We know Japanese?

As expatriates in Japan the question we seem to get most often is "Are you speaking Japanese?"
Our answer continue to be the same, that we are trying to learn it, - hoping someday to make it to 2-kyu, but doubting that it will ever happen.

One's level of Japanese is measured in kyu's were 1-kyu means you are 100% fluent speaking and 4-kyu means you are on a very basic level.
We are somehow in between 3-kyu and 4-kyu. We would fail a 3-kyu due to the grammar, but our vocab would be sufficient to pass through though...we think...

These days studying has become a challenge as our classes continuously are canceled due to Henrik's busy work schedule. Self discipline is not really our strong side, when there are tons of (other) fun things awaiting outside the door. And there are ALWAYS tons of fun things awaiting outside the door.

But there is still hope. Few weeks ago, a good Japanese friend introduced us to a language community on the web, iknow.co.jp. Its originally made for Japanese learning English (Generally Japanese people are very interested in learning English) but recently the site also offers the opposite,- that English speaking persons can study Japanese.

Basically the site offers simple intelligent built up courses that extend your vocab through useful phrases. Its very flexible and an algorithm makes sure you learn what you need to learn.
The real strength of the site though is the community and the tools supplied to support it. Journal and shoot boxes for example make it possible to communicate with each other and this is very much done here. It's a buzzing community. B's first journal written in Japanese resulted promptly in five comments from Japanese users. Besides being encouraging it also opens up for opportunities to practice your skills with native speaking Japanese.

Big Brother is also incoporated in the community. You can easily see how many words and how many minutes any user has studied at a given date...and they can see your effort as well. This works very much as a whip to study as often at possible.

All-in-all a great site we hope (and these days believe) will keep us on track for a while.

Japanese language proficiency test, level 4

We just did a scary thing. We signed up for the official Japanese test, despite our teachers recommendations. The 'Japanese language proficiency test' will take place in early December. To pass the test we need to be familiar with the basic grammar, know the meaning of 800 words and be able to read 100 Kanji. Also, the whole test will be written in the Japanese letters, hiragana, katakana og kanji. 

The grammar will probably not be a problem and our voculabary is probably also sufficient. But the Kanji...we have not started to study it yet. But then again, we have 5 months to go, so it should be possible. 

Ganbatte kudasai! 

The words actually start to look like words and not small pretty drawings

Japan has three alphabets; Hiragana and Katakana, which are the two small Japanese alphabets of 'only' about 2 x 48 characters, and Kanji, the Chinese alphabet with tens of thousands of characters.
We have been studying Hiragana since we started Japanese lessons in Brazil, which meant that we quite fast learned that again here, and this week we have almost learned Katakana.

To show you how Katakana differs from Hiragana, here are our names (Katakana is the official way of writing them, as this is the alphabet used for foreign words):

Barbara, written in Katakana: バーバラ
Barbara, written in Hiragana: ばあばら

Henrik, written in Katakana: ヘンリック
Henrik, written in Hiragana: へんりっく

Learning Katakana has been a very positive revelation for us. This week we have actually been able to read and understand several words in the myriad of signs always present in the city, like hotel, laundry, tiramisu and other non-Japanese-origin words.
The next weeks we will enjoy this, before we start to study the last alphabet, Kanji. Officially, you need to know 1945 kanji-characters for everyday use, but to be able to read a newspaper you need to know between 2000-3000 characters! Even the Japanese has difficulties reading Kanji. This will most likely be the challenge that we will never overcome...

Ganbatte kudasai!

Language challenges

A Monday afternoon at Kalmia, this was handed out to everyone. Time for a song. Eeeeh...anyone wanna take the lead?

The song is a childrens song, used during Hinamatsuri (Doll's festival) - a celebration held on Saturday the 3rd of March.

Integrating in Koriyama - KALMIA

In Denmark, we had our family and friends. In Brazil, we received several invitations every week from an open festive society and in that way got to know the Brazilians pretty fast and because of that, - gained some really good friends.
In Japan, so we are told, it is a lot more like Denmark. People tend to be more reserved.
For us, this sounds like the biggest challenge for our stay. Integrating and getting to know the culture is the fun part of living abroad, - and to do so, you need to be close to the local people, so what to do?
We try to be more progressive! A thing we never considered in Brazil, we did right away here: We joined KALMIA, a local international cultural exchange association.

Not really knowing what to expect on our way down to the signup meeting, we had mixed feelings. Would this be all about other western expatriates getting together for American coffee and danish or would we actually get a chance to get to know Japanese living here in Koriyama?
Our first reaction of what we found in the room of the sign up meeting was something like "no way could this be it!" 10 to 15 persons met us, but not a single western face in the international association. Hmmm... (!?)
Immediately the group greeted us friendly and welcomingly. They guessed we were from Denmark, as the former three couples expatriated from NN also used to be members of the association, and we found out, that the association mainly has members from China, Korea and Thailand which explained why we were the only western looking persons.

As we filled in the sign-up form, they asked what our talents are. What can we contribute with to the association?
Apparently, the members take turns in making small courses or lessons for the other members. This could be in dance, art, cooking etc. It is their way of getting to know each other’s cultures.
So... Our talent!? - We stared at each other. What talents do WE have? :o)
We did not write samba, as she proposed when she heard we have been living in Brazil, neither Danish folk dance!
What we wrote will be our secret for now. We are still trying to come up with something better...

Apart from the culture-sharing classes, the association gives free Japanese lessons twice a week, and arranges trips around the region to hot springs, the mountains or the neighbouring cities.
We are looking forward to get closer to the people there and learn more about the activities in the association.

The picture is a detail from our local shrine.

Heading home

In some cases the following would look strange:
福島県郡山市清水台
In our case it is just a matter of getting used to the local way of writing the name of our new neighbourhood. :o)


So here we are! Should we say 'finally'? Or should we say 'already'?
Having spent the last 5 months on the road, slept in 7 different countries in more than a 100 different places, we definitely have the urge to say 'finally'. Finally we arrived at a place to settle down, at least for a while.
‘Already’ pops up as well, as the time we spent in Denmark during Christmas in no way was sufficient to cover our needs to spend time with our friends and family, whom we missed a lot while in Brazil. We have truly learned how precious, time with friends and family is.

Our trip from Denmark to Tokyo went well. No worries, - The signs were written in Danish, the stewardesses spoke Swedish and the films were in English. The challenges began when we were outside the Danish comfort zone, going from Tokyo to Koriyama, or Kooriyama, as the correct pronunciation apparently is.

To make a short story long, we took six elevator rides, long walks down different corridors and asked several people for direction hoping to be sent to the right track at the train station in Tokyo. We even had a nice chat with a Japanese woman saying Guten Tag, as learning European languages apparently was her hobby.
We carried more than 100 kilos (!) of luggage, and combined with a lack of sleep on the airplane, we really weren’t in the mood for getting lost in translation, so to speak, so you can imagine how we felt, after half 'n hour finally turning up at the train track that matched the number on our tickets, but with a sign saying Korihama. Not Koriyama.
This was not our train! We had to go back to change the tickets, then find the correct track, wait for another hour and finally the last bit of travel could begin, in less than 80 minutes we arrived in our new base, Koriyama.

As we exited Koriyama station, we were reminded that we had just arrived on the other side of the planet. On the public square a local pop band was shooting a video. In no way pros, but in every way it demanded a stop!
One guy was leading the band, playing air-guitar. Five persons were standing on line behind him, dancing synchronic in this happy naive childish way that only Japanese can get away with. It was all very cheerful.
What a great laugh to arrive to and what a humorous place we had arrived at :-)

We decided to walk to the apartment from the train station. It seemed much easier to carry the 100 kilos of luggage divided into 7 bags, up the steep road, than to have a Japanese conversation with a taxi driver.

Excited and exhausted we arrived at the apartment, – our future home (!) and sat down on the chilly floor. No furniture, no soul, but this was unquestionably a place we could see potential in. The centrally located flat has spacious rooms and an 11-meter long sunny balcony with a great view of the snow-capped mountains. What else do we need?
As we figured out in Brazil, home is not where you were born, nor where you live. Home is where you feel welcome, loved and safe. Home is where you feel at home. For us Denmark is home, Montes Claros is home and hopefully in the future, we will feel at home here in Koriyama.

The train on the photo is the Shinkansen, the Japanese express train, that took us from Tokyo to Koriyama.