Konichiwa, Randamu Hito! (I Think) [Open]

[Georgina Speer]

Something George had recently become intrigued by/interested in/obsessed with was languages. She was just really interested by the variety of cultures around the world, and how learning a language opened up your social capabilities to a whole new section of the population.

From lessons, she had been learning French, which she could speak alright (but only really as well as it was taught to her - je voudrais commander la soupe avec quelques guimauves roses (I would like to order the soup with some pink marshmallows - it was random, but grammatically correct)). Holding a real conversation would probably be difficult though.

But anyway - she was teaching herself Japanese. She liked Vocaloid so much, so that was one reason. Plus, the more she learned, the more of the culture she came into contact with, and she found that she liked the culture quite a lot. So she was practising loudly in the Student Lounge, of course.

"Ichi, ni, san, shi," She said, quietly, her voice slowly growing in volume, "Go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyuu, juu!" She realised by this point that she was bordering on shouting and reminded herself to keep it down. She wished she could say how much of a stupid butt she was in Japanese, but she really didn't know the language well enough yet to do that.

It would just have to wait.

"Juuichi, juuni, juusan, juushiiiiiii... no, it's noooot..." She mumbled, pulling out a book she had on basic Japanese and flicking through it to the appropriate page, " Juu, juu, juu juu juu... oh yeah, juuyon! Derp." She shook her head and closed the book again, "Juugo, juuroku..." She said, smiling, even though all she was doing was counting like a toddler. Oh well, this was fun, man.

[Misaki Kobayashi]

Misaki tilted her head to the side as she adjusted one of her pigtails. She'd gotten back from her family visit to Japan just a week or so ago, and was just now getting over the jetlag. Nice as the trip had been, with all the scenery and change of culture, it had been exhausting too, and she was more than happy to have gotten back to Hammel. Now that she'd caught back up on sleep, she needed to get to putting her souvenirs away in organized fashion.

Really, she probably needed to cut down on the amount of things she brought back each visit. Especially manga... it was starting to get out of hand... But one could never have too many books, right? She grinned to herself and smoothed her Lord of the Rings t-shirt down. Now it was time to head up to her room, grab one of said "out of control" manga, and head outside to read.

Kyuu, juu!

Misaki blinked and paused at the sound of someone virtually shouting as they counted. Whoever it was quieted a moment later, but she changed direction anyway, curious to see who was speaking Japanese. Always was cool to meet someone else who spoke it, after all. She hardly got to speak Japanese when she was here, unless her family came for a visit.

She poked her head into the student lounge, and caught sight of a lounging girl holding a book, continuing her counting from a hesitation. Well, she seemed to be enjoying herself. Misaki gave a smile as she watched for a few moments, then wandered closer.

"How long have you been studying Japanese?" she ventured.

[Georgina Speer]

George didn't mind accidentally attracting attention. From how her personality was, it was kind of expected, and she had had a problem with her confidence and self consciousness a while back, but it wasn't so bad now. And she liked her enthusiasm, she liked having an effect on people. She wouldn't call herself an attention seeker, but she didn't like being ignored all of the time. No one did.

She jolted a little at the voice, however, when it was introduced. She looked up - it was a girl she didn't know. She recognised her, but she didn't know her implicitly. She continued to grin, especially at the t-shirt she was wearing. The shirt she was wearing herself was a subtle reference to the same franchise, so she liked seeing a common nerdiness. Or geekiness. She always got those two mixed up. "Not long, sadly," She replied, "Probably... a few weeks. I don't know all that much." She knew the basics. Hello, goodbye, thank you, sorry, yes, no, and now, numbers. "But I'm working on it."

This girl seemed nice. Pigtails were cool. And she was cute.

Shut up, brain.

"Judging by your pretty, smiley face," (why did she say that, why, why, why...) "And your friendly demeanour, you seem like a nice person." George deduced. "Also Lord of the Rings is amazing." She chuckled, "I'm George. I'm... trying to remember your name, but it's completely lost on me, I'm sorry to say," She explained with a little grimace, "I can be a bit of a loose brained bastard sometimes."

That language, though. So delightful. "I'm almost too British to function." And an accidental Mean Girls semi-reference. This was going great. New friends were fun.

[Misaki Kobayashi]

Misaki couldn't help but smile upon noticing the other girl's t-shirt. She had a feeling she was going to like this new acquaintance. Japanese and Lord of the Rings? Yep, she was pretty certain of liking this girl.

"You're doing good for a few weeks!" she replied promptly. Sure, she hadn't really heard what her fellow student could do in Japanese, counting aside, but the counting had sounded good! And anyway, even if she wasn't doing well, she definitely wouldn't do well if people weren't encouraging. That was Misaki's philosophy, anyway, as it had been her parents'.

Misaki laughed a little at the "pretty, smiley face" comment, not quite sure how to take it right off. However, she picked up a moment later with, "Well, I try to be a nice person..." She only hoped it didn't sound too awkward. She liked to think that she did all right in social situations, but sometimes, especially with new people, even she would admit she could be awkward.

"And I'm Misaki," she said, quickly supplying something she knew wouldn't sound awkward. "Misaki Kobayashi." Out of habit, she gave the slightest of bows, more of an inclination of her head and upper body. "It's always exciting to meet someone who is learning Japanese-- it is a fun language." Not that she was biased at all, of course.

"Oh, it's cool that you're from Britain though!" she enthused. "That's where all the best tv shows come from, and I love British accents... Did you live there long?" Despite her excited reaction, she really was doing her best to keep from fan-girling too hard. Much as she liked Japanese culture, she equally loved Britain. They had BBC, after all. Sherlock and Doctor Who... Not to mention the amazing adaptations for Jane Austen's books done there...

[Georgina Speer]

George loved a huge variety of things, Lord of the Rings being only one of them. There was Divergent, the Hunger Games, Star Wars, Disney and a bunch of other awesome stuffs that she couldn't remember. It was a lot to keep up with, but it was all so great!

The brunette smiled, "Heh, thanks." She wasn't doing all that amazingly, in all honesty. Her accent was off, and she couldn't even understand the Japanese write-y handwriting symbol thingy code yet, so she was extremely beginner at the moment, but it was kind of expected. With lessons and stuff, she wouldn't expect much more of herself.

Georgina was abundantly confident with strangers. It was probably a bad thing, but it helped too. And she got awkward occasionally, but mostly she didn't care enough about other people's opinions to feel that way. "Then you're doing a good job of it." She replied, smiling. She definitely seemed nice.

"If we're going for full names, I'm Georg---ina Speer." Bad first name. Bad bad bad. "You have an awesome name." Her own was terrible and posh whilst managing to be boring at the same time. She noticed the bow, and the presentation of the habit (accidental or not) made George bow a little too. More of a reflex thing than anything, if she was honest.

"It sounds like a fun language," She said. "I just love the way it sounds. It's just so cool and flowing and like a new and improved French." Was that insulting? "I mean, they're completely different languages, but... let's just say, if I could fluently speak Japanese, I would do it all the time." Because it was awesome and she loved it.

...yup, this girl was amazing. If they didn't become friends, George would most likely die from the loss of an opportunity. "Born and raised in London itself." She said, proudly. She had managed to mostly keep her accent even after coming to America because of it - made her stick out like a sore thumb, but she didn't care. She was fabulous. "And I agree, British TV is brilliant... eeeven if I do say so myself." It was though.

The British adaptation of Sherlock was much better than the American one. Cumberbitch for life.

[Misaki Kobayashi]

Honestly, Misaki wouldn't have changed her optimistic encouragement of George's Japanese even if she had known her fellow student didn't know any of the hiragana or katakana. Really, after just a few weeks, she couldn't really expect someone to have mastered the two alphabets. The girl had earned points for just attempting a foreign language. Misaki herself had never found the determination to learn a language other than the ones she'd grown up with, though she well knew that it would be worth her while to learn Spanish in such a Spanish influenced country.

She smiled, a little less awkwardly this time, though she still felt a bit odd accepting such a compliment as "doing a good job of being nice". All the same, she gave a, "Well, thank you," before moving onto the next subject as quickly as possible. Compliments were such tricky things sometimes...

"Georgina?" Misaki echoed. "That's a nice name," she stated, perfectly sincere. She'd never met someone with that name, which was cool. "It must be nice to have a name that everyone doesn't have. Misaki is a common name in Japan." She paused, thinking a moment before asking, "Do you prefer to be called 'George' though?"

"If you ever want help with it, I'd love to answer any questions," she offered. "Of if you need someone to practice on. I grew up speaking Japanese just as much as English, so I wouldn't mind."

Misaki had never heard Japanese be compared to French, and she admittedly thought it a bit strange for them to be held up to each other as similar. However, she wasn't one to judge, and so she just moved forward-- "If you ever want help with it, I'd love to answer any questions," she offered. "Or if you need someone to practice on. I grew up speaking Japanese just as much as English, so I wouldn't mind."

"Wow..." She was, admittedly, somewhat in awe. "What is it like in London? I've never been... It is a lot different than here, huh?" She grinned a bit. Of course George would agree that British TV was brilliant--it was becoming clear that she understood the good things in the world. "Did you ever go to any of the plays? Like the Shakespeare ones that had Tennant in them?"

Oh, so many questions to ask now... the whole being shy and awkward thing was well forgotten.

[Georgina Speer]

Hiragana sounded like some kind of mystical highland goat being, and Katakana sounded like a fancy katana. And katanas were fucking beast. But yeah, languages. She was just very interested, and when George liked something, she wouldn’t forget about it. Good bye free time, hello random new hobby! It usually changed a lot as she discovered new things, but she was determined to keep this as some kind of constant thing.

She could of laughed. A name that no one else had? In England, she was in the same class as two other Georginas. She guessed that maybe it was more common there than in America, where they named their babies Shaniqua and Potato. Georgina wasn’t really destined to come up all that much. “Actually, my name’s pretty common too, where I’m from. And yes, I much prefer George.” She had gotten the joke from friends and idiots alike wondering about her gender, from her tomboy-ish ways to her name choice to her saucers of a pair of boobs, but she was most definitely female.

Not going to prove it, though.

Ew.

“That would be awesome.” Yay, having someone to practice with who wouldn’t just be some random judgemental idiot on the internet who laughs at your everything!

George’s mind worked in mysterious ways. Comparing French and Japanese was the bare minimum of her weirdness – she could be so much worse.

She nodded. Ah, bonny old England. “Lots of differences. Words in general have been the worst, however.” I’m sorry, jelly is the gelatinous dessert and jam was the preserve, not bloody jello and jelly! Like, seriously. “But yeah, it’s cool there.” She frowned, tilting her head a little, “Sadly not. Would have liked to, though.” She had seen plays and musicals, but none with specifically awesome people.

“I know I’m assuming, but did you live in Japan before Hammel?” If so, she wanted to know everything.

[Misaki Kobayashi]

Oh. Georgina was a common name over there? Interesting... Misaki gave a faint smile. "Gotta love different cultures. I'll be sure to call you George, though, if that's what you prefer."

Though she was fairly certain that returning the gesture, telling George that she could call her by a nickname as well, would have been acceptable at that moment, she held back. Not because she had reservations, but because she was still caught between the Japanese culture, and the American one. Nicknames were for close friends or family. Even growing up in America, visits to Japan and also just influence from her own family, made giving out nicknames to just made friends a little strange. However, she was sure she'd get over it soon enough, if this girl continued being as friendly as she seemed.

She smiled as the offer of help was accepted. Very good. Not that she considered herself a great teacher, but she knew that bad teachers were around in abundance, and were potentially very damaging to people just getting started in something. Either because they embarrassed the newbie, or gave them misinformation.

"Really? Like what words?" She knew some, of course, from various British shows she'd watched. Jeeves and Wooster and Doctor Who especially. Chips instead of french fries, crisps instead of chips. The differences in words that were exactly the same were extremely interesting!

Aw, how sad about not going to any of the Shakespearian plays, though! She couldn't imagine going to England and not going to at least one! Then again, she hadn't lived there, so it was less impressive to people like George, she supposed. Just as she hadn't been to Broadway, which was America's thing, it seemed.

"Oh, no, I've lived in America my whole life." She smiled. "My parents moved here from Japan though, and we visit family in Japan a lot. Back home there is also a good Asian community that I have several friends in." Most people who weren't Japanese seemed to assume she was a Japan native usually, while people who were actually from Japan could see the slight differences just enough to know that she wasn't. So she wasn't quite "Americanized" enough, but also not quite "Japanese" enough to fit perfectly in either group. Not that she particularly cared, of course. It was good to have a sort've balance between the cultures, though she never wanted to lose her heritage.