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I've forgotten Japanese

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

The timing of my return was intended to coincide with a performance at Kenny's day care. Today we attended that, and I couldn't speak.

I was getting half-way competent with the Japanese language before I left. Well, the spoken language, anyway. Competent enough that some friends, in compiling a video "goodbye" for Kenny, Mari, and me included a special bit at the end recording me conversing with them in their language. But to my dismay my feeble listening skills have diminished and I couldn't remember how to say some things that I'd easily have rattled off six weeks ago.

It doesn't take much to forget a language that you've learned as an adult. My Opa lost most of his English speaking ability toward the end of his life, and that's after 35 years in Canada. I guess five years with this insanely difficult language wasn't enough for my poor unilingual brain. I expect I'll be a bit useless in the next few weeks.