+1 Challenge Weekly Update #3

This week has been amazing. Following on from the last update, I began the week feeling slightly bruised by the difficult lesson I'd had. But, it wouldn't be a challenge if everything was effortless now would it! The fact is, having struggled to pronounce certain words, I remembered what the tutor and also a music teacher I'd had a lesson with had advised regarding doing vocal exercises to train my pronunciation towards speaking Japanese with flattened vowel sounds ... and promptly added doing this as part of my daily routine ... get up ... kettle on ... toast on ... a-i-u-e-o ... ka-ki-ku-ke-ko ... etc etc. I still had difficulty with the 'ra-ri-ru-re-ro' line ... but found an awesome video on youtube by a girl who explained everything in a way that just made sense to me ... and very quickly ... I managed to get the 'ra-ri-ru-re-ro' sounds coming out as ... well ... a lot nearer to how my brain had previously been suggesting to my mouth.

Miss Hanake ... I still need to practice more, but your advice has most definitely worked for me. The trick about using 春 はる）to get the mouth saying the "ro" sound was inspiring. My Japanese friends and tutors are all now smiling and giving me thumbs up when I go through the hiragana sounds at the start of my lessons. 

Then, I received news that Benny was inviting Japanese learners on the +1 Challenge to get involved with a fun little project singing English words in their Japanese katakana pronounciation. So with Brian and Benny getting this project underway ... I looked at my schedule ... gulped for a moment thinking ... I so want to do this ... but how ... well ... get up a bit earlier ... that's the answer ... eeek ... but I knew it was something I'd love to be involved with and so, I said, "count me in".  So the day came when I was waiting for the lyrics to arrive ... and I saw feedback from the tutor in regards the difficult lesson I had had.

Feedback from italki tutor

Bear in mind, that when I began the challenge, I felt very much that I'd acquired a reasonable amount of Japanese vocabulary, however, with only the most basic grasp of simple sentence patterns ... grammar if dare utter that dark mystery of a word ... well, I thought, "the key to me reaching my goal of speaking comfortably is going to be ... speaking a lot more Japanese ... and with a little more work on getting my head around the grammar, my creativity will be unleashed and I'll be having more interesting conversation". So, when I read that feedback ... I no longer felt so down about having to work harder on my pronunciation ... this feedback gave me a big fat motivational boost. Ten seconds later ... oh my ... now that I can already do a 'ra-ri-ru-re-ro' a lot better than I ever could before ... I remembered that I was going to be involved in the English Words in Japanese song ... it was as if it was all part of some master plan ... it couldn't have come at a more perfect time.

I loved the way it all came together. The day when all the clips had to be sent in, I'd sent mine off and then had to deal with an unexpected emergency ... little did I know that the codec I'd used has failed big time ... and that whilst I was out of contact Benny had found my video had ... well no video!!! I was about half a mile from home when I saw the message on my iPhone ... eeek ... what time is it in Spain ... 7:03 ... OK ... I'll get home ... and how long will it take to render ... hmm ... HD video ... ancient MacBookPro held together with gaffer tape etc ... this could be cutting it fine ... so one of my lasting memories of this fabulous week was running home to get the video rendered in time.

The following day, I went to a Japanese meetup in London and had a great evening out ... one thing I remember speaking about in Japanese was "Black Adder" ... and I also remember saying that I'd learned another way of saying everyday (日々 ... hibi) and thus, a the first two lines of the Morrissey song, 'Everyday is like Sunday' might be sung as:

毎日は日曜日のようにです。
日々は無声とグレーです。

Then on Saturday, Benny shared the video with us ... and oh my word ... every single one of us had performed brilliantly ... every single one of us was an utter star ... and I realized, that my elation didn't stem from participating in this project as an individual ... it was all about feeling connected with the other people involved ... the other +1 challengers ... it's a beautiful thing ... and I wouldn't hesitate to get involved in another one ... even though my schedule is crazy ... I'd make time for it ... it's so worth it!

I shall end this weeks update post with the videos (the song and the bloopers). I've kept on track with my schedule ... but as yet, I haven't gone though the schedule ticking off what I've achieved etc ... I've been a little busy with studying and making my update video etc. But I'll post those later in the week ... an update of the update ... but this is the way I wanted to end this weeks update ...