Day 3 September 25, 2014

Today we learned about more basic Hiragana. We learned how to write ta（た）, chi（ち）, tsu（つ）, te（て）, to（と）, da（だ）, ji （ぢ）, zu （づ）, de（で）, do（ど）, sa（さ）, shi（し）, su（す）, se（せ）, so（そ）, za（ざ）, ji（じ）, zu（ず）, ze（ぜ）, and zo（ぞ）. We also combined these along with the ones we learned in last week's class to make words such as sekai（せかい）, which means world. We also learned how to say phone numbers in Japanese after we reviewed how to say the numbers and time in Japanese. We learned basic sentence structure as well with the simple template of "X" wa "Y" and "X" wa nan desu ka, wa meaning is. We also learned to use  "ne," which practically means "right?" What was challenging at the moment was the memorization of the basic Hiragana kanji. It will only get tougher if these are not memorized and it was slightly challenging to write the kanji in an acceptable way, according to my standards. I also received an answer to my question of how does one reply to "gochisousama deshita," which I asked because my host mother replied with something I could not quite grasp. The answer was "osomatsusama deshita," which practically means, "It was nothing." This has been on my mind for the past few months and I am extremely happy to finally receive an answer. I could not figure out how to actually spell it in romaji but I knew how it sounded like. My instructor, Mrs. Satoko (whom I will refer to as Satoko-sensei or Satoko-san, as she has requested the students to do so), declared that she was happy with  how observant I am. She said that she was impressed that I noticed that my host mother had said "osomatsusama deshita" after I said "gochisousama deshita" and she said all the host mothers were surprised and impressed that we, the exchange students, demonstrated proper Japanese etiquette even though we were not taught that by them. This conversation reminded me of the great time I had in Japan. It made me sad yet happy, it was a complicated feeling. Now, the next step is to get the calligraphy memorized and look forward to the next class. I am looking forward to it!

Here are my notes:

Here is my work:

つづく (Tsuzuku = To be continued)

-Justin Tse

-Time logged: 1.67 hours
-Total time logged: 4.86 hours