My friend Sugi is the best Japanese teacher I know

I hate Two-face. I've observed an interesting phenomenon (one of many) exhibited by some bilingual Japanese. They don't so much speak English as they wear it. Two-face is a horrible caricature of an American. She speaks without an accent and overall her English is good, save for the occasional spoonerism or malapropism or, I suppose, the rare outright error (the other day she asked for someone's "birth of date" and later discussed allergies and "pollens"). But she does it with the patronizing enthusiasm of a clown hepped up on coke. Pop your favorite Ravi Shankar collection on the record player at 45. Sounds pretty nice. Now crank it up to 72. Her laugh is a disgusting parody, a harsh, grating squeal as forced and horrible as a Star Wars prequel. And to top it all off, she's not a very good teacher.

The first week, I sat in several of her and Big O's respective classes. Big O mostly dealt with conversation, so teaching was not a priority. Two-Face teaches more beginners, so often is stuck with grammar and vocabulary on a regular basis. In one of her group classes, she spent a solid five minutes trying to coax a single word out of a single person to create a single sentence. Pardon me, I know she has 20-years experience, but it all amounts to crap if that's how she's going to waste her students' time.

I've picked up a thing or two about teaching and learning in my mere month here. I enrolled in a local Japanese language course which I have subsequently dropped. My intro course in America was a breeze and I scored the top grade on the exam. Our teacher, from Japan, spoke English very well and the class moved at a reasonable pace, if not too slowly. The course I started here is Intro B, but the teacher speaks only Japanese and the class uses a book that moves at twice the speed as my first one. Not only did I have to learn the current chapter, but I also had scores of catching up to do. It didn't make sense to continue, so I quit. It was ~$30 for 10 lessons, so no big loss there, considering each lesson in the states cost about the same as the whole course here.

Sitting in class, understanding one out of every 10 words (on a good day) was frustrating and didn't impart much. I've discovered that learning words is often a three step process. First is the recognition of a word and its accompanying pronunciation. Second is the association with the meaning. Finally is the transition to permastore (?) memory through protracted use and association, a sort of paving of the neural pathway. Likewise is the recognition of people. Trying to learn my students names has been taxing. First I have to remember the face (psychology books will tell you that distinguishing the facial features of a foreign race is much more difficult that distinguishing those among your own). Then is the association with a name. And finally, the constant hammering of the association into my tired brain. Listening in my Japanese class was like watching all 130 million Japanese people run a marathon, knowing they all have names and faces, but not recognizing more than 10.

I study every day. I'm drowning in vocabulary and sentence patterns, but I have more motivation and determination than I know what to do with. Today an elderly woman struck up a "conversation" with me at the grocery store and I actually understood about half of what she said. Granted, she was probably using baby Japanese, but it's a big improvement over where I was a month ago.

The key to my success? My friend Sugi. Sugi knows.

tsugi (no) - next

I make associations for everything I can't remember, and when I use a word enough, it finally crosses some mental threshold that makes it mine. When I forget how to say "next" I think, "Sugi knows!" and there it is: tsugi (no).

jitensha - bicycle

Some of my associations are visual. I had trouble remembering that bike, in Japanese, is jitensha, so I imagined a large G on the front wheel of a bicycle. After the G, the rest rolls off my tongue.

kotae - answer

This one was also visual, but I just remembered the shape of the Japanese characters. After recalling it enough times, I no longer had to visualize.

asobimasu - (v) having fun, enjoying oneself

Some of my associations are hilarious (to me), which makes them easy to remember. I think Asobi sounds like asshole bean. I don't know what an asshole bean is (I've decided that it's definitely not a dingleberry), but I assume it's fun. Thus, asobimasu is having fun.

hatarakimasu - (v) work

What happens when you're swamped at work? You have a hot rocky mess (if you are a geologist and you work in a volcano).

tsukaremashita - I/You/He/She was/were tired

Then, there are the really weird ones. This sounds to me like the carrot master. I don't know who he is, but I bet he's pretty tired.

shinakerebanaranai - I must do

And finally there are those that I just have to say over and over and over again until they finally stick. Not a good time, but useful. For example, knowing shinakerebanaranai, I can now say tabenakerebanaranai - I must eat. That’s not really useful, I don’t think, but still good to know. Sentaku o shinakerebanaranai may have a little more value – I must do the laundry.

And so continues the association game. Sugi is also applicable in several other associations, hence the title. And yes, I've disabled comments for the time being. Feel free to email.