Braden's Tokyo Report
ブレードン"東京リポート"
Photos also by Braden Goddard

August 7, 2005

About myself
My name is Braden Goddard and I went to Palomar College for 4 years. I am now attending Texas A&M University majoring in nuclear engineering. I took first and second semester Japanese with Tachibana sensei and third semester Japanese with Imamora sensei. I used the Genki textbook and covered chapters 1 through 15. In the summer of 2003 I went on Tachibana sensei trip to Japan and in the summer 2005 I did an internship at Tokyo University.

Japanese language
If you are going to go to Japan with someone who can speak Japanese and English you can get by fairly easily with just two semesters of Japanese. But if you are going to be by yourself I suggest taking three or more semesters. Knowing your katakana really helps a lot since about 5 to 10 percent of Japanese is written in katakana. But be careful, not every word in katakana is taken from an English word; アルバイト (part time job) for example is German. Although Tachibana sensei will probably disagree with me on this, you don’t really need to know when to use short forms. Also, people almost never use です at the end of a sentence or use particles such as, は, が, で, etc. Although getting your past tense and present tense correct is important. If you are going to Japan and don’t feel comfortable talking in Japanese learn how to ask simple questions and ask them to as many Japanese people as you can. This will get you use to speaking in Japanese and you might make a friend or two. Here are some sentences I used to help my speaking: have you ever been to America?, do you have any bothers or sisters?, are you a student?, what year student are you?, is your dad an office worker?, how old are you?, where do you live?. It is probably a good idea to know how to answer every question you ask because they will probably ask you the same question. Also, I feel that when learning Japanese it is best to say what you know how to say, not what you want to say. If someone asks you a question and the answer is very complicated just give a simplified version of the truth or tell a little lie and say what is socially expected of you to say in that situation. If you find it really hard to understand Japanese boys don’t worry. Most students learning Japanese are taught a slightly formal version of the language. This is the way girls talk but boys speak in a less formal style. Studying you short forms will help you understand boy speech a lot better.

Living in Japan
When eating at a restaurant and you can’t read the menu, which will probably always be the case, you can just point at what you want on the menu and say これをください (this please). Also, if they start asking you questions and you don’t know what they are saying you can always say 何でもいい (whatever is good). This will take the decision making off your hands. For some reason in Japan they only give you a little bit of water to drink when you go out to eat. This is OK because you can always yell out すみません、水ください (can I have some water please). Normally in America it would be rude to yell out across the room to a waitress but people do it all the time in Japan so I guess it’s OK. I often ate at Yoshinoya because it is open 24 hours a day, is very common in Japan, and it is cheep and good. It’s about $6 for a meal. This is common sense but if you are allergic to a certain food make sure you know how to say it in Japanese. There are lots of things you are not suppose to do while eating but the only one that is really important is never stick your chopsticks in your rice so that they are sticking straight upward. Also, you should learn how to use chopsticks (はし) because you might not be given a spoon and fork. Japan’s electricity is the same as the United States, I think, so you don’t need to buy any adaptors. Most places have American style toilets and showers so don’t worry about that kind of stuff. However, occasionally they don’t have toilet paper so make sure you keep some tissues with you. They sometimes have people giving them out at the train stations. You should probably memorize the kanji of the train station near to where you are living and know how to say it. The Japanese rail system is very easy to use and if you are not sure how much the ticket you want costs just buy the cheapest one and then when you get to your destination you can pay the extra. Remember, you are a 外人 (foreigner) so if you do anything wrong or illegal it’s OK. As for money, 1 dollar is about equal to 100 yen. Your credit card should work in Japan, there might be a 5% extra out of country fee, but only large department stores accept credit cards. When you use your credit card they will ask you if you want one payment or mutable payments. I have no idea what this means but you want to make sure you say one payment. I don’t know how to say one payment in Japanese so you should ask your sensei. Be careful when using you credit card because ￥1, 000 looks a lot like $10.00. You don’t want to be like me and pay $100 for something that you thought was $10.

Japanese college
While at Tokyo University I had a hard time learn anything other than Japanese Language because I need someone to teach me, in English, in order for me to learn anything. If you are going to take classes in Japan I suggest taking mainly Japanese language. If you hang out with Japanese people everyday your ability to speak Japanese will improve very quickly. Japanese schools have two semesters. One that goes from April to July and the other is September to January. The students attending Japanese colleges are expected to take about 12 classes per semester but they are a lot easier than American college classes. Actually, I hear that all colleges in Japan are much easier than colleges in America. I was not that impressed with Tokyo University and if you are going to attend a college in Japan don’t go to Tokyo University. I think it just has an impressive name, like Berkley or Harvard. Also, everything is very expensive in Tokyo.

Important vocabulary
Here are some words that I feel are important to know.

もういちど = one more time
(Good to use when someone says something in Japanese too fast)

やだ = no way!
(This is only used be children so when a foreigner says it it’s kind of cute/cool)

きょうだい = siblings
(きょうだいいますか。Is a good question if you are running out of things to ask a Japanese person.)

なんでやね = Fuggedaboutit
(This is Osaka dialect so I don’t really know what it means but if you meet someone from Osaka and say this to him or her they will think you are cool)

(なん, いつ, どこ, だれ, etc.)でもいい = (what, when, where, who, etc.)ever is good.
(This is more of a sentence structure than a word but I felt it is important to know)

“what you want” ありますか = Do you have “what you want”
(This is covered in the Genki textbook but it’s very important to know and I use it every time I go shopping. If you are in an anime store and are looking for lets say Naruto manga you can ask なるとまんがありますか?

If you have any questions or want to contact me for any reason you can E-mail me at kbcgoddard@gmail.com

ブレーデンのレポートこれで終わり

"Being Creative in a foreign language is a Joy forever"

 

 

奈良町で見かけたお風呂屋奈良法起寺とコスモス。もうすぐ秋です。この写真はいただきもの。奈良桜井の三輪神社。これもいただきもの。ドモくんの中にいるのはDAVEさん。あ、ロレンゾもいます。