Thursday, June 14, 2007

A nice Japanese lady

Met a nice Japanese lady in Kinokuniya, as I was picking out some things for kiddos. I needed someone to help with recommendation and it's definitely better to get a native than the Kinokuniya staff. Abit thick-skinned to ask for help but no choice.
And we ended up talking alot more, she speaks good English though so fortunately I didn't have to struggle talking to her.Otherwise may spout wrong words out. Ha!
During our conversation, she was sharing with me how she taught her 3 children their native languages.She also did tell me that her younger girl is learning chinese now and they're looking for books here. A nice thing happened before we said goodbye, she gave me her number should I need any help in teaching my children Japanese, and I exchanged number with her. I can help her daughter a little with her chinese...dare not tell her my chinese half past six kind. Haha! But it'll be nice to have a non-local friend.
[Infact, I do have a Japanese lady living next door whom we have conversations with.I did joke to Kaiyoko that maybe she should teach my girls Jap, to which she said she heard us singing the Frog's Song before.]

What to buy?
I was stuck with the choice of 2 music CDs so asked her to help me with it, she then recommended I should take this as it is very Japanese children's songs type. I noticed they have 2 other volumes but I'll check this out first since I already 2 other Japanese CDs, there might be repeated songs. And mind you, it's not cheap buying this CD. I've already spent a fortune on foreign language CDs for my children.
Her reason for recommending this is coz' she used this for her 3 children. Very good recommendation coz' the songs are nice and there are flashcards of each song. There were some songs which were extracted; changed a little tune and it was used in Music Wonderland. I didn't realise it until when I listen to the lyrics (but with my 烂Jap, it took awhile to digest the meaning of the song. Played again and reconfirmed it). There were 3 songs which I taught Athena when she was young, when I played for her; her eyes brightened up and said "mummy, I hear this before. You sing to me when I am very very small?"

Most importantly is of course introduction to the characters itself. I tried making my own but my writing is horrible so ended up throwing them away. Bought this to teach ひらがな, then カタカナand maybe 漢字?? But will need help then..

Hope whatever I'm doing pays off.
But first.............I gotta polish up my own shoes right? I think I need to get a new translation dictionary already.

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