Tsuri = Fishing

So today was an exciting day!!! I had my first actual Japanese lesson.

The offer community classes for free at most community centers, and I decided to join the one in Namba because it's relatively close to my house and my friend Cathy goes there.

So in the beginning it was really frustrating because they are kinda disorganized. But I can't blame them because all the teaching is volunteer and there are students of all different levels and really the whole thing is a huge undertaking. Anyway, finally we got organized after seeing oldish Japanese ladies running around yelling things in Japanese. I got moved from table to table and finally ended up at a table with "beginners".

At the table there were 6 people. This older lady who was running the class and teaching us, then 2 other people helping to teach (a girl college-aged named Yuki and an older man), and then three students (two guys and myself). It turns out that I actually knew the one guy, he's my roommates friend and came over to fix our internet a few weeks ago. It was surprising that he was in the same class (in the entire session there's like 80 people I would say).

Anyway, so the other two guys knew SO much more than me. But let me tell you first that I basically know nothing. I have a vocabulary of probably 20 random words, and I can count to ten. These guys couldn't make sentences, but they had larger vocabularies than me.

The Japanese girl Yuki was so very nice!! I'm SO happy I met her. She is in college right now, I think she's maybe 22 or 23. She goes to school in Kobe which is about an hour away from Osaka. She is majoring in Russian and minoring in Economics. She flipped out when I told her I was from Canada because she stayed in Vancouver to learn English for 10 months. We became friends really quickly and she helped me along in the class. She basically was teaching me everything because I would ask her whenever I didn't know something. Her english was surprisingly good for living in Canada for only 10 months. I think we will be friends which is just so cool. After the class she photocopied some beginner lesson plans for me to teach myself during the week.

So yes, I love the class, although at one point I seriously did want to cry and I almost felt the tears welling up because I was just so frustrated and didn't understand a thing the woman was saying. Like I felt the same way I did in grade 4 when I returned from missing a day of school and the class had learned long division and I had no idea what was going on. I started bawling and then my teacher taught me and I was okay. I just am like that with learning I think...

Thanks to Yuki and her translating everything for me. Japanese is just seriously so freaking complex. You really have no idea...

p.s. The guy beside me is from England and one of his hobbies is fishing and so I learned that it's 'tsuri' in Japanese.

p.p.s. I learned how to spell my name in Hiragana!!!