Forgetting my Japanese

I am seriously forgetting all my Japanese. I speak English at home, I work in an English-only environment now and my last Japanese class was in February before we left Nagoya. It’s a bad situation. My university are offering free classes and I went along for a level check today. The teacher asked me a few questions in Japanese and I thought I muddled through. I always forget numbers and dates, so that didn’t look good (I wanted to tell her that I mix them up in English too half the time). At the end of the interview, she told me that I would be put in the beginner’s class! I was so upset! I’m not a beginner! After 3 years of living in Japan – how can I be put in the beginner’s class!? I knew I was rusty, but things were worse that I imagined! I now know how my students feel when they are placed in low streams at university after years of study. It feels like everything up til now has been a waste of time. Now that I have calmed down a bit, I know this isn’t true and I am determined not to give up.

Antics in Yoyogi Park

I’m starting to feel a little more settled, so it’s time to re-activate the blog.

At the end of January we found a flat in the Tokyo Bay area. Since then we have travelled to Ireland, started new jobs, moved apartment, travelled back to Nagoya twice for meetings and the graduation ceremony, attended the IATEFL conference in Exeter, played “host family” to Yuuki, one of my old students from Nagoya and waited for Internet… Now that the conference in out of the way and I am online again, I am starting to feel like I live here.

We had a fun day yesterday in Yoyogi Park. Flea market, dog show and buskers. I will let the photos say it all: http://picasaweb.google.com/jomynard/TokyoApril272008