I think I'm kind of going crazy here re: trying to live in two languages, one of them foreign to me. I guess I realized what a lofty goal it was to be fluent by the time I'm out of here, and the fact that I'm pretty sure I won't reach it depresses me a lot, because I feel like I need to be a LOT more ahead on my Japanese than I am, and I don't know how to accelerate that. I no longer feel like the smartest person in my Japanese class, in fact I feel like one of the worst students in it, the kind of person one step behind everyone else in an embarrassing way, which is a very jarring sensation to me (the kick in the pants I needed, no doubt, but still very uncomfortable). Mostly in terms of kanji, but you know.
I find myself grateful that there still exists a language I can read smoothly and understand immediately whatever is written in it. In a time when it feels like all language is unraveling at the seams for me, that is a wonderful feeling. I am happy every time I read something in English and know that a dictionary will not be necessary. Especially something written by someone who plays around with language a lot, and you still get all of it. I don't think I ever realized just how fortunate I am in those cases.
I just hate having a conversation in Japanese and the other person asks something involving a word I don't know. It's so awkward to bust out the electronic dictionary and look it up. I just want to have a fluid conversation. I know how easy it is to get annoyed, despite yourself, with people who aren't native speakers of your language, who have accents and speak awkwardly. I don't want to put that burden on anyone I'm talking with. I just want to push past this and be able to speak and understand smoothly. I feel like after a certain point it all has to just CLICK and you've reached it. I'm intensely jealous of foreigners in Japan who have already reached that goal. It probably takes at least a year to reach, and that's with more immersion than I certainly have with my IES bubble of mainly English speaking friends (as cool as they are, of course!).
This experience, instead of confirming to myself that I am indeed a person who is talented with languages and capable of doing great things with that gift, has just made me realize how far behind I am and has made me question my ability every day. Who's to blame for that? Me, for not doing more independent intensive studying? AC, for having ridiculously easy Japanese classes that did not prepare me for this at all (ironic that I came there hoping to find a good foreign language department!)? I won't go so far as to question the ability itself, I have seen enough over years of language classes to know that it is very true that languages come easier to me than to many people. But it's still not an always-naturally-easy thing like I guess I was under the delusion that it was, or should be. Were my classes really just too easy...?
So many people have done so much more than me. How, how, how can I get to that point?
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