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Originally Posted by Cayla
You know "RobenMask" you must be like extremely smart!!!!
But just today I learned in SS(social studies) that there is a "thing" you can go through and learn more about the culture you will soon go to. I can't remember the name of what it was.
Roben, I just wanted to know what was your best subject in all the grades
up to fourth grade?
Mine is spelling. I promise you in my entire life I have NEVER EVER gotten below an A in spelling.  |
Thanks - I don't think I'm anywhere near as smart as some of the other members though, but maybe in time, lol!
Ah, that sounds quite interesting. Have you considered a student-exchange programme too? I'm not sure of the details, but you'd be able to spend a little time with a Japanese family and attend a Japanese school, I think sometimes in return a Japanese student will visit your home too, so on return you'd have some extra contact with the Japanese culture via a fellow student. Good for language practise though. You could ask your school for details, or perhaps a fellow member might be able to give sites or information about details
To be honest I don't know what the grades are
Here our schooling system is different . . . is fourth grade about age eight? Our "year four" is our fifth year of schooling, and the kids in that year/grade are around 8-9. I feel so old, I can't remember that far back XD I think my best subjects were maths and religious education, actually. Congratulations on doing so well in spelling too, that's awesome
Spelling and English are very important subjects, so they'll be very useful to you in life.
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Originally Posted by Cayla
What on Earth is katakana & hiragana?!
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Jambo summed it up, but I'll add some detail anyway XD
Katakana and Hiragana (the kanas) are the two main Japanese alphabets. The Katakana are what they mainly use to write foriegn words, or any 'borrowed' words from foriegn languages, so in menus things like 'coffee' and 'cake' will probably be written in Katakana. Hiragana is used for grammatical markers, so things like 'and' or 'to', and they are also used to tell you when a word is past/present tense and things like that - it's also used to tell you how a kanji is said, usually written small over the top.
Kanji are symbols that represent a word as a whole. Chinese characters really. It's useful to learn a few, like 'push' and 'pull' for doors, or 'stop' for the road signs, that kind of thing . . . there's around forty 'letters' in each alphabet (probably take you a week or two to learn each), and like Jambo said around 2000 or more kanji, but I think you just need around 1700 to be 'fluent' in reading. Kanji take absolutely ages to learn, so I'd say start with speaking the language and learning the 'kana', then move onto kanji when you feel confident.