L E A R N I N G - N I H O N G O
By Lucathia
A/N: Forgive me for any and all mistakes you will find in the below dialogue...Feel free to critique me.
Japanese is written in romanji and underlined.
Chinese is written in han yu ping ying and is italicized.
Any other languages...er...normal font. :)
chapter 2: self address
The first lessons in learning a foreign language were always boring. Actually, all lessons were boring. Ren strained to keep his eyes open as the little boy rattled on about learning Japanese. Ren couldn't even understand half of what the boy was saying, because he didn't even stick to one language. One moment, the boy seemed to be speaking English, and the next Russian, and the next French, and so on. Ren glared. What kind of teacher confused his student like that? Hmph...only a hyper, unqualified, annoying young brat would do that. Besides...that little boy seemed intent on speaking every single language except Chinese.
"Ahora, nosotros vamos a aprender los numeros! (Now, we are going to learn numbers)," happily concluded "Sensei". Ren had found out at the beginning of the lesson that "Sensei" meant teacher. So basically, the little boy hadn't even given them his name. He just told them to call him "Teacher." Ren grumpily addressed the boy as Sensei, for lack of a better term of address.
What had Sensei just said ? What language WAS that? Ren was Chinese, and Mandarin was all he spoke and understood. Period.
Suddenly, Jun spoke up. "Sensei, shitsumon ga arimasu! (I have a question!)."
Ren glanced at his sister. She sure learned quickly...she was already asking Sensei questions in Japanese.
If it were possible, Sensei brightened up even more. "Douzo! (Go ahead)."
Jun smiled. She was certainly enjoying the lessons. Ren's best guess was that...she enjoyed having an annoying little brat as her teacher. Ren, on the other hand, found that fact VERY hard to accept.
"Ri wen de 'wo' shi zen yang shuo de ne? Wo men zi cheng 'oresama' ma? (How do you say "I" in Japanese? Do we address ourselves as "ore-sama?")" asked Jun.
The little boy laughed. "Iie! Zenzen "ore-sama" wo hanasanai! (No! You never say "ore-sama")!"
After all, whoever called themselves "my honorable self?" Not that many people actually...only those who were a bit conceited. Using the highly honorable suffix sama with the extremely impolite ore was actually quite weird. But the little boy liked it.
"Na wo men shuo shen me ne? (Then what do we say?)" asked Jun. Ren had no clue how she had understood what Sensei had just said...but she understood somehow. He, on the other hand, only understood one side of the conversation.
Sensei tilted his head to the side. "Ii shitsumon da. Good question. Iroiro na waado ga aru. (There are various words.) Ima eigo de iu. (Right now I will tell you in English.)"
Sensei grinned happily and pulled out a few pictures. These would help his kawaii (cute) students in learning the correct forms of self address! The first picture was of a tall, Elvis dress-alike guy riding a motorcycle. His hairdo was reminiscent of a long loaf of bread, except it was black. The guy was giving the camera man a thumbs up.
Sensei showed the picture to Ren and Jun. "This guy would address himself as ore. It's an extremely informal way of address, usually only used by guys."
Jun held the picture in her hand, closely examining it. Ren glanced at it briefly, uninterested. What he really wanted to know was...why the heck was Sensei explaining everything to them in English?
He picked out a few more pictures as examples. "These people also use ore." He showed them a picture of a spiky, blue haired boy with a piece of cloth around his forehead. He was surrounded by icicles, yet he seemed very in place with them. The next picture was of a dark skinned boy with an afro-like hairstyle. He had a round nose and big lips.
Sensei shuffled the pictures, looking for the next one he wanted to show. His eyes came upon the photo of a boy wearing orange headphones and sandals. The boy had about shoulder length hair and the laziest eyes ever. Sensei's eyes shined. He sort of admired the boy's expression.
He briefly showed the picture to his two students. "Now, I've heard this boy address himself as oira. I guess it's his own form of ore!" Now that he thought about it, oira did have a cute ring to it. Maybe he should start addressing himself as that too.
He reshuffled the pictures, his smile wavering a bit when he finally found the next one he was looking for. The boy in this picture looked almost exactly like the boy in the last picture, except he had much longer hair and was wearing a poncho instead. His shoes were a bright red and stars were everywhere, on his earrings, his gloves, and his belt. Also, his expression could only be regarded as dangerous. He was looking towards the camera man, clearly telling the camera man that he knew he was there.
"Now, this boy addresses himself as boku. Boku is also used solely by guys. It is slightly more polite than ore. It's been said that usually little boys use boku, but recently, even adults like to use it, since it is more polite than ore but not as polite as watakushi." He showed them a few more pictures of people who addressed themselves as boku. The first was a picture of a short, light brown haired boy carrying a large book under his arms. He seemed to be hurrying to get somewhere. The second picture was of a green haired boy with emerald eyes wearing a detective like outfit. He had a small smile on his face as he walked along the snowy street in the picture. The next was a picture of a blond haired doctor in a long white coat. The weird thing about the picture was the background, which Ren noticed was a graveyard. A doctor in a graveyard.
Sensei took the pictures back and shuffled them again. He pursed his lips in thought, finally pulling out a picture of a blond haired girl wearing a black dress and a red bandana. She had a frown on her face and her arms crossed.
"She addresses herself as atashi. Atashi is used by females. It's actually a slur derived from watashi which is a shortened form of watakushi. Watakushi is the most formal form of "I". Watashi is slightly less formal and is generally used by females." He quickly shuffled through his pictures once again, pulling out a picture of a short, pink haired girl who was hugging something heart shaped against her white shirt. "I think I heard her use watashi. I'm not too sure."
He gathered all of the pictures started sifting through them once again, wondering if he had missed something. He glanced upon another photo and pulled it out.
"Oh, and of course, you can always address yourself in third person! Such as this girl!" He showed them the picture of a long, blond haired girl wearing a black dress and long, white socks.
Jun held the picture in her hands, wondering what exactly the girl addressed herself as. "Na ta de ming zi shi shen me ne? (Then what is her name?)"
Sensei took the picture back. "Sore wa himitsu da. (That's a secret.)" After all, he wasn't really supposed to be showing his two kawaii students these pictures. He had them for his own personal research purposes. But he had thought that it was an interesting way to teach.
The camera man that he had sent out to take these pictures had been extremely skilled to have been able to take all of the pictures. Some of the targets in the pictures were quite pissed at having their picture taken though. Sensei shook his head sadly. Too bad his camera man never came back after taking that picture of the boy in the poncho. He had to retrieve the camera himself in order to develop the film. And it was too bad that spirits didn't show up on regular film! He would have loved to see how the Spirit of Fire looked like.
Ren hadn't understood most of what Sensei had said, since he never bothered to learn English. Scowling, Ren grabbed the leftover pictures on Sensei's desk, wondering who Sensei had decided not to talk about.
His eyes widened when he saw who was in the pictures. One of the photos featured none other than his sister. She was wearing her usual Chinese attire, a long, tight black dress. She was in the process of letting down her hair in the picture.
How dare that little boy take a picture of his sister without permission!
He wanted to crumple the pictures up when he saw the next picture. A picture of himself with his eyes closed, drinking milk.
What the hell? When had his picture been taken?
He quickly sifted through the pictures, eyes widening more and more with each one he saw. There were pictures of all the people he knew--his mother, his grandfather, his father, and even all of the servants in the household—and there were a whole lot of pictures of people he didn't know as well.
Ren snatched the pictures of himself and his sister, threw them in front of Sensei and demanded, "Zhe shi shen me yi si? (What is the meaning of this?)"
Sensei smiled brightly. "So you found your own pictures! Aren't they nice?" The little boy beamed.
Ren had to wonder whether Sensei really was just a blundering, stupid, innocent little boy or was there some hideous person hiding under that annoying cheerfulness?
"Che. Gen zong kuang. (Che. Stalker.)" muttered Ren under his breath.
Sensei's smile only got wider.
Ren understood, after that terrible first lesson, that in order to learn Japanese, he had to learn English first. Or else, he wouldn't understand a damn thing that little boy said.
to be continued
Notes:
Long explanations will be in English...it just makes everything so much easier...I'm not skilled enough to explain things in Japanese.