The Finish Line - Week 6

This journey is coming to an end. Yesterday was the last day that I worked on my Japanese studies. To be honest, these last six weeks have flown by so fast, but I feel like I accomplished a lot. My goal was to finish Hiragana and finish around 10 chapters in my speaking book(Conversational Japanese). I was able to accomplish both of these goals. I finished learning how to write the 46 Hiragana this week with the last group of eight characters. I also did chapters 8, 9, and 10 in the Conversation Japanese book. Chapter 8 went over many essential Japanese greetings. Chapter 9 went over what to say when you meet people for the first time and how to properly start conversations. Chapter 10 went over how to talk about yourself, such as personal information, hobbies, family, etc. In these chapters, I learned about mannerisms and how to be polite and friendly when trying to have a conversation with someone who speaks Japanese. I know how to say greetings such as, "hello," "how are you today," and "my name is Sarah." At this point I probably couldn't carry on a conversation in Japanese, but I could probably say what I need or want to say and somewhat understand the other person's answer.

This weekend I am going to start working on a PowerPoint for the presentation on May 1st. I will create a PowerPoint and make a script of what I want to say for the presentation. I will be presenting to my classmates and the event is open to the community, so there might be a big audience. I am already nervous about presenting, but hopefully I will get up there and say what I plan to say. I want to explain what I did for my project, how I did it, and what I accomplished. I had 6 weeks to start learning a language and even though I am by no means fluent in Japanese, I think I learned a lot.

I did run into some challenges. Finding time to work on Japanese was sometimes difficult because I do have homework for other classes. I found time to work on Japanese mostly on Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays. I would usually spend around thirty minutes to an hour when I worked on Japanese. Another challenge I faced was understanding grammar. The sentence structure is different than English, so it was a learning curve. It is something that makes speaking Japanese harder because I have to remember that the verb goes at the end of the sentence and I have to remember the correct conjugation for verbs. With practice, it will get easier. The thing is, I need practice to get better at speaking Japanese and that is a reason why I would love to go to Japan.

I am looking forward to the presentation and I hope it goes well. Wish me luck! This summer I will continue to learn Japanese in my free time. I would love to travel to Japan someday soon, maybe I will get the chance to study abroad there. I am glad I chose to learn Japanese for my project because it is something I am passionate about and will probably always be interested in. I enjoyed learning Japanese and I also enjoyed learning about the culture. Thank you for reading my blog and following me on my journey! Arigato! Sayonara!