fandomhigh | Basic Japanese - Week 1 - Wednesday Sept 5th 3rd period

“Hello everyone,” Yondaime smiled from the front of the class. “Welcome to Beginning Japanese. We’ve got a lot to cover in the fifteen weeks that we have together so I apologize for jumping right into it.” He paused to hand out a large packet to everyone, moving with lightening speed through the room before continuing.

“We’re going to be doing introductions, but they’re going to be in Japanese,” he smiled and flashed back and forth from the back of the room to the front as he spoke. “In your packets are common greetings, words, numbers, phrases you’re going to hear me say a lot and the chart of hiragana which are the basic Japanese alphabet. I don’t expect you all to know these by heart for the next class, the packets that I’m giving out can be used as notes on the final with the exception of the hiragana chart.”

“First of all, there are a few ways you can address me. Just sensei is the most common way, since I’m the only teacher in the class room, but if you wanted to be more specific you could call me Yondaime-sensei or even Uzumaki-sensei. Calling me by my first name or even my last name with no suffixes added onto it is considered the height of rudeness and if we were in Japan or even back in my home you’d get detention for it,” He smirked and paused by the desk. “But not here. So greetings and introducing yourself! Since this class is before noon, when you all come in I would greet you with ‘Ohaiyo gozaimasu’ which of course means ‘Good Morning’ and I would hope that you each would respond back with the same.” Yondaime went to the chalkboard and wrote out the word in normal alphabet and hiragana. “Today, I’m going to break you up into pairs so you can work on introducing yourselves to each other, then we’re going to go over asking what something is in Japanese and then just a brief run through of numbers since they’re really simple.” Yeah, except to him all of this was really simple.

Riiiiiight.

[~~Plz Wait for the OCD~~Have fun?]

[Syllabus and roster]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Ohaiyo gozaimasu," Sabriel said carefully to the girl she recognized from yesterday. She looked at her packet and added, "Ogenki desu ka?"

She had a feeling that her accent was probably horrible.

Drawing in a deep breath that left her whole body tightened and closed, Adah closed her eyes. Okay. She could do this. It was just talking, no big deal. Talking in a different language, even so she could argue that it wasn't even the same thing. And she told herself when she decided to do this that she would talk if she had to. She could do this. Slowly, she let out the breath, her shoulders relaxed, and she opened clear eyes, blinking them calmly toward Sabriel.

"Ohaiyo gozaimasu," she responded, so quietly that if the classroom was any louder, it would have been completely lost. She faltered then, because she did not recall seeing a response that would be a truthful one. There was nothing on the sheet that said Not well, I'm afraid; silly me, forgetting that I might be expected to talk in a language course instead of just sitting in the corner, churning out conjugates like I'm used to. There wasn't anything even close. She regretfully drew her eyes back to the paper, scanned the options quickly.

"Gomen nasai." She shook her head. "Ee, genki desu."

She was going to have to be, she supposed.

"...Ogenki desu ka?"

She bit her lip, wondering if her pronunciation, her American Southern accent was turning the words into something else, like in Kilanga, where the way you said it could be the difference between a state of hurry or an inflammatory disease of the bowels.

"Ee, genki desu," Sabriel replied, after staring at the paper for some time again. She looked for something else to say. "Onamae wa?"

Sabriel would probably have asked that even if she had known the girl's name.

There was a moment of hesitation, her head tilted to the side a bit as if she was thinking of whether or not to answer. Finally, though, quietly, she said, "Adah. Adah Price."

Another pause as she intrepidly balanced on a question that she already knew the answer to. Asking seemed such a waste of words, and if there was anything Adah disliked strongly, it was wasting words, throwing them away. She had few things she could covet, after all. Reluctantly, then, she asked, "Onamae wa?"

Before the question even finished on her lips, her mind surged forward with the answer. Sabriel, with the bendy, crooked, slithering S, like a snake, serpent, sidewinder, slithering Sabriel, one letter off...

She let out a breath at the jolt of association. Somehow, that made her feel better.

"Sabriel," Sabriel replied confidently. She paused and scanned the paper for something else to say. As far as conversations went, this wasn't the smoothest she'd had. "Douzo yoroshiku."

As far as conversation went, this was the only one Adah had had since Atlanta. Her head ducked, a small smile on her face as Sabriel introduced herself. Why, Adah, however did you know? I can read minds; just call me River.

"Arigatou," Adah's head bobbed a little with barely a glance down toward the vocabulary. "Douzo yoroshiku..." It trailed off a little, and Adah frowned, nose wrinkling. It felt so...incomplete without a 'too,' an 'also,' an 'as well,' but a quick riffling through the papers showed that there was no qualifier like that for them to use at this point. It bothered her, leaving it feeling so incomplete.

There was a long pause before Sabriel finally said, "I don't know what else to say."

Hearing that was really a relief for Adah. She smiled a little, lifting her shoulder in a shrug, her expression suggesting that, well, if that is the case, then why say anything more?

Yondaime was listening and smiled brightly. "You guys did really well! If you want you can try using the different times of day?"

Basic Japanese - Week 1 - Wednesday Sept 5th 3rd period

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions

Re: Introductions