Saturday, September 27, 2008

やっぱり慣れた

三年ぶり日本に戻って来た前、大変心配しました。

日本語忘れしまった、ゼミを日本語でやるの計画もあったし、本当に困った。でも、やはり大丈夫でした。だいたい覚えてきました。

考えなくと、日本語が口からやすやすと出った。しかし、考え過ぎだと神経が高ぶってしゃべられないです。と言う事で、多分頭の中には、日本語がまだまだ分かる。考えなくと自然に話せる。考え過ぎとダメだね。もちろん、前と比べるだと単語が絶対忘れた。それと言葉の間違い時もうありますね。でも、話が出来たでうれしかったね。

一週間だけが立った、夢にも日本語で見えます。昨夜の夢が半々日本語と英語になった。今朝起きたと電話があった。家の子供たちと話中で日本語で喋りたかった。びっくりしました!「ママが起きたばかりなのに」がちょうど口から出るところで「あら!英語しか分からないのに、ちゃんと英語で話さなくちゃだね」と思い出した。変な感じだった。

とりあえず、安心だね。日本語をまったく忘れた事ではないって、良かったね。

これから、アメリカに帰るとちゃんと日本語の練習をしなければ成りません。長い間使わないだと、もっともっと忘れるはずさ。勉強しないと今度日本へ来ると今頃の日本語で出来ないかもね。だから、ちゃんと練習した方がいいよね。

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How 'bout an English translations for us single-language people?

geekymama said...

Okay, okay.. Here's the translation:

Title = Yep, I adjusted.

Content: It had been three years since I'd been back to Japan..so I was really worried.

I was sure I'd forgotten the language and the plan was for me to present the conference in Japanese - I was freaked out.
However, in the end it was really okay after all. I pretty much remembered (the language).

If I didn't think about it - the Japanese would just come out of my mouth easily. But if I thought about it, I'd clam up from nervousness.
I'd say it's like this: the words are there somewhere in my head. If I don't think too much then I speak naturally. Of course, comparing to how I used to be (able to speak) I've definitely lost some vocabulary. And I was confusing words (especially words that sounded similar). But still, I was happy I was able to speak.

(Side note not in Japanese in the Blog entry: It reminded me of someone with a brain injury trying to recover their speech. I occasionally mistook words that were similar enough in sound..)

After just one week in Japan my dreams started occurring in Japanese (again). Last night's dream was a mixture of 50/50 English and Japanese.
This morning I was woken up by a phone call. When talking with the kids I found myself having to work at not speaking Japanese to them. This surprised me! I was just about to say: (in Japanese) "I've only just woken up" before I realized- uh, hey, wait a minute..my kids only understand English. That was a strange feeling.

In any case, I'm relieved. It's not like I forgot all my Japanese. That's good.

So, once I go back the States this time I promise myself I'm really going to work at practicing Japanese. Without using it I'm sure I'll forget even more. If I don't study I'm sure the next time I come to Japan I won't be able to speak Japanese. So, yep, this time it'd be good if I made some time to study.