Yesterday my student came up to me at the end of class. She told me she had some Mimosas for me as a gift. I was all excited until I found out it wasn't Champagne and orange juice, but some stinkin' flowers from her garden. I put them in a wine glass anyway.
It's really no wonder I'm alone when you think that this is the standard of blog entry I come up with.
I've hit another brick wall with my Japanese studies of late. The other languages I've tried to learn have always had a romanized alphabet. This way, if you don't know a word, at least you can sound it out and make some stab at communication.
It's so frustrating. With Japanese each kanji (Chinese character) can be pronounced a few different ways depending on the context. On top of this, the meaning can change depending on the sentence, too.
The real killer is when you know the character, you know what it means in that situation, but you just can't remember (or don't know) how to sound it out. There ain't no movin' forward from that. This is a communication barrier I am uncomfortably familar with, unfortunately.
I will leave you with the characters for my mantra...
禅パトリック (Zen Patrick)
AAUUUUMMMMM!
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