From time to time my wonderfully brilliant, multilingual daughter has time to spend with me in a coffee shop and help me acquire more Japanese. She does require a fruity drink and a chocolate chip scone to keep her energy going after a long day at school. These sessions have become gold to me because it is such a pleasure getting to know my daughter as my teacher, and there is nothing like spending time talking with my daughter. A few weeks ago we decided to talk about a bird. We described it and then wrote a little story. I will attempt to describe what was going on as we created the story. At the end of the blog is a link to the story with pictures.
The Title Page
This may not seem very significant. But there is a lot going on here for me as the student. We titled it Tonyo-kun's Pizza. I had chosen the name Tonyo because it is like Toño, the nickname for Antonio in Spanish. We first came up with the idea of the bird and then began negotiating what the bird looked like.
The Character Description
In this picture you can see that we created an unusual bird with three eyes that are three different colors. This was challenging to discuss in Japanese but my daughter was very patient with me. When I did not understand she would quickly translate a word to Spanish for me then we would write in down together in Japanese and in Spanish and then move on in Japanese.
I already knew the word for bird in Japanese and I could read the kanji (Chinese character). When I knew the kanji my daughter would write it for me. Sometimes I didn't know the kanji but she insisted I would be able to read it because I could look at the picture. For example, the color blue in Japanese is 青 (pronounced ao)。She described the parts to me and then it was easy to recognize. If the kanji was still difficult for me, we used the hiragana, the Japanese phonetic characters (for example midori = green; Kanji: 緑 or Hiragana: みどり). Of course the borrowed or made up names were written in katakana, the Japanese phonetic system to represent foreign words (for example pizza = ピザ). So if you are new to Japanese there are three writing systems used all at the same time in writing.
Next time I would like to talk about where the character lives and with whom he lives. I might even describe the weather.
In this description we were talking about the physical attributes of Tonyo. Please keep in mind that this is not going to be perfect Japanese. My daughter is only 10 years old and I am teaching her to teach me.
I already knew the word for bird in Japanese and I could read the kanji (Chinese character). When I knew the kanji my daughter would write it for me. Sometimes I didn't know the kanji but she insisted I would be able to read it because I could look at the picture. For example, the color blue in Japanese is 青 (pronounced ao)。She described the parts to me and then it was easy to recognize. If the kanji was still difficult for me, we used the hiragana, the Japanese phonetic characters (for example midori = green; Kanji: 緑 or Hiragana: みどり). Of course the borrowed or made up names were written in katakana, the Japanese phonetic system to represent foreign words (for example pizza = ピザ). So if you are new to Japanese there are three writing systems used all at the same time in writing.
Next time I would like to talk about where the character lives and with whom he lives. I might even describe the weather.
In this description we were talking about the physical attributes of Tonyo. Please keep in mind that this is not going to be perfect Japanese. My daughter is only 10 years old and I am teaching her to teach me.
First location
After describing Tonyo we decided that he wanted pizza. We knew he needed to have a problem getting pizza. Since I already knew how to say where someone goes, we used that expression a lot. I think the next time we do this, I want to add another character so there could be some dialogue.
I think I could have described the setting of the location but I would have needed more time.
I think I could have described the setting of the location but I would have needed more time.
Second Location
We really enjoyed this description because we talked about stinky pizza. The cool part was that I have acquired the word stinky in Japanese.
Another bonus was that I began to understand the transitional words like next or and then.
Another bonus was that I began to understand the transitional words like next or and then.
Third Location and solution
This was by far our favorite part. First we decided that the the cupcake store had a special set that had a pizza-cupcake and a large pizza. Then the price was unbelievable. We were laughing and talking so loud in Japanese in the coffee shop that people were staring and chuckling at us. We had so much fun. It was the highlight of my week!
Conclusion
.Obviously I am very proud of my daughter. She is a wonderful person. As an educator, I kept thinking about how much I enjoyed this activity as the student! I enjoyed sharing my ideas with my daughter and it did not bother me that we were being a little loud. It has been three weeks since we wrote this story together and every time I reread it I can still understand all of it. I have acquired a few words from the lesson and I recognize more kanji now. I can only imagine how much more I would understand and be able to write had we done this each day over the past three weeks.
Here is the link to the story.
Here is the link to the story.
