My first word

My Japanese language skills leave MUCH to be desired. At this point, I am best able to tell people "Nihongo ga wakarimasen" (I don't understand Japanese). At that point they laugh, say something else and I shake my head. Some will still try to communicate with me. Others just politely bow and walk away. I find that the language CDs got me familiar with some words. I can fake my way through an order at a restaurant because I know to listen for tabemasu and nomimasu (eat and drink). I can count to 10, maybe even 99. I am far from conversational, though.

To that end, we're working on hiring a tutor. The first one is not available anymore so I need to find some time during the day to go downstairs and talk to the woman there that had offered to teach us. Hopefully she's still willing and able and I can finally understand what they're yelling when I walk into the market.

The written stuff is hard. There are 2 'alphabets' that are commonly used for phonetic spellings. In addition there are some thousand kanji. The problem I have with the phonetics is that even if I can sound out a word, it's in Japanese and I still have no idea what it means. Santa gave me a Japanese-English dictionary that has romaji in it that I put to use for those, when I remember. Before that, I had a few words in the back of my pocket helpful situation book and some random words in my kana crossword book (how I learned most of those 'letters' in the first place). I also had my translator and my cell phone, but those like me to enter the symbols and that can be very time consuming when you don't quite understand the order they're in on the keypad.

Nevertheless, I read and understood my first word on the fly the other day. Well, honestly it's probably my third word - I know the kanji for Nagasaki and Isahaya, but I'm not counting those. It was on an LED sign - ガソリン.

This is important for many reasons. 1) I actually bothered to look at a sign, even though I figured I wouldn't know what it said. 2) I took the time in my brain - which was painful, I assure you - to work it out as I sat at the stop light. 3) I figured it out in time to point it out to other people in the car - which meant it couldn't have taken THAT long for me to get it.

It made me feel good, as silly as the word is. It fueled me want to learn more and get better. It pumped me up to read signs and try to decipher them, knowing I have a book with the romaji once I get close enough. This illiterate has made progress and now wants more. It's amazing what the smallest sense of victory can do for your drive.

Oh, yeah...what does the kana mean, you ask? Gasorin. ;)