Middle School Studies, Parental Support ②

"Morning Relay"
"The Beginning Wind"
And, the structure and radicals of kanji.

It seems this is the scope for the upcoming Japanese language test.

"Morning Relay" is a poem by Shuntaro Tanikawa.

I remember doing the same teaching materials when my older child was in school.

What becomes important around here is,

* Expressive techniques
* Writing style
* What the author wanted to convey

Probably around these points.
I remember studying this together when my older child was in school.


First, starting with expressive techniques.

Colloquial, literary, parallelism, inversion, metaphor, ending with a noun...

Nostalgic.
It's been a while, these confusing Japanese terms.

I actually quite liked Japanese class.
But I didn't really study it seriously because I didn't get along with my middle school Japanese teacher.

So, I look at my child's class notes.

...What on earth is this?

There are swarms of strange robots drawn in the margins of the notebook.
Did they finally open a robot factory...

In short,

"It's boring."

No, it's not the teacher's fault.

The "words themselves" are probably just difficult.

So, I explain them one by one.

"What is literary style?"

Old words. Ancient language.

"Then what about colloquial?"

The language we use now.

"So, is this poem literary or colloquial? Which one?"

"Literary!!" (the younger of the twins)

...Whyyyy!!

It's like this every day.

Explaining things to children is easy.

But getting them to understand is truly difficult.

Especially dangerous is,

"Did you get it?"

"Yeah, yeah."

This response.

There is no phrase more dangerous to trust than that one.

Moreover, parents tend to take those words at face value and believe them.

Pulling myself together...

Next.
For metaphorical expressions, there are three types:

* Simile
* Metaphor
* Personification

For example, a simile.

"My brother eats like a cow."

"He runs like a leopard."

"Okay, try making one yourself."

Then, after thinking for a bit, they replied.

"My brother's face is like a darkie!"

...20 points.

For some reason, it's strangely specific.

And besides, it doesn't even work as a comparison.

Sunk without a trace.

But I really think it's difficult.

I mean, of course it is.
Expressive techniques are things we use quite naturally in daily life.

To make things easier for the other person to understand.
To leave a strong impression.

To make things easier to imagine.
They are likely just "tricks of speech" that were named and organized later.
Therefore,

Can you use them in conversation?
Can you create the example sentences from earlier?

Those things are important, and the names themselves aren't that crucial. But they are important for tests.

Perhaps the important thing is to know that "this is how people communicate."
The names only have meaning once you understand that.

...Well, even if I say that,

the kids just start drawing swarms of robots.

How can I get through to them?
My battle continues today.