A post from our Senseii
Konnichiwa everyone.
In Term 4, I have welcomed 15 new students to
learn Japanese. Out of those, only a couple of students have studied Japanese
at their old schools for a short period of time. I always tell new students not
to worry about having no experience of studying Japanese at all and encourage
them to have a go without worrying about making mistakes. As I have written in
one of the newsletters this year, it is very easy to pronounce Japanese since
the five vowel sounds; A, I, U, E, O, are always pronounced exactly the same no
matter what consonants come before them. Every time I explain this to new
students, they immediately relax a little and have a smile on their faces and
say, ‘that’s good to know’ or ‘better than English!’ Also, comparing to most of
the European languages, I think Japanese is a logical language (Japan as a
nation is very logical too, in my opinion!). Therefore, once you remember 1 to
10, you can count up to 99 easily. Once you know 100, you can count up to 999
easily too.
Digital Dialects has basic Japanese in Romaji. Romaji is the romanization Japanese words into
English letters. You can click on the headphone icons and listen to the actual sounds
before playing language games on this site. Numbers, colours and phrases are good to start
with. There are 40 languages altogether to learn on this site. Why not having a
go with these language games at home, even your children are not one of the new
students. Try speaking in Japanese with your family members. Try counting in
Japanese in front of your dog and see what it says!
If you like doing origami, have a look at Origami Club
website
Leilani and Alexie from 6WS made an origami stegosaurus in
class!
"If
you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you
talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart"
Nelson
Mandela Former president of South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Year 6 students wearing sumo suits on Day for Daniel
