おりがみがすきです！
I really love origami. For today, here are some things I've folded, including a few traditional Japanese cranes. There's a legend that if you fold a thousand cranes, you'll be granted a wish. One day, I want to make a mobile with a thousand cranes, so I'm always on the lookout for interesting paper that has origami potential.
はじめまして！わたしはナヤクです。
あめりかじんです。ニュージャージからきました。
ぷりんすとんだいがくのにねんせいです。
にほんごのいちねんせいです。
せんこうはじょうほうこうがくです。
Welcome! ナヤクです. I'm excited about learning Japanese this semester! It's hard to explain clearly why I'm taking this class, because instead of having a set goal, I have a lot of smaller interests that link to Japanese language and culture.
For example, one of my friends tells me I'm going to enjoy learning Japanese grammar—I think she's right. Even from our first two classes, I can see that learning how to put phrases together will be an interesting puzzle.
I also read まんが and watch アニメ! Being able to understand more than the translations will make the experience more fun. Maybe I'll talk about that more later on this blog.
I started learning to read ひらがな over the summer, although I still have to learn to write neatly and properly. It's cool to be able to read more things. Learning kanji (meanings, pronunciations, stroke order, stroke type!) is a more intimidating task. For me, I think building my vocabulary will be the hardest part. I still haven't really grasped all the phrases we learned this week, and I'm not even thinking about writing them yet!
Some of my friends have been studying Japanese, and I'm looking forward to speaking with them in a different language, just as I'm looking forward to speaking to my classmates.
