Nihongo de
Every Wednesday I go to my Japanese lesson with a lovely woman who volunteers to teach Japanese to foreigners. She doesn’t speak much English, but I actually like that. It forces me to use the Japanese I have and when we get stuck, we can always use a dictionary to help us out.
My Japanese classes are held in a sort of community center area of Gifu station. It is a quiet space with a lot of tables and chairs. A lot of high school students use the space to study.
This week, when I went to sit down next to my teacher, I noticed that one of my students (the one who made a movie with me in it) was sitting across from me. The fact that I speak Japanese at all is a little known secret. At school I actually try very hard to keep it under raps. I don’t really want my teachers or students to know that I have as much language skill as I do because it is not my job to speak in Japanese with them. It is my job to help them improve their English.
As soon as I saw my student I said hello and made a little small talk. Then my teacher and I got down to work. About twenty minutes into the lesson, my student interrupted and exclaimed, “You speak Japanese!” He said it as though he made some sort of amazing discovery.
I shrugged and said, “Sukoshi dekimasu” (I can a little).
Then he and I both went back to our studies.
A little while later in the lesson Ichihashi and I got stuck, we had reached an impasse. Despite our best efforts to communicate, we were not understanding one another and needed a dictionary. Unfortunately we both had forgotten to bring ours. I knew my student would, most likely, have his in his bag, so I asked him.
“Excuse me. May I borrow your dictionary?”
He looked at me, started to reach into his bag, and then with a little smirk on his face said, “Nihongo de” (In Japanese).
I actually thought it was quite clever how he had reversed roles with me a bit and it really made me smile. Needless to say, I asked in Japanese and then he gave me his dictionary. Hopefully he will keep my secret.