Japanese Language Assaulted: News at 11

Japanese, I’m told, is a carefully nuanced construct. Native speakers evaluate their own stature against that of their conversation partner and adjust their language to suit.

I, on the other hand, speak Japanese like Tarzan. I regularly confuse, baffle and, no doubt, offend those unlucky enough to be the targets of my basic Japanese.

Despite this, my Japanese instructor told me last week that it was time to write an essay about my life in Japan. “Use the example in the textbook as a model,” he said, “Oh, and write it out by hand — don’t type it!”.

Excellent. I can, if pressed, fill out a crossword puzzle in English semi-legibly, but that is the absolute limit of my calligraphic capabilities.

I did end up typing it out as a first draft, then writing it out by hand once I was done. Unfortunately I didn’t quite finish copying it all out by hand in time for my lesson, so my hand-written version didn’t capture the whole of my creative talents.

So, below is the result of my efforts, as corrected by my instructor this week. You can click the image to get a really big version. I’ve posted the full essay here. English translation here.

Posted by pmk at February 25, 2004 2:42 AM | TrackBack