日本ごの ほんせい に

With the beginning of December comes the end of one goal cycle and the beginning of the next.  Over the past month or so I focused on improving various aspects of my listening and pronunciation.  Whenever I learn new vocabulary I now make a concerted effort to memorize the pitch pattern along with the meaning of the word.  I think that the strategy of focussing on pitch from the very beginning has proven fairly successful, and I feel that I make fewer vocabulary related pitch errors now than I did at the time of my last reflection.  Similarly, paying close attention to the way my 先生 pronounces vocabulary in class, and how the models pronounce specific words during dialogues, has helped me to train my ear to the correct pitch pattern of vocabulary.  In addition, I believe that I've made significant progress toward avoiding the rising pitch of an English question.  I discovered that I was doing this primarily when I was uncertain about vocabulary or sentence structure, and was saying the sentence almost as a question of whether or not it was correct.  Regularly going to office hours has proven a great way to remedy this issue, as I have the chance to speak in Japanese for extended periods of time and am called out whenever I make this mistake.  Doing shadowing regularly has definitely helped out with the pitch patterns for vocabulary, but it has also really improved my comprehension speed.  I am now able to gather a lot more information from a fast conversation than I was previously.  Finally, going to the Japanese language table is a lot of fun, and I really enjoy the informal setting to practice speaking and listening.  It's amazing the amount of material that we cover in this course, and having now started on new verb forms and sentence structures, I feel that we're really beginning to dive into the details of the language.  Writing in Kanji also makes me feel super legit.

サンクスギビングの休み

サンクスギビングの休みに　私は　私のおばさんのうちに　しぞくに　あいに　いきました。木曜日に　ともだちのうちに　大きいばんごはんを　たべに　いきました。　たくさん　はなして、ターキーを　たべて、ケーキを　たべました。とても　おいしかったです。うちが　私のじゃなっかたですから、私は　りょうりを　しませんでした。そして　金曜日に　たくさん　べんきょうして、えいがをみて、おばさんのうちで　ゆっくりしました。ひまで、たのしかたです。今日も　べんきょうして、えいがを　みました。あした　プリンストンに　かえって、ともだちに　あいます。サンクスギビングの休みが　大すきです！

わたしのやすみの日

わたしは　あまり　ひまじゃないです。でも　わたしは　たくさん　 かつどうします。大学で　いつも　ともだちと　ごはんを　たべて、　はなします。　ときどき　ともだちのへやに　えいがを　みに　いきます。わたしと　ともだちが　デイズニーのえいがが　大すきです。ときどき　セントルイスのともだちに　てがみを　かきます。たいてい　りょうしんに　でんわを　かけます。わたしは　アルバイトが　ありません、でも　わたしは　ぜんぜん　かいものに　いきません。　 こう校あいだじゅう　たくさん　ともだちと　しました。とても　たのしかったです。よく　ものを　たてました。

これは　わたしと　ともだちです。とても　たのしかったですから、わたしの　せんこうは　きかい工学です。

プリンストンのキャンパス

プリンストンのキャンパスは　りっぱです。わたしの　大学は　とても　ふるいです。たくさん　りっぱなたてものが　あります。

これは　りょうです。ゆきは　とても　きれいです。

これは　わたしのへやのまどのそとに　あります。あきに　きは　きいろいです。

これは　としょかんです。わたしは　ここに　ときどき　べんきょうします。

あきやすみは だいすきです

わたしは　あきやすみに　キャンプに　いきました。キャンプは　ニュージャージーに　あります。こうえんは　とても　りっぱです。キャンプは　ALTTって　いいます。わたしは　リーダーシップ を　べんきょうしました。たいてい　ごぜん　しちじはんに　おきました。でも　ときどき　ろくじよんじゅうごふんに　おきました。げつようびから　きんようびまで　ごぜん　にじに　ねました。まいにち　ハイキングを　しました。せんしゅう　さんじゅうこ　マイルに　いきました。あきやすみに　ゆきが　ありません。でも　とても　さむいです。わたしの　テントは　きいろいです。きれいなテントが　ありません。でも　いいです。きゅうめい　大学生が　いました。キャンプの　たべものは　りっぱじゃないです。でも　おいしいです。キャンプは　だいすきです。

にほんごの ゴール に

In the next few weeks of my study of Japanese, I've got another set of goals that I'd like to work on in order to focus my effort.

Goals:
I would like to really work on my intonation throughout various aspects of the Japanese language.  First, I need to make sure to really focus on learning the intonation of vocabulary when first learning the word, since I tend to make a habit of the wrong pronunciation if I start off wrong.  In addition, I would like to make sure not to raise the pitch of the end of a question, since this is an English phenomenon and isn't reflected in Japanese.  I do my best, but I often forget, especially when I'm focussing on the vocabulary. In terms of listening, I would like to work on increasing the speed at which I process the incoming information, since I occasionally get caught up in one part of the sentence and then misunderstand or forget other parts.

Activities:
In order to work toward these goal, I intend to listen carefully to the way in which my 先生　pronounces each vocabulary word in class, and to then repeat these to myself when studying.  In addition, I shall continue to go to the Japanese Language table every week to further build up speed of speaking and recognition.  I will continue to shadow every week, although I will be more modest in my goal this cycle, aiming for two ten to fifteen minute sessions per week.  While watching the little anime that I do, I will focus on extracting vocabulary and phrases that I understand and then shadowing these parts of the anime.

I'm really happy with my progress in Japanese so far and I can't wait to do more!

にほんごの ほんせい いち

Now that I've completed the first major part of Japanese 101, it's about time to reflect on how much progress I've made toward the goals that I set out a couple of weeks ago.  As far as the pronunciation of the r- and g- mora goes, I believe that I made substantial progress toward a more natural pronunciation.  My r- group now sounds much closer to the Japanese pronunciation rather than a mi of English r's or l's.  The g- moras are also more natural sounding.  In addition, double consonants no longer sound like a full break, but I still occasionally forget and unintentionally break the word.  By this point I also feel pretty confident about which vowels are dropped, although it seems that there are some words where both pronunciations are acceptable, and this occasionally confuses me.  When doing listening exercises, I am now able to better distinguish the breaks in words, although I listening is still probably one of my weaker points.  In making progress towards these goals, I think that my previously set out activities were pretty helpful.  I went to the Japanese Language Table every week（おいしいです）, which was a fantastic opportunity to speak in an informal environment and get more comfortable with the language.  I've also made some good friends there and enjoy fumbling around with expression that we don't quite know how to say yet.  Shadowing was also helpful, but way more time consuming than I had originally thought.  I ended up only doing one or two sessions per week, instead of my intended three, but they still proved really useful.  Shadowing anime is fun（いいです）, but is also really hard (むずかしいです）, and I was only able to catch certain key phrases that occurred often, or that I had learned in class.  Overall, I feel that I kept up with my activities reasonably well, even though I probably should have dedicated more time to shadowing.

Having been really nervous about the oral midterm this morning, I think that everything actually went pretty well.  I definitely paused and said um a couple of times, but it was rather minimal and I don't think that it detracted too much from my speech.  The parts of the conversation that I was able to prepare went really well, and I was able to express a lot about myself and Princeton's campus.  There were a couple of words that I think that I may have mispronounced (としょかん）, but I think that I did well on the whole.  I made an effort of being an active listener (ああ、そうですか, いいですね, etc.) and tried to interact as much as possible with my parter and すずきさん.  I made several small errors (such as saying どれ rather than これ) but there weren't any major missteps.  However, listening proved to be a bit problematic, as I misunderstood one of すずきさん's questions, and spoke about the wrong day.  Anyway, I think that I presented myself well, but also learned some places to work on in the future.

あきやすみが だいすきです！わたしは　げつようびから　どようびまで　キャんぷに　いきます。