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閏年
Not sure what to say about the last two days. I was super-tired last night and mostly crashed after getting home.
There's this fantastic jazz band that plays outside Akabane station from time to time on Friday nights. Usually I hear them and I just kind of stop for a few seconds to listen on my way to the train. Tonight they were playing something that sounded familiar and I actually stood out there for about ten minutes listening. A lady came up to me and asked (in Japanese) if I was from Europe. I said no, America, and she said something about how maybe jazz is more popular in Europe, or something like that. She asked if I often listened to jazz, and I said not really, but that I see these guys out there every week and I think they're great. So she handed me a flier for their upcoming live show and said to please come. What's great is, the flier had a URL for the band -- they're called Aniki to Hide and it's great, the picture on the front there is of them playing in front of Akabane east exit... you can see GEOS in the background, blurry! How cool is that :) I dunno if I'll go to the live show, it's a little expensive, but it is great to put a name to the faces, sort of.
I have been popping music quite a bit, and unfortunately, playing the UFO catchers, too. At least I have mostly been getting things out of the UFO catchers (this week I seem to have gotten two An-Pan-Man dolls, a Mickey Mouse, and five Disney sheep-like plushies (three Stitch, one Pooh, one Mickey)). They have one with IIDX figurines now in the Kawaguchi arcade but I can't bring myself to play it (mostly because it's usually surrounded by people waiting to play IIDX). Now if it was Pop'n plushies... anyway, I will probably give most of these to my children students eventually. I'm not entirely sure why I play the things beyond just the satisfaction of being able to get goddamn toys out of the goddamn machines, it's not like I need these stupid plushies. In that respect, perhaps it is not particularly a better habit than pachinko or any other such useless habit.
Tonight, I taught my Mill B student how to say "social security". In response, he taught me "閏年", for "leap year".
My kids' class actually went remarkably well too. They were learning how to say "I want to _____", with phrases like "play a game", "take a nap", "buy a birthday present", "go home". And they did word drills. Led by one of the girls in the class no less -- she kept picking cards and trying to say them and everyone else was imitating her, I wasn't even getting involved, they'd all work out the phrase together and then look at me and I'd repeat, then they'd pick another one and do the same thing. Amazing. At the end of class, we were playing a game where they all kept saying "I WANT TO GO HOME!!!!" So, at 6:50pm, I said "Okay. GO HOME!" And they all looked at me kind of dumbfounded. I was like "No, really, it's bye-bye time, go home! Next week we do lesson 38, okay?" and they were all kind of like "no, no go home." And one girl's like "Sensei, look homework." The other's like "Kore wakaranai Sensei, read word." At least the boy was still himself and was like "okay bye bye see you go home no homework!!" and ran out of the room.
Another random thing is that I finally picked up on the word "店内", which means "here in the store". It's used for, sometimes, "here or to go?" I have to admit I'm not sure what the answer is. I hear something like "tennai ni meshiagarimasu ka?" and I say "Hai, koko de", which is probly weird but they seem to understand. Japanese is confusing sometimes in that, due to keigo, you can't really repeat what people say to you in order to answer.
There's this fantastic jazz band that plays outside Akabane station from time to time on Friday nights. Usually I hear them and I just kind of stop for a few seconds to listen on my way to the train. Tonight they were playing something that sounded familiar and I actually stood out there for about ten minutes listening. A lady came up to me and asked (in Japanese) if I was from Europe. I said no, America, and she said something about how maybe jazz is more popular in Europe, or something like that. She asked if I often listened to jazz, and I said not really, but that I see these guys out there every week and I think they're great. So she handed me a flier for their upcoming live show and said to please come. What's great is, the flier had a URL for the band -- they're called Aniki to Hide and it's great, the picture on the front there is of them playing in front of Akabane east exit... you can see GEOS in the background, blurry! How cool is that :) I dunno if I'll go to the live show, it's a little expensive, but it is great to put a name to the faces, sort of.
I have been popping music quite a bit, and unfortunately, playing the UFO catchers, too. At least I have mostly been getting things out of the UFO catchers (this week I seem to have gotten two An-Pan-Man dolls, a Mickey Mouse, and five Disney sheep-like plushies (three Stitch, one Pooh, one Mickey)). They have one with IIDX figurines now in the Kawaguchi arcade but I can't bring myself to play it (mostly because it's usually surrounded by people waiting to play IIDX). Now if it was Pop'n plushies... anyway, I will probably give most of these to my children students eventually. I'm not entirely sure why I play the things beyond just the satisfaction of being able to get goddamn toys out of the goddamn machines, it's not like I need these stupid plushies. In that respect, perhaps it is not particularly a better habit than pachinko or any other such useless habit.
Tonight, I taught my Mill B student how to say "social security". In response, he taught me "閏年", for "leap year".
My kids' class actually went remarkably well too. They were learning how to say "I want to _____", with phrases like "play a game", "take a nap", "buy a birthday present", "go home". And they did word drills. Led by one of the girls in the class no less -- she kept picking cards and trying to say them and everyone else was imitating her, I wasn't even getting involved, they'd all work out the phrase together and then look at me and I'd repeat, then they'd pick another one and do the same thing. Amazing. At the end of class, we were playing a game where they all kept saying "I WANT TO GO HOME!!!!" So, at 6:50pm, I said "Okay. GO HOME!" And they all looked at me kind of dumbfounded. I was like "No, really, it's bye-bye time, go home! Next week we do lesson 38, okay?" and they were all kind of like "no, no go home." And one girl's like "Sensei, look homework." The other's like "Kore wakaranai Sensei, read word." At least the boy was still himself and was like "okay bye bye see you go home no homework!!" and ran out of the room.
Another random thing is that I finally picked up on the word "店内", which means "here in the store". It's used for, sometimes, "here or to go?" I have to admit I'm not sure what the answer is. I hear something like "tennai ni meshiagarimasu ka?" and I say "Hai, koko de", which is probly weird but they seem to understand. Japanese is confusing sometimes in that, due to keigo, you can't really repeat what people say to you in order to answer.
no subject
Keigo is fun! You should learn keigo and end every sentence with gozaimasu! :P