Iie, Wout-san no chocolat o dewa arimasen. Jane-san no desu.
(No, it's not Wout's chocolate. It's Jane's.)

We had had to learn to count to ten in Japanese, and Ogata-sensei started with telling the time, which was hell. Just because you can count 1-10 (and thus, 1-99) doesn't mean you immediately know what 'seven' is. Seven...seven...ehhh...ichi-ni-san-shi-go-roku-shichi! Shichi!!

Ima wa nan-ji desu ka?
What is the time?

Kyo no ressun wa nan-ji kara nan-ji made desu ka?
From what time till what time is the lesson today?

Sore wa shichi-ji kara ku-ji made desu
It is from seven till nine o'clock

And if that was not enough, we went on to Kore wa ikura desu ka (How much is this), so we had to wrestle with prizes like € 30,95. For next lesson we have to read until lesson 6, and I am damned well going to work hard. It was a good lesson, but everyone was overcooking their brains at the end of it just because of the numbers.