JLC-DeLeon-Kris

  わたし　 わ　 でん とう 　 に　 いきました。 ともだち　と　いしょ に　いきました。 らいねん　また　いきます。  

  When it comes to vacations, It's always been a long planning process to go somewhere. My family and I always go somewhere big, like an amusement park or an aquarium like last summer. This would require months of planning because we'd have to save up and figure out transportation and times and everything is expensive. In Japan, it seems all the vacation spots are low-key and at least relatively close together. There's a train that goes everywhere so it feels more connected than the endless roads here in the States. All the vacation spots seem to be really relaxed, and scenic from the videos I saw. Vacations like that seem a little empty. You expect, when you go somewhere else, to do something with that time. Sure you can buy saviors, but do you expect excitement? To me anyway, my experience with vacations will be much different than anyone else. There is something nice about just seeing a pretty sight though. Like how people will go to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. Y...

   This book is about a cat, specifically about someone asking the neko what they like/what they want. Of course, the cat likes cat-like things. Small boxes, round objects to push, and fish. At the end, the person asks if the cat wants a bath or to be brushed and the cat says they don't want either, which I found a funny way to end the book. Cats do like to groom themselves. The book is cute and I like how the cat talks back to the person or the reader perhaps?  Either way, this is a  fun and simple read.

  This book is about Christmas. Specifically about a boy and what he wants for Christmas. He really wants a bike and asks his Santa for it. In the end, he maybe doesn't get it, but he asks the reader what they want for Christmas. I had a friend help me read this one and make sure my translation was correct so I had a bit more fun with reading this one and poking a bit of fun at how this kid really wants his bike. It was more enjoyable with other people who would have guessed? It wasn't a fun rad per se, but the company made it fun.

  This book is a classic story about the boy who cried wolf. I can tell based on the pictures alone and I think that helped with the translation a bit. For instance, I managed to pick up on sheep when it appeared the shepherd. I think that knowing this story beforehand helped me get into the story. I was excited to translate the boy who cried wolf. It also shows me that this story can reach people around the world. I think that's really cool, it's a good story to tell people so it would make sense that the story spread as wide as it did.

    I'd never heard of Booklet before playing the games presented to me. I enjoyed them for the most part, though the time limit made me kind of stressed out and caused me to trip more than a couple of times. I did some exploring around the site and managed to find other topics I could study and play games about which I found cool. It's not just a studying site, I could learn about different games if I wanted to, which I did in my free time. What I learned from my time playing these games is that I do  not  do well under pressure. I need time to think about what I'm going to say or what I'm reading. Although it is accurate to real life, that you're not going to have all the time in the world to think of a response to a question.

      わたし 　 わ 　 せん しゅう　 い ら し た 　 に かいもの　 行きました  とも だち 　 に　 なに　 買った かわいい　 シャツ 　 と　 ほん じ ぶん 　 みやげ 　ぼうし  

  Shopping in Japan and here in America is fairly similar. You can still go to malls here despite the many dead ones and they have many shops to choose from. The mall in the special video I saw was much cooler than the one I went to. Three floors and it looks much newer than the one I'm used to. The one I go to seems like it hasn't had an update in years and the shops seem... shady. Maybe that's just the lighting. The Japanese mall has a bunch of cool shops as well, some you would expect and some you wouldn't. Toy stores, clothes stores, and restaurants are all expected. What I wasn't expecting was just an entire grocery store in the mall. That caught me off guard, you technically only expect clothes and whatnot in malls. There were also a lot of arcades which was very cool to see. There's a lot of cool stuff in malls and I wonder why malls where I live are so uninteresting. The only mall I can think of that's as interesting would be the Mall of America with...

  ここ 　 か ら 　 いえ 　まで　はん　か　がい で　いきます　トラｲブ　じ　どうしや さトラｲブ　たぶん　 さんぐらい　 市　いぜん くる　にがつこう

         I think Japanese towns are a lot cooler than the ones here in the West. Everything in Japan is a lot closer together and there's a lot more packed together so the need to travel a long way away isn't entirely needed. Even if it is, you can just take the train. Here in the U.S., everything seems far away and impossible to reach. Even here in my neighborhood, the closest shopping center still feels like a trek across the whole country due to how the roads divide everything up into sections. Feels more like a time commitment to get up and walk anywhere. Japan isn't that car-focused in cities, which I can only imagine how that affects the environment (in a good way) but it just seems a lot more connected and safe now that there aren't death machines speeding around at 40 mph all the time. It also allows a lot more to be packed together, but not in a New York sort of way like a Jeremy Freedom suggests. It's more walkable somehow with the lack of cars ar...

      This book is about a little chihuahua and their owner. I had a hard time translating the title, part of me wants to say it says chihuahua or something like that based on what I could read, but I'm not terribly confident about that. The book itself seems to be about chihuahua and how they're mean to their owner when they try. to leave. The dog, for instance, chews up the woman's bag handle but tries to cute their way out of it or act like everything's okay. Based on what I can read anyway. I did manage to pick up 'doushite' which means 'why' so the Woman wants to know why the dog did it. In the end, I think she forgives the dog in the end as well.

            As of now, I'm a novice when speaking Japanese. I can hold a very basic conversation with help and can point out certain characters off the top of my head. It isn't the best of course, but I have only been learning for a few months as compared to others who have been learning for years now. I'm sure with enough time and constant practice I'll be better at speaking it. With any new thing I learn I have anxiety about performing well and making sure I'm learning at the right spot, but I am happy with how far I've come. I have to remind myself of that.      I also speak Spanish, so the amount of things to remember now is triple. A bit of a complaint but that would be a given. Learning Spanish was a multiple-year process, even growing up surrounded by people who spoke it and learning it "in the field". Even then, I couldn't speak it too well, but I could understand what was being said to me. Japanese, I feel, will be much lik...

        When it comes to my culture, it was all about family. I was closer to my family than I was to anyone else and thought that they were the most important people in my life. We didn't trust strangers with anything, and if we did need anything we would ask other family members before resorting to the help of someone we didn't know. When we did let strangers into the tight-knit group, they were quickly made family. As such, we'd call the 'Tío' or 'Tía' more often than not. I have a lot of tíos and tías because of this. Family members would have their names put behind a  title of what they were (tío, tía, primo, prima, etc.). So someone would be referred to as 'Tía Maria' from then on. Or more times than not we would just shorten it to tía. We don't call anyone by their names unless they are a child. It reminds me of adding a 'Chan' to the end of someone's name in Japanese to distinguish their position from yours. I think a lot of c...