Wakarimasu ka?

Wakarimasu ka? Do you understand?

No. No I do not.

Japanese class was fun once I got over the obscene amount of nerves I get when I have to speak in front of others. Nevermind English, but a language I don't know? Double whammy.

I think this will be a good class, it's very much a conversational class and the teacher, Ken, tells us the polite way and then he tells us the real way as well.

Japanese is a lazy language. They shorten everything, don't pronounce half of the letters in the words, and they don't have as many different sounds. I was getting frustrated at how different the pronunciation is when Ken pointed out how incredibly difficult English was to learn for him. I never really thought about it but it's true. English is muy dificil.

Which leads me to my next problem. When my brain goes into foreign language mode it goes straight to Spanish. That's not going to get me anywhere here. I still can't help but have gracias, or bano on the tip of my tongue.

My gut tells me to run, don't go to the next class, this is too hard, don't try if you know you'll never be perfect...my gut is rather gutless isn't it? But lately I've been telling my gut to shove it. I'm going to try. I'm going to screw it up. I'm going to keep trying.

Sayonara!