Yana's Language Progress: June 2015

On the parent-child field trip

Recently I've noticed a big leap in Yana's confidence and vocabulary when speaking Japanese. When she first started school, she spoke to the other kids in English only and was confused and frustrated. Now she speaks Japanese with them. She also understands that Japanese is different from English. She doesn't always use the right Japanese (often its wrong or very infantile), but the fact that she's using the foreign language is a great step.

One day we were out shopping. A lady who spoke English very well was helping us, and even though we were speaking English, Yana announced, "oshiko!" when she had to use the toilet.

Later that same day, we were at the grocery store, standing near the tills. Yana shouted, "kochi!" and ran to the till of her choice. The cashier had a good chuckle.

She also recently memorized a cute little song at school, which she sang for me at home. She often sings Japanese songs. A lot of the words are slurred, but I can definitely make out a few correct words and it sounds like Japanese.

A recent trend is her use of "kochi", "korera", "datta", and "misete". She tends to use these words very frequently. Usually not correctly, though.

On a school field trip, she asked her teacher "tabete ii yo?", so it's great to see her trying to put words together to make sentences.

She's also started teaching me words that I don't know and instructing me: "say 'ippai' because it means there's lots" and "you say it KA-TA-TSU-MU-RI".

Her teacher remarked on how polite she is too. She always says "dou itashimashite", but most of the other kids don't bother. I didn't even teach her that one!

New vocabulary I've noticed:

• oshiri [bum]
• neko [cat]
• hanbunko [usually means half of something, but she learned it to mean fold in half]
• datta [non-polite form of desu]
• yamete [stop]
• kochi [here, come here]
• oshiko [pee]
• tengu-geta kutsu [tengu geta shoes, a special type of Japanese shoe she is learning to wear for sports day]
• tatte [stand]
• suwaru [sit]
• kashite [give]
• ii yo [good, okay]
• taberu [eat]
• asobu [play]
• ikou [go]
• koko [here]
• korera [these]
• yatta [yay!]
• dou itashimashite [you're welcome]
• ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyu, jyu [counting up to 10]
• dekita! [did it!]
• ippai [full, many]
• katatsumuri [snail]

Overall, I'm very impressed with how she's been doing these last few months!