Word Game

During our one-hour journey by car to Osaka from Wakayama, to keep my eyes awoke after drinking too much the night before; I played word game with Yo-chan, Miyamoto-san's little daughter. I forgot the Japanese name of the game, but the game was like answer and reply games.

The first player has to say out loud a japanese word (must be a noun), then the other player have to say another word, using the last syllable of the word that the first player said. So for example, if the first word was rinGO, then the second player can reply GOri-ra. The game will continue until one of the player couldn't mention any word, or if the word mentioned is ended by dead letter: N. For example: ShinkanseN, or RameN.

My Japanese is still really bad. Beginner level, so it was quite challenging for me to play the game. Especially to drill again my Japanese vocabulary. Yo-chan is still 6 years old, so eventhough she's a Japanese, I still can reply every word she said -though sometimes I had to think really hard.

As the game got hotter, Miyamoto-san then made the rule, that the one who lose must waited in the car when we arrived at Universal Studios. I didn't want to lose from a kid, and Yo-chan didn't want to stay in the car. So we really did try hard to beat each other.

Until one point...
Me : unaGI (hohoho it's a difficult step for Yo-chan)
Yo-chan : ginkoU (she was so happy after thinking for quite while!)
Me : usaGI (HOHOHO...another GI)..

Then there's silence for few minutes. Yo-chan was thinking hard to find a word started with GI. She kept silent, but then when I looked at her, there were tears already rolling down from her small eyes. SHE'S CRYING!!! wahahahahaaahha


Yo-chan and I

I like this small girl. She's so charming. She is the only one to whom I can speak easy Japanese with. And I like her best when she acted like a teacher and taught me Japanese words using Direct Method (Sorry, only those who graduated from Teacher Training faculty know this term!).

We both like disney movies as well. Lilo and Stitch, Mr. Incredible, Mulan, Shrek. We chatted happily about our favourite characters. In Japanese!! I always be very enthusiastic talking about all disney movies.

I'm sure she would grow to be a smart girl. You go girl!!