My first Japanese letter

The other day, our sensei gave us an assignment to write either a letter of invitation or a letter declining an invitation.

The assignment encouraged ( forced? ) me to write my first-ever Japanese letter.

For the assignment, I thought of writing a letter of invitation to Emma, my childhood friend. With sensei’s help, I was able to compose a letter inviting her to go to Bantayan Island with me.

Below is my letter:
————————————————-
エッマさん、暑い日が続いていますが、いかがお過ごしですか。

私は元気に過ごしています。月曜日から金曜日まで会社で働いています。
休みは友達 といっしょにテレビをみて、ｍｐ３をきいて、いろいろ食べ物を作ります。ときどき、アヤラで映画をみます。私のセブでの人生はおだやかで楽しいです。

さて、夏休みのよていはもう決まりましたか。もしよろしかったら、セブへ遊び にいっらしゃいませんか。

エッマさんはＢａｎｔａｙａｎ　Ｉｓｌａｎｄをしっていますか。 Ｂａｎｔａｙａｎ　Ｉｓｌａｎｄはきれいな海があります。みんな行きたがるんですよ。ぜひ、一緒に行きましょう。

では、お返事をお待ちしています。

２００８年５月８日

Romaji:
Emma-san, atsui hi ga tsuzuite imasu ga, ikaga osugoshi desu ka.

Watashi wa genki ni sugoshite imasu. Getsuyoubi kara Kinyoubi made kaisha de hataraite imasu. Yasumi wa tomodachi to issho ni terebi o mite, mp3 o kiite, iroiro tabemono o tsukurimasu. Tokidoki, Ayara de eiga o mimasu. Watashi no Cebu de no jinsei wa odayaka de tanoshii desu.

Sate, natsu yasumi no yotei wa mou kimarimashita ka. Moshi yoroshikattara, Cebu e asobi ni irrashaimasen ka.

Emma-san wa Bantayan Island o shitte imasu ka. Bantayan Island wa kirei na umi ga arimasu. Minna ikitagarun desu yo. Zehi, issho ni ikimashou.

Dewa, ohenji o omachi shite imasu.

5/8/2008

(Rough) English translation:
Emma-san, hot days continue; how have you been?

As for me, I am fine. I work in the company from Mondays to Fridays. On restdays, I watch TV, listen to mp3, and cook various food with my friends ( for letter purposes only ). My life in Cebu is peaceful and enjoyable.

By the way, have you already decided on a summer vacation plan? If it is convenient/okay with you, why don’t you enjoy (literal translation of “asobu”) Cebu?

Emma-san, do you know about Bantayan Island? Bantayan Island has a beautiful sea. Everybody wants to go there. Let’s go there together by all means.

Well then, I am waiting for your reply.

5/8/2008
————————————————-

The letter above is the first letter that I have written in Japanese.

Though I am having difficulty in our 2-kyuu class, being able to do stuff like writing a letter in Japanese sometimes makes me forget about the difficulty.

Day 2 of my 2-kyuu misadventure

Today marks the second day of my Nihongo 2-kyuu (level 2) misadventure, in other words, the second day of my 2-kyuu classes.

See the grinning emoticon above? I did not put it there to express my happiness over being able to attend the 2-kyuu class. On the contrary, I’m not happy. I’m scared. I’m exhausted. I felt nervous from the moment I stepped into the conference room where we held our Nihongo classes until the time that I walked out of that room. I was scared that our sensei would ask me to read an almost all-Kanji sentence and I would not be able to read it… Feeling nervous and scared is exhausting.

Anyway, the grin above is supposed to be a crazy grin, a grin of a person who knows she shouldn’t be doing what she is doing because achieving her goal is practically impossible.  But like a crazed kamikaze pilot on a suicidal misson who fears for his life but still does the mission, I’m doing it anyway. Even though I’m scared of the embarrassment that results from not being able to understand most of what our sensei is saying (he speaks mostly in Nihongo), not being able to catch up with my classmates, not being able to participate in the conversation exercises, and not being able to answer our seatworks and quizzes, I’m attending the class anyway. I like learning Nihongo even though attending our Nihongo classes is nerve-wracking and exhausting for me… I will attend until the day our sensei will finally be fed up with me and will verbally ask me to transfer to another class or stop attending his class… But until that day will come, I will continue attending my Nihongo classes… So bite me.

On a lighter note (but still on the subject of my second day of classes), I learned a lot today, some of which I should’ve learned during my 3-kyuu classes.  Hehe

Most of the things I learned were words that were new to me (though not necessarily new to my classmates). Here’s a list of these words:

kankyou – environment
shizen – nature
junban ni – in order
hatsumei – invention
hakken – discovery (so this is what “hakken” means in Joanna’s speech “Yokisenu Yoimono no Hakken” hehe)
choushi – condition (I realized during class that this is a level 3 word)
buki – arms (based on what I understand from our sensei’s explanation, the kanji character for “bu” means “samurai”, and the kanji character for “ki” means “tool”)
tsuini – at last
tsumori – intend to do (another level 3 word)
terashite – shine
nandaka – somewhat (as in, “nandaka kowai na”, which means “somewhat scary”)
chikazuku – go close (as in, “I go close to <place>”)

That’s all I can list down for now.

Till next time.