Laundry = せんたく

I probably should have taken greater warning a month ago when I filled out my language questionnaire and composition assignment for the two-week Japanese course I'm currently attending in Osaka. I was pretty proud of my ability to decipher the question for the composition assignment, but there was no hope that I could write anything meaningful down. So I wrote something to that effect in English. They wrote back and said I needed to write something. So I told them what my hobbies are.

I didn't know how out of place I was until orientation started today and it was all in Japanese and everybody else (56 people) understood what was going on. They talked and talked and presumably told us all about the format of the program and what we are going to learn. Then at the break a woman came up and started asking me questions in Japanese.

Rarely do people speak to me in Japanese in real-life, meaningful situations. So my lack of ability to understand doesn't really matter. But this mattered. The woman knew who I was because of my crummy application and was trying to tell me that this class is not designed for me. She said that everybody is at a level quite a bit higher than me and the curriculum is designed for them. She ended by saying "good luck." (She also told me she really likes Zamami.)

Then we had the placement test. It was four pages long and I couldn't even understand the first question (the easy one!). Nor the second. Ordinarily I would guess, but I didn't think that was such a hot idea on the placement test. After ten minutes the woman brought me an 'easy' test which was all in hiragana, an alphabet I do know. Unfortunately, as I'm learning, my Japanese knowledge primarily consists of vocabulary words. When speaking I just piece vocab words together without the proper grammar to connect them. That didn't really cut it on the test, though.

Afterwards the woman came up and asked me if I knew what the sentences meant that I couldn't answer. I said yeah, mostly, except for this word and that word. She said that word is 'train' and that word is 'station.' We kept doing this until things clicked for her: on Zamami we don't have trains or stations or buildings over three stories tall or concerts. So I don't know any of those words. Which means the next two weeks are probably going to be a pretty humbling experience (not to mention a less-than-fun part of my summer vacation).

On the upside, they have free laundry here!