This Wednesday was the 18th week the Orlando Japanese Language Meetup been online. We meet every Wednesday from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm. After greeting one another, we started today's event by going over vocabulary. Whenever a person answers their slide correctly, they win a sticker. I won a sticker this week, yay 🙌. The first slide is an English term. If the person knows the Japanese equivalent, they can answer. On the next slide are four options in Japanese that the person then answers in English.

My slide was "to be sunny."
I immediately answered はれる - 貼る.
The options on the next slide were:

• はる - 貼る - to stick, to paste
• はれる - 晴れる - to be sunny
• みせる - 見せる - to show, to display
• わすれる - 忘れる - to forget

Dialogue Practice

Afterward, we do dialogue practice. We are paired with one another in the order of when we enter the video call. We make use of NHK's 2015 Easy Japanese. We did lessons 31 - 36. My partner and I read the slide for Lesson 32. In the skit, Sakura asks Anna, the main character, which she liked better futon or bed. Anna answered futon using the grammar structure のほうが好きです. We were able to translate the slide, but I did get stuck on the word やわらかい. I had a lapse of memory, I was familiar with the term and have heard it before, it was somewhere in my memories, but couldn't remember the meaning, soft. *sigh*

Story Time

As a group, the Japanese folk tales we've read so far have been "北風と太陽 - きたかぜ と たいよう / The North Wind and the Sun", "ジャックと豆の木 - ジャック と まめ の き / Jack and the Beanstalk." And now our current story is "注文の多い料理店 - ちゅうもん の おおい りょうりてん / The Restaurant That Has Many Orders." Anyone can volunteer to read a slide with a short passage from the story. Then after translating, the next slide contains a break down of the vocab terms, conjugations, and grammar structures. After going through it as a group, the host reads the following slide, which is the English translation.

We've gotten further along in the story. Now the two main characters have passed many doors. Each door has an instruction written on the back for them to follow. One door asked them to place their glasses and wallets in a box. Now they were in front of a red door that instructed them to apply medicine on their face and body. Interestingly, the term 塗る - ぬる which I've learned as meaning to paint and to spread was used as the verb for applying the medicine. I've seen the term used for painting a wall and spreading icing on a cake, so seeing it used for applying medicine to one's body was new.

As a group, we've been sharing our many theories for what will happen to the main characters. Most guesses them not having a pleasant ending. They seem to be blindly following each instruction, and any time one of the characters challenges what is written, the other comes up with a justification for the strange message. The first door claims to welcome young and fat people, and that alone is an ominous tip-off. The greeting was “Thank you for coming, especially fat and young people.” They've left their guns at another door, and each new door and instruction screams Spirited Away, or you might be what's on the meal. On the bright side, maybe they'll receive a delightful reward for following the directions.

Though after applying the medicine, they read a note that reminded them to apply the medicine to their ears. But both characters said they forgot to apply it to their ear. But being hungry, they wanted to keep going. So we'll wait until next week to see what happens next.

Time To Get Silly

It was time to watch Sesame Street in Japanese - セサミストリート日本公式. Watching the characters we've grown up with as children speaking Japanese as adults is interesting. Today we had two of our Japanese native members present, which was helpful. The new video we're starting is about Elmo exploring Japan. Admittingly, when Elmo first started talking, I was thrown back for the first 10 seconds at Elmo's energy level. He's not 100% but instead 200%. Elmo seemed to be having fun during his first time seeing under a bridge. We made it to 40 seconds. Let's see how much further we get next week.

Well, that's all folks, thanks for reading.

*Since this is my word vomit dumping ground you can find my more refined written words on Medium. I love using this space to explore my journey as a designer and developer while not getting pressed to write in the most splendid manner. Proofreading, revising and consistently editing take up so much time personally. In the past, this has caused me to write less often something I to avoid. My aim is consistency.

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