Day 13: January 29, 2015

Today, we reviewed Japanese greetings. We learned that "Ee," pronounced as "Eeh," is acceptable as an informal/casual way to say "hai," meaning "yes." Also we noted that having the "O" when asking, "O-genki desu ka?" is a formal or polite way of asking, "Are you well?" We also learned that we could reply to this with "Okage-sama de," which essentially means, "Thanks to everyone's help." Literally, however, it means something along the lines of "Shadow person's doing." The meaning is derived from the fact that a servant of a Japanese lord would stand in the lords place as a safety precaution. This was because, like our president, there are those who would plot his assassination. I hope that we will start learning katakana next session. I am truly excited to learn katakana. I predict that it will be difficult to memorize. However, I welcome a good challenge.

-Time logged: 1.50 hours
-Total time logged: 23.45 hours

Day 12: January 15, 2015

Today, after a long break we reviewed Japanese greetings, honorifics, and the pronunciation of kanji. We learned that New Years in Japan is similar to the way the Chinese celebrate New Years. However, the Japanese celebrate with the food called mochi. On Valentine's Day, the girls in Japan give gifts to the boys in Japan. Although, the boys do return the favor and give a gift to the girls in March. A new term we learned was "chotto matte." This means "wait" or "hold on." This term, there will be a total of 8 classes. I am excited to learn more Japanese, despite all the challenges I may face. I can't wait to begin writing katakana and sentences in hiragana. What will be challenging is the memorization once again! I have also completed an article about my experiences as well as my fellow exchange students' experiences in Japan!

Here are my notes:

Here is my work:

Here is something my mentor brought back from Japan and gave to the class:

Here is an overview of the article:

-Time logged: 3.55 hours
-Total time logged: 21.95 hours