We've established that lessons are scary, yeah?

After all, it is impossible to 100% prepare for everything that will happen in a lesson. Your teacher will probably use words that you don't know. You will probably want to say things that you don't know how to say.

In short, it's uncomfortable to try and interact in a language that we're not familiar with. This is a good thing. If all of this stuff were easy, then we probably wouldn't be growing/learning/becoming more awesome human beings.

I probably won't be able to teach you 100% of the things you'll want to say in your first lesson.

I can, however, give you a handful of phrases that should prove immensely useful when interacting with a Japanese teacher. To put it another way, I'm trying to get your Japanese up to "caveman level" so that you're primed to advanced to "normal human" level... followed by "supreme ninja" level.

Specifically, in the next handful of lectures we're going to cover how to...

• Say Hello
• Say Sorry & Thanks
• Say Goodbye
• Make a Phone Call in Japanese
• Give a Self-Introduction
• Survive a Lesson
• Convey (a Lack of) Understanding
• End a Lesson

 

What if I'm already above "caveman level?" Then I would still at least skim through the following lessons. There are probably times when we teach the natural way to say something that you've been messing up so far. Even when we prepare beginner lessons for NihongoShark courses, I almost always learn something new, usually in relation to natural phrasing and word choice in specific situations. In many cases, this takes the form of me realizing that I never use a particular Japanese phrase even though I already "know" it. For example, when preparing the "End a Lesson" lecture of this course with a native speaker, I realized that I wasn't saying 失礼します (しつれい　します) at the moment I hang up the phone in lessons, even though I've heard teachers say it time and time again. This literally means something like "rudeness + do," but in this context it just means "Goodbye."

Let's get started!

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