今日私は友だちのダーナに会いました。

ダーナの馬はコーヒーを飲んでいました。

馬はコーヒーが大好き。ビールも。

私たちは今朝寝坊「ねぼう」しました。

午前７時30分に起きました。

コーヒーを飲んで、服を着ました。

8時に家で出ました。

家から大学まで車で10分です。

日本語のクラスは8時１５分にはじめました。

クラスは早いに終わりました。そして私は徒歩で家へ帰りました。

それから日本語を勉強しました。

午後３時にスーパーで買い物しました。

後はむすこを起こしました。

夫は午後７時に帰りました。

晩ご飯を食べました。

それから本を読みました。

午後10時むすこを仕事に取りました。

午後10時むすこを仕事場まで運びました。

後は風呂に入って、寝ました。

質問とコメント

This week, our Japanese teacher told us to keep a daily diary in Japanese. Of course, for class I'll have to write it out by hand. (I like doing that, though, as I find physically writing out Japanese really helps me remember the characters better). However, to compose a piece, I prefer to use the keyboard which is so much faster.

As you might be able to guess, we are learning the past tense of verbs. We also learned some words to connect actions in a sequence.

I didn't know how to say "I took my son to work." I thought of saying it "I drove my son to work." but, in Japanese, that sounded to me as if he were a vehicle. It doesn't in English, even though the construction is the same as, "I drove my car to work."

初めて私は駒鳥（こまどり）を見ました。

たぶん日本の駒鳥ちょっとちがいます。

英語でrobinです。

質問とコメント

1. In those parts of the United States which have four seasons, the robin is one of the first birds of spring. Of course, Texas is in the south, where the birds go during the winter. So when spring comes, this robin will fly north.

2. The robin is a very common bird and often shown in children's books. But I have never seen a robin before in my life. According to Peterson Field Guides: Birds of Texas, Austin is on the western boundary of its habitat.

3. The Latin name of the bird I saw is Turdus migratorius. He has a gray back and a red breast. But the photos on Google for komadori, show a bird that is blue with a red head. And another photo of the ヨーロッパ駒鳥 (Erithacus rubecula) was different still. Birdwatching is very confusing!

First flower. Mexican plum Prunus mexicana.
Austin, TX. 2003-01-21.

今日大学は休日でした。

休みの日は「Martin Luther King Jr. Day」です。

私は掃除しました。洗濯をしました。日本語を勉強しました。

毎日はいつも同じわね。

漢字を書くことはれんしゅうしました。

先生の手書きは左にある。私の右にある。

What I Meant to Say

School was closed today for Martin Luther King Day. I cleaned the house, did the laundry, and studied Japanese. Everyday it's the same old thing. Today I practiced writing kanji. My teacher's handwriting is on the left. Mine's on the right.

質問とコメント

1. Our teacher gave us this handout for homework. I wished she had used Japanese paper with the little grids. It's hard to practice handwriting with no lines, especially kanji. Maybe next time, I will use one of my own Japanese notebooks.

2. We had four pages of kanji to practice. It is taking a long time. There's no way I would have been able to go to this class when I had a child or a full-time job. My teacher says we should practice at least two hours every day. I have the time to do this, but few of the other students do.

私の車はマツダロードスターです。

アメリカのなまえは「ミアタ」です。

今夜むすこの仕事場から自宅まで車で四分32秒でした。

32丁。赤信号がありませんでした。

楽しかったね。

What I Meant to Say

My car's a Mazda MX-5 Roadster. (In the States, it's called a "Miata".) Tonight, I drove, from my son's workplace, home in 4 minutes, 32 seconds. Thirty-two city blocks and no red lights. Wow, it was fun!

大学の建物は古いですよ。

「バック・トゥ・ザ・フューチャー」に高校の建物ちょっと同じです。

でも学期教室は地階にです。

窓がありません。

日本語の先生は韓国人と思います。

千学期の先生は「is pregnant」。

先学期の先生は「is pregnant」。

What I Meant to Say

The college where I take Japanese is in an old building. It looks sort of like the high school building in the movie "Back to the Future". I like it. But, this semester, our classroom is in the basement. There are no windows.

I think our new Japanese teacher is Korean. What happened to the teacher I had last semester? She's pregnant!

質問とコメント

1. ACC stands for Austin Community College. Some people would say it is an acronym, like NATO or SCUBA, but it is not. It is an initialization. Acronyms can be pronounced like words.

2. ACC has many campuses around town. I go to the campus downtown because it is near my house and I can walk or take the bus. It looks like an old high school because this building was, originally, the first high school in Austin.

3. I like the atmosphere of this old building. But I hate the parts they have "modernized". Like my new classroom. It's so ugly. How will I learn in it?"

4. I just realized that I don't know how to say "What happened?". I can say "What (is it)?" and "What are you doing." But what if you aren't doing anything? What if it just happens?"

今日私は学校へ行きました。

新しい先生がいました。

新しいクラスマトがいました。友だちも。

私は今勉強しましょう。

ブログを書かないで。

Generally Speaking

Today I went to school. (Today school started again.) New teacher. New classmates. Some familiar faces. Now I should be studying. Must stop writing on my blogs.

ウーロンは逝きました。

うさぎでした。

八才でした。

頭の上にいろいろなものが「balanced」。

かわいぞう。

Generally Speaking

Oolong the rabbit has died. He liked to balance various things on his head. (If you go to this link, you'll see some of the snow in Hokkaido that Kiyo has been talking about. Brrrr.) I had visited Oolong's site a couple of times before. I feel very sad for the owner who loved her pet so very much.

質問とコメント

1. As I was trying to translate the message about Oolong to find out what happened, Akutagawa-san provided an English translation.

2. This confused me. She uses the word 具合 (ぐあい) which WordLookup translates as health condition or state of one's health. My Japanese-English dictionary concurs. But the compound is not in my kanji dictionary. The closest I found was 工合 (ぐあい) which is translated as state or manner. Since both kanji are related to the concept of "tool", I wonder if the terms are interchangeable. When do you use one or the other?

いまピーップスさんの日記がオンラインである。

ピーップスさんはイギリス人でした。

1660年に有名な日記を書きました。

この英語はちょっと難しいですがとても面白いですよ。

Generally Speaking

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is now online. (It is being posted on a daily basis in weblog format with annotations and links to people and places of the time.) Pepys was an Englishman. In 1660, he began writing this famous diary of London life and people. The English of the diary might be a little difficult, but it is very interesting.

クリスマスのまつりは終わり。

クリスマスの時期はクリスマスの日と12日間26日12月から６日１月までです。

本日はクリスマスの十二日です。

主顕祭です。

英語で「epiphany」。いみは顕われる。「appearance, revelation, manifestation」

スペイン語で「El dia de los Reyes」。三人王の日。

新聞に説明書です。

Generally Speaking

Christmas celebrations are finally over. The Christmas season includes Christmas Day and the twelve days from December 26th to January 6th. (This is the twelve days of Christmas alluded to in the Christmas carol.) So today is the twelfth day of Christmas. (Last night was "Twelfth Night" like the name of the Shakespeare play.)

Today is the epiphany. Epiphany comes from the Greek word meaning appearance or manifestation. In the Catholic church, the Feast of the Epiphany is celebrated as the day that the baby Jesus was revealed (by the Three Kings, or Three Wise Men) as the savior that had been prophesied. In Spanish, today is called "The Day of the Kings". Traditionally, this is the day we received gifts, just as the Three Kings brought the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrhh to the baby Jesus.

The average American knows little about the Epiphany. However, because there are so many Mexican-Americans in Texas, and because most are Catholic, there was an article in today's paper explaining it.

質問とコメント

1. today: when do you use 本日 [ほんじつ] and when do you use 今日 [きょう]?

明けましておめでとうございます

質問とコメント

1. Looking back on 2002, I'm thankful that it has been a wonderful year. I've had the chance to return to school and to study something that really interests me (Japanese, of course), just for the sake of learning.

2. I'll also remember 2002 as the year I met a handful of very interesting people via their weblogs. Although I'd read quite a few blogs in 2001, it became much more fun when this circle of friends began a dialogue, commenting back and forth on each other's entries. One of the first weblogs I read after we got Movable Type was Jeremy Hedley's antipixel. He introduced me to Kurt Easterwood's hmmm....musings, who in turn introduced me to Hatano Kiyoharu (just Kiyo in plain English) at KEC Journal. Kiyo then introduced his friend Osada Eri, the Eri of Cronica di Eri. Kiyo also alerted us Darren Cheng's arrival in Japan so that we could follow his adventures on the JET Progam in his Notes to Myself. Ken Loo began sharing his amazing insights with us at Ken Loo's World. And Jason Cha commented frequently on all these sites and so I began reading his weblog, too; so it seems fitting that he has just moved back to Japan.

3. To all of you, I wish you and your family the best in this coming year. I hope that you all keep writing, too!

4. I'm looking forward to more people joining our informal "international" club. And I'm looking forward to the day when I'll be able to write a great deal more in Japanese than I'm doing now.