This is a quick post on transitions.
I’ve been in Japan for over a year now, and the utter noise of Kanji, sometimes unintelligible chatter of Japanese natives around me, plus bright lights, roaring trains and cheezy J-pop music have become normal. This means I’m not so uncomfortable or stressed as i was several months ago. The noise is now, just regular noise.
I took two major steps recently that I think will boost my vocabulary on a good level. One, I switched my Iphone to Japanese. Two I switch my operating system to Japanese as well. Right now this is forcing me to learn the Japanese equivalents of common words I see each day like “send mail” “open file” and that sort of thing. Months ago I couldn’t do this because it would have been too stressful. Now its somewhat better, but i’ll see how I fare as time passes. Using my laptop for three months with everything set to Japanese can only make my vocabulary increase.
Can anyone say “opacity” in Japanese? 😀 (i’m a graphic designer and grumby English teacher).
So far it’s been interesting. I keep forgetting what “send” actually is in Japanese (I think its 送る）。I see that each time I send a メールto someone on my phone. It’s like a mini SRS repitition each time I sent out an e-mail. Having my OS in Japanese also forces me to read a BUTTLOAD of Katakana, whcih i’m still having problems with. Can you say “velvet” in Japanese? hrmm??
cheers to learning more vocab!
Jamaican Learning Japanese 