Friday, March 5, 2010

What's the Kanji for Orthography?

I was scrolling through my postings menu the other day and found this one from over a year ago. I am not sure why it didn't see the light of day, but am leaning toward the "I-forgot-to-click-on-the-Publish Post-button-excuse. Fortunately (or not), it's as relevant today as it was when I actually wrote it:

Emi has an incredible appetite for learning. For a kid who insists she doesn't like school, she certainly thrives on filling her mind with all sorts of new ideas. Emi spouts off trivia like I draw breath, things like, "Did you know that Kansas used to be part of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Sea?" and she's continually advancing her reading level. Even math and science are clicking pretty well - she's learning principles at earlier grade levels than those of us of a certain age did.

But have I menshuned her speling? Orthography is not Emi's strong sute. So I had to laugh when Ryan shared this with me a few days ago:

Among Emi's varied interests is anything her dad is interested in. Ryan enjoys studying kanji (the japanese writing system) and Emi is tickled that one of the reasons we chose her name is that "Emi" is also a fairly common Japanese name. And the kanji that Ryan chose for her name means 'laughter."

Anyway, the other day, Ryan found some of his kanji flashcards and was showing a few to Emi. She looked at them and started to get very excited. She suggested, "Hey, maybe I can use these cards and learn new kanji, like one everyday!" to which Ryan replied, "Maybe you should work on your English spelling before you start to worry about Japanese spelling." Emi considered this and gave a small grin as she answered, "Yeah, maybe you're right."

1 comment:

Miss L said...

I'm amazed you can spell Orthography, much less know what it is!!!! :) (ps. Spelling is not my strong soot eether.)