Thursday, August 21, 2008

My Japanese Speech

On the last full day of our Japanese course we had to give a speech about where we are from (in Japan or elsewhere). I chose to do a speech on Zamami accompanied by a slideshow.

I talked about the ocean, eisa, and fishing. I wrote all of the sentences more-or-less myself, so they don't contain a lot of new words to learn, but this speech did help me a lot with sentence structure and hiragana reading. Most of the alphabet that you see below is hiragana. There are a few foreignish words (like kayak, drum, and dance) that are in katakana. I'll put the English words in parentheses and maybe you can see the difference between hiragana and katakana. There are also a few kanji in the speech - they are recognizable as much more complicated characters.

きょう は わたしの町、ざまみに ついておはなし します。
まず、うみに ついて、 つぎに えいさに ついて、最後に つりに ついて おはなし します。


まず 海に ついて、かんたんに しょうかいしましょう。
なつは うみのみずは あつい です。  ふゆ は うみのみずは つめたいです。
はちがつ に うみは とても クリアで きれいです.
およぐ ときは、スンケリング (sunkaringu - snorkeling) が おすすめです。 


では、つぎに 沖縄の えいさは でんとうてきな おどり です。 
沖縄の おんがく と ドラム (durumu - drum) で ダンス (dansu - dance) を します。


最後に つりは さいこう です。
沖縄の がらと かじきと まぐろです。 がらが いちばん すきです。
カヤク (kayaku - kayak) か ふねに のって つります。
さかなは とても おおきくて はやいです。 

なつが いちばん いい きせつ です。
ぜひ 沖縄の ビチ へ きて ください。
えいさ とつい が おすすめです。

では みなさん ごしつもん よろしく おねがいします。

It is cool that a year ago I'd have been helpless with this speech and now I can write and read it.

7 comments:

erin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
erin said...

Your Japanese appears to be far superior to my Setswana.
As usual, you look good when compared to me! That's why you keep me around, right?
you should have come here instead...

Anonymous said...

Hello, How are you doing?

When will yo8u come back to Zamami?
We have BBQ party at Hamaya-so at August 25th.

Please return your answer soon☆

        From Zamami teachers

Anonymous said...

Impressive! Even though the class was really challenging, it looks like you learned a lot after all :-)

Anonymous said...

hey, great job, dave!! is スンケルング the way they say it in 沖縄? i think i usually see it written either as シュノーケリング or スノーケリング.

Dave said...

Naomi, I just guessed on how to spell snorkeling. I think what you provided (スノーケリング) is probably what the teacher was trying to teach me. I am confused by the second character, after the ス. what is that character? Also, how do you type the ー?

Anonymous said...

hey dave! the second character after the ス is "の", or "no." and you get the dash by hitting the dash/underscore key to the right of the "zero" key. 

and re: your most recent post. i had mahi-mahi for dinner the other day too! except it came frozen in a vacuum-sealed bag from the grocery store, and not freshly-caught via kayak. :(