First Japanese Lesson

Yup, thats right- we started taking Japanese classes!

Recently I met all the other Hachioji ALTs at a work meeting, so my group of friends in this area has grown by a lot. A couple of these people are brand new in Japan and, unlike Kris and I, are being proactive about learning Japanese. A couple people were going to check out a Japanese class and it turned out to be right at our station! Pretty much meant Kris and I had to check it out too.

The class is held every twice a month all year on Wednesday nights from 7-9pm. Its at a community center building very close to our station and- the best part- its FREE. Theres a textbook used in class that we need to buy, for about ¥2800, and that's the only cost to us.

We met a couple friends at our station to grab some dinner then headed to the lesson. About 15-17 people showed up for the class, with 80% of them being Interac ALTs. The teachers split a couple people off into a more advanced class, leaving all the Interac ALTs plus two other English teachers that teach at a local university. We were all on varying levels of extreme beginner, so the teacher started with simple introductions and worked up from there. Our teacher can speak English pretty well but basically teaches in Japanese by using very simple sentences and translating when needed.

Anyways, we got through introductions to talking about where we're from and where our home is, then we talked about our how many people are in our family. Nothing mind blowing, but like I said we're starting from the ground floor. Tomorrow Kris and I are going to look for the textbook. I've already typed up my notes from tonight's class and shared them on my google drive. In fact, if you'd like to learn along with us you can see all my class notes at THIS LINK. Let me know if you're going to be studying Japanese with us!

So with the classes being free and located only 15 minutes away from our home, AND since friends will be involved, it seems like we have no excuses. Since the class is entirely verbal I feel like we're finally getting in the practice we need to improve and utilize the things we've already learned. But I'll keep you updated on how things actually go. Next class is April 27th- Kris' birthday! And until then, here's a taste of what we learned tonight. If you're checking out my class notes maybe you can read it.

はじめまして。ケンドラです。どうぞよろしくおねがいします。
おくにはアメリカです。うちはみなみおおさわです。
かぞくはよにんです。ちちとははとあにとわたしです。

When you pop that into Google translate it makes almost no sense because it's horrible grammatically, but hey- thats what we did today. It'll get better!

K+K