which is grade school kanji books! And cheap too at $1.00 for each. My ototo has the first grade one but I decided to jump to the 2nd and 3rd grade ones. They are little workbooks that teach you a lot of words and kanji. I heart them already. I'm working my way up through the joyo kanji. I'm really lucky that my okaasan is an English teacher because she helps me a lot with my homework and random kanji questions. My comprehension of spoken Japan is definitely improving because I can pick out words now. I'm also noticing a lot of verbal patterns (it that makes any sense.) One thing that I am picking up is Kansai Ben. Someone pointed it out to me the word differences and now I can't help but notice it.Here are some examples of Kansai Ben that my host family uses:
romanized Japanese/ Kansai ben/ English meaning
iu/yuta/to say
totemo/metcha/really
omoshiroi/omoroi/interesting
yosh/yussha/affirmative
Today was Foundation Day which is a Japanese National Holiday which also means that I didn't have classes. I decided to spend the day inside with the the kotatsu and my homework. My okaasan said that Foundation Day is supposed to celebrate Japan's reconstruction. I found this ironic because the required reading for my class Political Economies of East Asia deals with the development of Japan as a superpower after World War II. It is some pretty interesting stuff. I don't want to bore you all with the details but one reason why is because of US foreign aid and the goal to stop the spread communism. Ah...面白い。
The day before Foundation day, I spent some time wandering Hirakata City with a friend. One thing we noticed was the overabundance of toy vending machines. They are expensive too. Some are 100円 but I saw some for 200円. The coolest one I found was one for Japanese money. I think it was for keitai (cellphone) straps. I was really tempted to get one because my phone looks really bare without one. Now I'm really regretting it. They look like they make good souvieners. *coughs*
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