I'm really excited that I'm able to communicate, at least on some level, with many of the Japanese people that I encounter. What I'm particularly excited about, is being able to communicate with my host mother!
At first, I felt like I would never be able to communicate with her, because her regional speech was slightly different than I was accustomed to hearing, and she spoke very quickly. But now I'm able to talk to her about things that I've done in school, and about the friends I'm making.
I was also able to listen to a lecture on homelessness and the Burakumin community in Japan, in Japan. I was able to understand perhaps about 70% of the lecture. I was extremely happy, especially because much of the language and vocabulary used was not vocabulary that I've encountered in my textbooks-most books don't actively bring up social issues and discrimination in Japan.
This is really exciting to me, especially because I was not confident in my ability to speak Japanese. In fact, while I was packing for my trip, I pretty much had a meltdown and broke out the books for some emergency study time! I'm happy because I'm also improving, and I can even feel people responding to my Japanese differently! Well...I do have my first major test tomorrow, so I should probably head home to study!
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