Living Language Note: Over the next few months, our new friend Eric will be learning Japanese and sharing his journey on the blog! When he’s not studying with Living Language Platinum Japanese, Eric is an English instructor at Temple University’s Tokyo campus and at Kikokushijo Academy. Make sure to leave a comment & say hello in the language you’re learning.
Konnichiwa mina-san! (Hello, everyone!) I’ve just finished an eTutoring session with Living Language’s lovely Japanese tutor, Sakura-sensei. Sakura-sensei has been helping me to apply the language I’ve learned in the Living Language Platinum Japanese course to actual conversation skills from the comfort of my own home. Even though I live in Tokyo, it can be very difficult to find someone to speak with at my level of Japanese. Sakura-sensei has been a real lifesaver!
Today we practiced using several of the different ways to count people and objects. Japanese is a bit different from other languages in that it has a lot of different ways of counting. For example, there are specific numbers to use when counting people, as opposed to books, newspapers, and magazines, as well as machines, cylindrical objects, etc. All of these counting systems can be really confusing, but practicing with Sakura-sensei has really been helping me to choose the right words on the spot in conversation. As a language teacher myself, I know that speaking is the most difficult skill for many learners to use in a new language because of its on-the-spot, sporadic nature. That’s why I’m very happy to use the eTutoring feature of the Living Language Platinum Japanese program, which allows me to apply what I have been learning in a productive way with the help of an encouraging, talented tutor like Sakura-sensei.
Not only does Sakura-sensei cover all of the material from the lessons—she also gave me a lot of usage tips to help me sound more natural, especially when choosing between different counting words. For example, when counting 7 people, we can use the words shichinin or nananin. Sakura-sensei taught me today that shichinin sounds more common, as opposed to other counting words for 7, which are more likely to use the prefix nana- instead of shichi-. This is a terribly confusing concept for an American with a background in French and Swedish, so I want all the help I can get from Sakura-sensei when it comes to Japanese!
Sakura-sensei, I want to say arigatou gozaimasu! Thanks so much for all your help! To all you other learners out there, be sure to take advantage of the eTutoring feature to make your language learning experience all the more meaningful.