Living in a different country along with a so different cultural vibe is not easy at all. Things become more complex when there is no English at all. Native speakers are always stick in to Japanese most of the times. This is the situation I had to experience in my very early days in Japan. Meeting someone talking in English is like I found something precious. I feel so relaxing and confident such moments. You might have that feeling.
What I found is amazing…
By the course of time, I understood that, I need to have a considerable level of vocabulary with me for basic communication. I googled deeply and then I understood that how accurate am I with this clue. According to language difficulty rankings, Japanese at the highest difficulty range “of “category No.5” which required at least 2200 hrs of learning.
But I captured one plus point. According to the ranking table my mother language “Sinhala” is just one category lower than Japanese and it also required 1100 hr learning period. This made me quiet fine and I comfort myself. And Sinhala languages is said to be having significant linguistic difference from English. Japanese is said to be exceptionally difficult for native English speakers. Following the digging I started growing my vocabulary along with grammar. I always love finding new words and this wordplay is interesting. And Kanji in Japanese is so difficult. A letter express a “compact idea” which is really amazing and I have never experience it before.
How do I feel among natives
Most of the times, I mispronounce words, sometimes i am not using the suitable words, into the correct place. As an example, when you are addressing an elderly people, there is a certain way in Japanese, a way with more politeness. That particular way made them proud. I always want to give the proper respect they expect, but sometimes I am not excel in it.
My husband always corrects me in such occasions, I feel fine then. So I need to pay an extra effort to practice the application. “which one to which place”. Such occasions, I wish I could wave a magic wand and be able to speak fluently to those grey haired souls.
Sometimes the words we use in conversations literally sounds same but it means something else, so you need to have profound set of vocabulary as well as a reasonable knowledge of application. Therefore whenever my family ask on my language progress my answer is solid and exact always “still learning”(Lol)
Learning a new language is not an easy task, I am saying frequent, but you need to open your gates to let it in. It is true that, I do feel certain discomfort whenever communicating with native speakers, a kind of feeling that is unutterable. But I have to tell you that they are helpful always.
Gift of being bilingual or trilingual
At the very first days I was so shy to make mistakes. But I know “OPOL” (One person one Language) is not the case any more. We may do mistakes, but I know If we did not switch languages in our house we would not have the fun of having bilingual/trilingual gift.
How about your experience of communicating with a new language middle of native speakers?
