Turning Japanese...

These days, I have been doing a lot of kanji studying in my free time. I started at the beginning of April, when I made it my goal to pass the next level of the kanji proficiency test. So at first, I reviewed all the kanji I had previously studied. It took me about 3 months to plow through some sweet 100-yen study books for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade (elementary school) kanji, and then I started studying new stuff. I am about 28 characters away from being done learning all the 7th grade kanji, but then I have to review them and learn all about them (what part of the character is its 'root', how they go together with other characters to form words, how these words are formed, how they go together in sets of 4 characters to form a phrase, and so on). It's enough to make your head spin, but I really for some reason want to pass this test!

I will be taking it on November 9th, so I would appreciate your prayers as the day draws nearer. I have purchased 2 textbooks from which to study (almost done the first one), and have written the characters out a total of about 7,000 times. I will hopefully reach 10,000 by the time the test rolls around. This is perhaps why people tell me I'm "more Japanese than the Japanese" and that I "know more kanji than [they] do."

この学年度に入って、漢字の勉強に夢中です。約９年前に初めて漢字検定を受けました。沖縄に来て１年半の頃、７級をなんとか合格しました。まぐれだったかな？（笑）その４ヵ月後、６級に挑戦してまた合格しました。それで２年ぐらい漢検を受けなかった。ＯＣＳＩの２年目に生徒たちと勝負で５級を受けました。またそれも合格した。その時からほぼ７年になっていますが、今回は沖尚の生徒を頑張らすために僕も受けることにしました。試験日は１１月９日です。後４週間あるけど、今まで以上に頑張っていきたいです！

でもね、やっぱり漢字は難しいよね。今回の試験は５級の漢字プラス３００字です。部首名、熟語の構成、四字熟語、対義語、類義語、読み書きなどがあって大変です！歳をとればとるほど脳が固くなるよね。ヘンリー・フォードの名言「学ぶことをやめる人は誰でも老いてる、２０歳であれ８０歳であれ。学び続ける人はずっと若いです。若い心を保つことは一番幸いです。」が大好きです。日本語訳は正確ではないので、英語も載せます："Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."

皆さん、この歳をとってるトレバーの応援＆祈りをよろしくお願いします！