xp_logs | Noriko and Crystal

Backdated. Crystal helps Noriko with her English homework.

The look on Nori's face as she stared at the book open in front of her would definitely have been described as sullen, and it was one that most of her teachers were well acquainted with. She rarely skipped classes these days, but that didn't mean she was pleased to be there, or that she was really going to put her all into it. She certainly wasn't putting her all into the English homework in front of her - the page of sentences she was supposed to be translating still only held the computer printed text and she hadn't turned a page in her text for more than ten minutes.

If looks could kill inanimate objects, the paper in Noriko's hands would have shriveled up and died long ago. Yes, by now Crystal had figured out that the teen wasn't at all interested in her lessons, but what she couldn't quite figure out was why. Clearly, this went way beyond Kyle's 'You're crazy for liking foreign languages.'

"Noriko," Crystal said, offering the student a smile as she approached her, "I do not have any plans at the moment. Do you mind if I sit with you?"

"Eh?" Nori looked up, startled out of her mental diatribe against homework in general and English in particular. "Ara. Crystal-sama. Is ok." Dropping the page she waved the older girl to one of the other chairs. With her English tutor there chances were good she wouldn't be able to get away with not doing her homework, but she might be able to get help...

Sitting down in the chair, Crystal motioned to Nori's homework. "What are you working on?"

"Mochiron, English," Noriko said, making a face and handing over the page. It had ten sentances on it - five in English and five in Japanese. She'd started working on the Japanese part, odd bits of English pepering the space below in Nori's suprisingly neat handwriting, seemingly direct translations of words she knew placed in no particular gramatical order. The English sentances hadn't even been touched.

Noriko appeared to hate her English homework every bit as much as Crystal had despised the thought of the kitchen and the stove and a semester of cooking lessons. Of course, to Crystal, knowing how to cook shouldn't have been a requirement, while knowing the language of the country you were living in was definitely something very important to learn.

Crystal examined the page for a few moments. She was certain she could help Noriko more if she could read and speak Japanese, but her study of other languages had never made it to Japanese.

Nori slumped into her chair, elbows propped on the table, looking frustrated. And maybe a little bit defeated, if she admitted it to herself. "Is wrong, senbu... all."

Crystal looked from the paper to Noriko and shook her head. "No, not all of it is wrong, but it is also not quite right." Giving the girl a smile, Crystal placed Nori's book on the table. Thankfully, the written words were quite legible; they just didn't make any sense in their current order. "For the most part," Crystal told the dark-haired girl, "the words are correct. They simply need a few additions and a bit of change in the order. Will you read the words for me, please?"

Nori sighed, but obligingly sat up straighter, taking the notebook. Her handwriting might be shockingly clear, but her accent remained attrocious. Eyeing the sentance Crystal had indicated she began. "He. Bog... ara, kuso..." Snatching up her pen she scratched the word out, replacing it with 'dog'. "He. Dog. With. Park. At. Run."

Crystal smiled encouragingly, nodding when Noriko caught her own mistake. "Very good. It helps when you read your own work out loud, yes? Sometimes simply looking at it is not enough."

"Un... maybe..." Nori said, half considering Crystal's words and half scowling at the page. She knew it was wrong. That was the real hell of English - she knew it was wrong and didn't know how to fix it. Made her feel stupid, particularly since she'd been studying English since she was twelve. She'd made more progress in the last five months than the last five years.

"Now that you have read it and you know that the words are correct, perhaps we can see about placing them in an order that makes sense?" Whenever possible, Crystal preferred to approach things from a positive outlook. Telling Noriko that what she had written was incorrect would not help; the look on Nori's face was more than enough proof that the Japanese girl was already not pleased at all.

Nori nodded, doing her best not to look too resigned and flipped her text book open to the very beginning of the grammar discussions. She hated grammar.

---

It had taken longer than Nori wanted, but all five of the Japanese sentances now had more-or-less intelligible English counterparts, and for the most part Nori understood how they'd gotten there. At least, she understood it now. It was an even odds bet she'd forget by the time she had to turn the page in, but that was a fight for another day. Now they came to the vastly easier (and far more entertaining) portion of the problems.

Scowling at the page Nori carefully sounded out the first sentance. "Sarah likes to... anou... eh... nantoka... her computer." Looking up she frowned at Crystal. "Nori is 'like' and 'computer' know. What this?" She pointed at the word she'd skipped.

"What do you do with a computer?" Crystal asked Nori. There were several possible answers, of course, even if only one of them was correct in this instance, but that could get to come up with the right one.

Unlike in English, there really only was one common answer in Japanese and, once Nori had worked out Crystal's question she said, "Tsukau. Anou..." Flipping open her dictionary she hunted through it until she came to the right page and, indeed, there was 'use'. The younger girl grinned at Crystal. "Neh, how is say?"

"Use," Crystal said, speaking clearly and carefully, doing her best to speak without her normal Attilani accent. It hadn't been American English she'd been taught growing up, but that was what Noriko was learning now.

The word was definitely familiar sounding, which made Nori wrinkle her nose, even as she repeated it. She hated how long it took for vocabulary to stick in her head, and how easily she lost words. Still, knowing that word, it was easy for her to work out the meaning of the sentance in Japanese and she wrote out her translation quickly.

"Are you ready for the next sentence?" Crystal asked. If Noriko needed to take a break, that was fine, but she hoped the girl would want to continue working and finish the assignment before stopping.

Nori looked over at Crystal, and it took a few moments for her to get her mind around what Crystal said, then groaned and dropped her head onto the desk. "Is not want..." she sighed.

"You are doing very well, Noriko," Crystal told the student. "If you wish to take a break, you may, but you do not have much work left, and if you continue now you will finish earlier than you will if you stop now."

Noriko couldn't figure out if she was missing something in translation or if Crystal was really just being incredibly obvious. Probably her English was bad and she just didn't understand. Which was a reasonable argument for finishing her work. Sitting up with a sigh the girl picked up her pencil and scowled at the next problem with a resigned, "Hai, hai..."