Nihogo wa hanashimasu ka?

I've been in Japan for nearly a year now. I can eat sushi, ride the trains and make change in Yen. Now, finally, I am learning to speak the language.

Yesterday I went to my first Japanese class. It's not much, just an hour and a half a week at the Community Center. But it has the advantage of being taught by an actual factual Japanese woman.

Walking across the street to the community center I had a little of the first-day-of-school jitters. Will the teacher be a jerk? Is this class to hard for me? Will the other kids like me?

It turned out better than I could have imagined. The teacher, Setsuko-san, was charming and totally realistic about what her students could do. There were only eight of us. One woman had taken the class before. Another woman was Korean or Chinese and had trouble forming the syllables. Another spoke Portuguese but still managed to learn Japanese through an English filter.

Cultures melded, languages clashed. It was stupendous. I can't even explain to you the difference between studying Japanese from a book and actually having a conversation with a classmate. As for the textbook, what textbook? Setsuko-san said something, we repeated it, and repeated it and repeated it until we got it right. She gave us two reference sheets she had made and asked us to study them for next week.

I learned to say butterfly: chocho. And eyeglasses: megane. And even "No, that isn't true.": ie, so dewa arimasen.

For the first time since I started studying Japanese way back in my Freshman year of college I feel like I will actually be able to learn this language.

I leave you today with a quote from Rita Mae Brown, "Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides."