Foreign Language the First to Go

Friday, September 3, 2010

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Foreign Language the First to Go

By J’AMY PACHECO

Konnichiwa.

It’s been a long time since I tried to learn a foreign language. Back then, it was a Spanish class spread out over two years, followed by a year of college French.

When I reached adulthood and started losing brain cells, the Spanish I’d learned was apparently among the first things to go. The French never really took in the first place, but I do retain the memory of how to say, “What is this? This is a pen. What is this? This is a chair. My name is J’Amy.”

(Since I haven’t yet made it to France, I suspect the only reason I retained that information is because it seems like a funny thing to be able to say in another language. Even the most useless, insignificant bits of information stick with me if I think they’re good for a few yucks. It’s an added plus to know that I may yet someday impress a French hotel desk clerk by casually picking up a writing instrument and announcing, in the local language, “This is a pen!”)

I never expected to learn Japanese. But since my daughter started high school a few days ago, it’s become a family project of sorts.

I confess I was a little bit scared when my daughter came home from her first day of school with pages of notes from her Japanese language class and announced she would have her first test a few days later.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t worry about that—she’s a smart girl who gets good grades. There’s a reason I bought her a pink t-shirt with a glasses-wearing baby chicken on the front over the words, “Chick with brains.”

But one peek in her Japanese textbook filled me with dread. In Spanish and French, all I had to do was sound out the words. In her Japanese textbook, however, all the words are made up of doodles.

Okay, they’re not really doodles—they’re graceful symbols that represent sounds in the Japanese language. I get that—I took a shorthand class in high school. Shorthand uses symbols for sounds, too.

It never occurred to me that in selecting Japanese as her foreign language, my freshman daughter would be required to learn a new alphabet, too.

Intimidated by the thought of a test on her fifth day of language class, my daughter made flash cards containing the phrases she was expected to learn, as well as the sound symbols. She asked me to test her.

She’s got the dialogue part down pat. The symbols are going to take more time.

I suggested she try to find some feature about each symbol that would trigger a memory. I use this all the time. For example, I remember that highways that run north and south have odd numbers because the words north, south and odd all contain the letter “O,” while east and west highways are even—ditto for the letter “E.”

That’s probably common knowledge. But I used the same method for learning other things. For example, I remember that an offensive sports team has the ball because the word “offensive” starts with an “O,” which is round like a ball. And the defensive team doesn’t, with the “D” providing the link for my brain.

Genius, right?

So that led us to scrutinize each symbol represented in the hefty stack of flash cards. At first, it was easy. We realized that one symbol looked sort of like the number 5, and came up with a link.

But a few cards later, we found another symbol that looked like a five. My daughter looked at me with dismay.

“I’m never going to memorize these by Friday,” she admitted.

She’s got the verbal part down pat—and so do I. I now know how to say, “Good morning,” using two levels of politeness; “Good night,” and, “How is the weather, Teacher?” The rest—not so much.

I’ve picked up a lot of knowledge being the flash card tester over the years. There have been times when I wished I’d had more children so that they could gain this knowledge instead of me. But I stopped at one, which means I’m probably going to learn to speak—and write—Japanese.

I just hope I can retain some of what I learn this time around. I mean, you never know when you’re going to encounter someone holding a pen and scratching their head in puzzlement.

It’s good to know I may be able to help.