Japanese

Here are some of the people that went out our Japanese class 'end of the year party'. Most of those guys are my classmates...

There are people from Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Brazil that are regular members of the class.

So I just thought I'd update you on my language progress. Basically: I suck. :) I generally still go to a 2-hour class, twice a week (although its not as beneficial as you'd think because they are two completely separate once-a-week classes). I also study on my own with flash cards, and use a VERY nifty site called smart.fm to study.

I can feel my listening getting better all the time. But I'm not convinced that my speaking has improved since I started my first Japanese class 8 years ago!

Okay, I'm being a little facetious, but dude....any ideas on how to start speaking better? :)

But, I do get super annoyed when certain people judge me on not being able to speak. I'm not a missionary or something, whose job it is to learn Japanese and spread the word! I'm an ENGLISH teacher! As far as all my schools are concerned, I shouldn't ever be speaking any Japanese!

That being said, I really should be speaking more. Maybe one of these days I should try writing one of these blogs in Japanese. ...or maybe I'll just get back to watching Friends. Dr. Drake Romero has just woken up from his years-long coma. ;)