Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Fun day!


Yesterday, we met students who were studying Japanese at University of Maryland. I was surprised that they could understand almost all Japanese words and spoke very well. And I was also surprised that there were students from high school. I think we don’t have such a system in Japan. They had studied Japanese not so many years but they could speak Japanese very well because they studied very hard. I have studied English for about 6 years but I can’t speak English well. I have to study English harder. They were very kind to us and we went bowling and played billiards. I had a very good time with the students.

Then we went to the Kennedy Center for a free jazz concert. It was very good. After the concert, we went to Dupont Circle for dinner. Joe took us to a sushi restaurant, but I wanted to eat other food so I went to a hamburger restaurant with Nikki and Sanae. I apologize to Joe for not trying to eat sushi. There were a lot of unique sushi. Sushi in America was a little different from sushi in Japan. Which do you like?

3 comments:

Nikki said...

Emily,
I enjoyed going to Johnny Rockets with you. It seemed liked you liked your chili dog. Yum!

Nina Liakos said...

Hi Emily,
As I said in class today, those students probably speak well because their class has emphasized speaking ability. Slowly, I think the Japanese education system is recognizing that even excellent reading/writing skills cannot compensate for an inability to speak and understand. In the meantime, you can practice listening to native speakers on the internet. Finding people to speak in English with in Japan is more challenging, but I think not impossible if you are really motivated to find them. Good luck!

I don't eat sushi much, but I have enjoyed what I have tried. I stay away from sashimi though because I don't trust it. And I never eat hamburgers because I have been a vegetarian for almost 40 years! (I eat a little fish, but no meat or poultry.)

Hiromi said...

Hi, Emily!
It seems that meeting the students who have studied Japanese inspires you a lot, right? We often think that learning Japanese is hard, but it might be wrong.

I think Sushi in the US is a lot different from that of Japanese. I guess it's because the differences of culture, and what the Japanese like is not always yummy for the American. Anyway, I like the Japanese style Sushi better.