PE1: Goal and Activity Statement

From the past few days of class, my first days of Japanese class, I've realized the stark difficulty of off-the-cuff listening and speaking. Funny to say, holding a conversation with せんせい　or classmates reminds me exactly of my few experiences speaking Latin: I have a pretty firm grasp on both vocabulary and grammar, but the ear and tongue slow the communication down considerably. So, PE!

Without that much conversational Japanese experience yet, I can't come up with the most detailed goals, but I'll start on some of these points:

• Start to pay attention to pitch and intonation -- memorize pitch when memorizing 単語
• Vary grammatical constructions and vocabulary for more practice and mind-wracking fun!
• Speak 大きい声で (and faster) to focus on sounding natural instead of just strictly observing grammar rules

As 柴田先生 explained it to me today, shadowing should be very helpful to improving my speech. Oddly enough, I haven't been watching much anime recently, but I suppose I have a pretty good excuse now. Ah, I will attend 日本語のテーブル too. In any case, my main concern for my first few weeks will be establishing a routine for studying and practicing Japanese. Glad to be part of this!