私のスケジュール

まいあさ、わたしはくじにおきます。

それから、クラスへいきます。じゅうにじにひるごはんをたべます。

にじにもういちどクラスがあります。それから、にほんごのクラスです。

まいばん、しちじにばんごはんをたべます。

まいばん、としょかんでべんきょうします。ほんをよみます。しゅくだいをします。

それから、ごぜんにじにねます。

Why I chose Japanese

     I'm at linguistics major at Columbia, and so in addition to the regular language requirement for Columbia students, I have to study a non-Germanic non-Romance language. This can be anything from Russian to Zulu to Quechua, but Japanese in particular stood out to me.

     Japanese, at least linguistically speaking, is a mirror to English. When something happens in English, Japanese probably does something similar, just backwards. You can see this in the syntax. Japanese, for example, is very strongly SOV, while English is very strongly SVO. Japanese also tends strongly towards a topic-comment structure. Most of the time this means that what happens in an organic order in English (with modification and all sorts of other things) happens the other way in Japanese.

     Japanese phonology is also very interesting to me. The really strict syllable structure makes loanwords very interesting, and the pitch accent makes pronouncing words subtly difficult. It's also interesting to see how prosody works (what is to me) backwards.

     The writing system is almost hilarious difficult if you haven't been raised in it, but it's still fun to learn all its subtleties and difficulties. I really want to be able to write pretty kanji when we get to them. I also feel that my kana still look really amateurish, and so I want to develop a good personal style eventually.

     

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こんにちは、わたしはジョン＊マクラクリンです。アメリカからきました。ＣＡのLosAngelesはわたしのしゅっしんです。でも、わたしのおばあさんのうちは、NJです。

コロンビアだいがくのがくせいです。にねんせいです。にほんごのがくせいです。じゅきゅうさいです。

みなさん、どうぞよろしくおねいがいします。