Hello everyone! I hope you`ve had a good week!

Since I`ve been in Japan, I`ve made an effort to study Japanese. I`ve really enjoyed learning new things such as grammar, and kanji! One thing that is very interesting to me is the sentence structure. In most cases, the sentence structure of Japanese and English is completely switched! For example, the verb always comes at the end of the sentence, so I must wait for the complete sentence to fully understand. In English, because the subject and verb are among the first things being said in a sentence, I can assume the ending of the sentence. In these ways, I better understand the difficulties some of my students could have when translating Japanese sentences into English.

Another aspect of Japanese which I find interesting are the different hiragana readings of kanji! For example, the kanji for day could be read in many different ways depending on the context of the word. At first, I found it to be difficult, but it`s actually no different to learning new words in English! To be honest, I`m actually still learning new English vocabulary words!

My experience learning Japanese has been great! And I feel a sense of pride when I successfully use it when I`m shopping or asking a question. I want my students to feel this way when they use English successfully outside of school.

Thank you so much for reading! See you!

Ruben Quesada

ルーベン先生からです！

ルーベン先生は日本語を学ぼうと頑張っているそうです。日本語を学んでいる中で興味深いと思ったことは、文の構造だそうです。ほとんどの場合、日本語と英語の文の構造は真逆なんです。たとえば日本語では動詞は常に文の最後に来るので、完全に理解するためには文の最後まで待たなくてはいけません。ですが、英語の場合、主語と動詞は文の最初に来るので、文の最後を予想することができます。

もう一つ日本語の面白いところは、漢字に対していろいろなひらがな読みができることです。最初は難しいと思ったそうですが、実は英語で新しい言葉を学ぶのと全く変わらないとのことです。

ルーベン先生は買い物に行ったり、質問をするときに正しく日本語を使えると誇らしい気分になるそうです。

みなさんにも学校の外で英語を使う時そんなふうに感じてもらえたらな、とのことでした！

ルーベン先生に会ったら、彼の知っている日本語のことばについて聞いてみるのも面白いと思います♪