スキー

わたしは　きのう　スキーをしました。ともだちと　シャガーロフに　いきました。

うちから　シャガーロフまで　かるまで　にじかんはんぐらい　かかります。がいろのうえに　たくさん　ゆきが　ありました。　かるまは　がいろのそとに　いきました。　でも、　スキーは　たのしかったです。

てがみ

PE2 Reflection and PE3 Goals

PE2 Reflection:

My goals for the past cycle included improving my rhythm and my pitch patterns. I think my rhythm did improve, however, when the speed of speaking increases I discovered that I have a tendency to make pronunciation mistakes, get choppy, or both. Thus, I decided to make speed be the primary goal of my PE3.

PE3 Goals:

• Improve speed of speaking without making frequent mistakes
• Continue improving with being able to recognize/repeat pitch patterns

PE3 Activities:

• Listen to Japanese spoken word as often as possible and work on distinguishing words and pitch patterns
• When practicing shadowing, chose relatively more fast clips to practice on/submit so I get some practice with faster speaking

あきやすみ

わたしは　あきやすみに　うちに　かえりませんでした。　カリフォルニアに　いきました。　わたしの　ともがきは　カリフォルニアから　きました。　わたしの　ともがきは　ライアンです。　ライアンの　うちで　ねました。ライアンの　 しゅっしんは　ニューポートビーチです。まいにち　いそべに　いきました。すきでした。そして、ロサンゼルスに　いきました。ロサンゼルスに　ベスケトボールの　しあいが　ありました。そして、 リトルトーキョーに　いきました。きのう　キャンパスに　かえりました。

  

しゅうまつ

こんしゅうまつ　べんきょしました。つぎしゅう　テストが　あります。　でも、　　わたしの　ともだち　きました。ウィスコンシンから　きました。ざーくです。わたしのりょうで　ねました。

PE1 Reflection & PE2 Goals

PE1 Reflection:

My goals for this past cycle included speeding up my speaking and correctly pronouncing らりるれろ, and while far from perfect, I feel that I did improve on these two fronts. I am certainly speaking faster than I was at the beginning of the cycle and I do not think my pronunciation has suffered. The issue of long/short vowels and rhythm still require a lot of work. Though I found that merely listening to some Japanese every day helped me to develop a sense of what to aim for with my speaking, that is still a far cry from being able to reproduce it. Hopefully I will continue to improve in this facet as the year goes on.

PE2 Goals:

• Improve rhythm, i.e. produce long/short vowels and give ん its own mora, etc.
• Memorize pitch patterns along with words and reproduce them correctly

Activities:

• Continue trying to get in at least a couple minutes of listening to/mimicing/shadowing authentic Japanese every day
• Have a conversation with a native speaker and/or attend language table every week

Self-Intro

PE Goal Statement

Goals:

•          Be able to distinguish between, and successfully produce, long and short vowels
•          Make my らりるれろ sounds actually sound as they should
•          Speed up my speaking without sacrificing quality/clarity of my sounds

Activities:

•          Listen to and mimic and/or shadow at least a couple minutes of Japanese every day
•          Go to Japanese language table or have a conversation with an authentic Japanese speaker at least once a week
•          Be proactive about meeting with しばたせんせいif I am having particular difficulties

Self-Introduction

こんばんは。はじめまして。おおのです。さんねんせいです。アメリカじんです。どうぞよろしく。　

The Beginning

はじめまして。おおのです。どうぞよろしく。As of right now, that's close to all I can say/write in Japanese; I guess you have to start somewhere. I have decided to start taking Japanese relatively late in my Princeton career because, having spent my childhood in THE whitest state in the country (Maine), I am eager to explore and embrace the Japanese part of my heritage (my father was born in Japan). I'm excited to learn enough Japanese so that I can, at the very least, survive a future trip to Japan on my own and hopefully be able to have at least a basic conversation or two with my obaa-chan (おばあちゃん perhaps?) in her native language. What I have been finding most difficult is reading the hiragana quickly. The characters are just so new to me that even if I know the meaning it takes me a little while to process them. Hopefully practice will make it easier. Well, I'm excited to begin.