“Hello friends. I’ll try to keep this entry short. You’ll understand why after reading.

So, of course the reason that I came to Japan was to get better at Japanese. And, since coming to Japan in September I have made leaps and bounds of progress in Japanese. I am far from skilled, but I am certainly much better than before. That being said, I still have a long way to go and a couple points of “”ki ni naru.”" or, “”things that are getting to me.”"

I learned Japanese in a really weird way. Through teaching myself when I was younger, singing along to a ton of music for years, and studying Japanese phonetics for a few months, I feel like I have fairly decent pronunciation of Japanese. That is, I feel like my skill in pronunciation is my strong point, and definitely the only thing that could single me out in terms of Japanese ability. But, although I have confidence in my pronunciation, I do not have that same confidence in speaking. The things I know how to say, I can say well. Unfortunately, the things I know how to say are very limited. I feel like I can give a fantastic, near fluent introduction to someone, and trip over my tongue for the next 20 minutes. It’s very paradoxical. I can always see the looks of confusion twisting themselves into the faces of my listeners.

Which makes me think, I haven’t really improved that much since I’ve been here. I can understand a mountain more than when I came, but I can’t replicate that mountain and spit it back out, not even close. So, what do I have to show for my improvements? Not a lot.

Thus, I decided three days ago, not including my times with Risa or writing on this blog, I will only be speaking and writing in Japanese until I leave on August 4th. I can always speak my best and remember the most Japanese when I do it for days on end, so I can’t keep jumping in and out of English. Since three days ago I can already feel a profound difference. It feels strange to be writing, thinking in English. So, it’s time to stop.

“