Languages

Learning a new language makes you more conscious of the nuts and bolts of your own language. This was certainly true this week when our Year 10 students compared aspects of English language with Japanese through examining common verbs. We discovered that some Japanese verbs are way more specific than English! 

For example, the verb ‘to wear’ in English can be used as, "I wear a hat," "I wear gloves," "I wear glasses" and so on. However, in Japanese there are different verbs depending on which part of the body the clothing will be worn on.

If you put something on your head like a hat you say ‘kaburimasu’. Clothing worn on your torso would use the verb ‘kimasu’. And putting on shoes, pants or skirts would require the verb ‘hakimasu’, just to name a few!

Learning this certainly helped us appreciate the simplicity of the English word ‘wear’!

Our Year 10 students also learnt this week how to describe people in Japanese. This includes learning the Japanese characters (kanji) for parts of the body. 

Participating in engaging hands-on activities is a great way to help students remember kanji, so we had fun in class making kanji using play dough. This was further reinforced with funny mnemonics to assist with recall. 

Kirsten Binnie
Leader of Learning - Languages