![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Learn-Hiragana-Japanese-Characters.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nJapanese uses a syllabary instead of an alphabet. What that means is that each \u201cletter\u201d consists of just a vowel \u201ca i u e o\u201d or a consonant followed by one of those vowels (e.g. ka ki ku ke ko). The great thing is that these vowels are ALWAYS pronounced the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- \u2018A\u2019 is \u201cah\u201d like the Count says in threes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- \u2018E\u2019 is \u201cay\u201d like in Pok\u00e9mon or Beyonc\u00e9.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- \u2018I\u2019 is \u201cee\u201d like in \u201cpizza\u201d or \u201cspaghetti.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- \u2018O\u2019 is \u201coh\u201d like Sandra.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
\u2018V\u2019 is very very extraordinary. <\/s>Not a vowel, also not a sound in Japanese.<\/li>\n\n\n\n- \u2018U\u2019 is \u201coo\u201d like a scary ghost.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Basically, they\u2019re the same vowel pronunciations as Italian. Always. No exceptions. Alright, some slight exceptions where the vowel is not fully pronounced. Particularly \u2018u\u2019s that come after an \u2018s.\u2019 Hence why the \u2018u\u2019 in J\u2019s name is not pronounced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is where \u201cKaatis(u) Sensei\u201d comes from. The r\u2019s in Japanese are like Spanish rolled r\u2019s, not like American ones. So anything that has an \u201cer\u201d sound just becomes \u201cah\u201d\/\u201daa\u201d in Japanese. The \u201cti\u201d is pronounced \u201ctea\u201d and is a special sound only used for foreign words. (In normal Japanese, \u201cti\u201d becomes \u201cchi\u201d (the \u201ct_\u201d letters are a mess in Japanese)). Last is \u201csu\u201d because a Japanese word can\u2019t end in a consonant (except \u2018n\u2019). But the \u2018u\u2019 often isn\u2019t pronounced between the two \u2018s\u2019s, so I don\u2019t write it. Confused? Just wait till you learn kanji. For now, just remember the vowel pronunciations and you\u2019ll be good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alright, that covers the basics. So, on to the blog. The most common questions that I\u2019m not asked, but my mom probably is are \u201cHow\u2019s Curtis? What\u2019s he up to?\u201d My answers are \u201cTired,\u201d and \u201cNot much,\u201d though I\u2019m sure hers are a little more detailed. But that\u2019s why we\u2019re here – to expand upon those answers. I currently live in Nagoya, which is the 4th most populous city in Japan, but it doesn\u2019t have as much cool stuff, so no one really knows it. Just find a map of Japan and point to the very middle. Now like an inch down and to the left. Yeah, around there. Next year, I\u2019ll have been here for a decade, which means it\u2019ll be time to move back to America soon. Did I think I would be here this long? Nope. But also I don\u2019t really plan for things more than like a year away. Too many unknowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have two kids, which I think is the best number for your sanity other than zero. J is four and C is almost two. I love them very much, but I miss sleeping later than 6a.m. At least the whole \u201chave two kids so they can distract each other\u201d plan has finally started to work (mostly). They\u2019re usually great at playing well together, but it can devolve into a fight at any time (C is always the first to throw hands). J has inherited both my sense of humor and my inability to know when a joke should end. C is just getting to 3-word sentences. Mostly demands that must be met immediately if we value our lives. Though the only 3-word sentence I\u2019ve heard so far is [\u201cC likes Spider-Man.\u201d] (I use brackets to indicate a translation since she said it in Japanese.) So proud of her.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now that J is four so we finally have the same interests. Lego, superheroes, Pok\u00e9mon, potty humor, etc. For Maki\u2019s sake, I try not to encourage the poop jokes, but sometimes they\u2019re really funny. My favorite recent one is his song, \u201cThe poop on the bus goes [straining noises in rhythm] all through the townnnnn.\u201d They also both take after me in that he is initially very shy, but then goes crazy once he\u2019s gotten used to the people. I think most of my parent teacher conferences as a kid included the phrase \u201ccome out of his shell\u201d (and a few maybe wishing I\u2019d go back in). <\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/dzaejplle1f31-979x1024.webp\")
A nice picture of nature to break up the wall of text.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n Both of them understand both English and Japanese, though C mostly just speaks Japanese for now (except \u201cno\u201d). The problem with having kids that are bilingual, is it increases the difficulty of \u201cwhat is this child trying to say?\u201d Is it English? Is it Japanese? Is it a word they just made up? Who knows. I will mostly speak English to them, while Maki (and everyone at their school) will speak Japanese to them. So the English they do know is mostly midwest early 2000\u2019s teen peppered with some Roaring 20\u2019s slang they get from Mickey. It\u2019s weird being someone\u2019s main exposure to English. I could start saying \u201cThat\u2019s so fetch,\u201d and they\u2019d just assume that it\u2019s a normal thing (which it totally is). Both at home and as a teacher, I struggle with how clearly I should pronounce things. Do I say the \u2018t\u2019 in \u201cmountain\u201d? \u201cDid you\u201d or \u201cDidju?\u201d Usually it’s a little of both. You want the kids to know exactly hat the word is, but also prepare them to listen for how it\u2019s actually pronounced. Sometimes<\/em> I\u2019ll slide the vowels a little closer to their Japanese pronunciation to make it easier for them to understand (or in the case of \u201csix,\u201d slide the i up so that it\u2019s definitely<\/em> not a short e).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So obviously I\u2019m still teaching English. In nine years, I\u2019ve worked at four different companies in three prefectures, taught at like 20 schools, and taken three pay cuts (because if anyone is more valued than teachers, it\u2019s foreign teachers). Currently I\u2019m at one JHS (7th-9th grade) with almost 1,000 kids (8-9 classes per grade). People often ask if I\u2019m gonna keep teaching when we move back, and the answer is [insert your choice of expletive] no. I like teaching, but I do not have the patience nor the stamina to teach an actual class all day every day. Have you met kids? They\u2019re crazy. And their parents can be crazier. Not to mention how little they\u2019re paid. Nope, I\u2019m gonna go back to doing computer stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maki\u2019s good. I think that\u2019s about as much as I\u2019m allowed to divulge. Not because anything happened, just because Japanese people value their privacy. Her current company has a branch (in America) across the street from a Burger King I frequented whenever I visited my cousins, so her job security is much less questionable than mine will be when we move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think that covers the basics. All the basic information with only a few tangents. The next post will be about Christmas and New Years stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did I eat KFC on Christmas? How many diseases did we catch over break? Am I really still doing this old bit? Find out on the next episode of the Gaijin Chronicles! Dah dahh dadahhh da dahh duuhhh. (I honestly don’t remember if I ever had a real song in my head when I first wrote that).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Look who\u2019s back. Back again. Curtis is back. Tell a friend. Or don\u2019t. I don\u2019t make money off ads, so I don\u2019t care how many people read this. So why …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24],"tags":[23,22],"class_list":["post-733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-new-era","tag-a-new-era","tag-dad-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/a-new-era-card.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=733"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":737,"href":"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733\/revisions\/737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tgc.kaatissensei.pizza\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- \u2018U\u2019 is \u201coo\u201d like a scary ghost.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n