My Progress in Japanese Halfway Through the Year
I thought I would take some time out and write a bit about how my Japanese has come and where I hope it will go. I thought I’d also talk about what I’ve found that works when it comes to studying Japanese and what hasn’t. Well, without further ado, let’s go!
Before I came to Japan, I had taken three semesters of Japanese class at my school back in the States. They wern’t exactly regular classes you’d take at a college: they were small and had to be privately arraigned through the languages department. We’d have a Japanese exchange student teach us in a group setting twice a week for 50 minutes. You’d think that the small classes would be helpful, but looking back now they really wern’t. The biggest issue was the class was taught primarily in English. All of the Japanese exchange students, almost without exception it seems, were fluent in English and seemed perfectly happy to chat it up with us in class (I’ve heard from students here at Hirosaki that UMaine has some of the toughest TOEFL requirments of any of the schools that Hirosaki exchanges students with). The most meaningful experience I had with Japanese while at UMaine was meeting once a week with a graduate student to do one-on-one conversation practice. At first, I couldn’t even understand the simplest of questions from her, since the only real experience I’d had with Japanese up to that point was through textbooks. But over the course of a couple months I started to get at least a little confortable talking in simple Japanese.
Overall, my time learning Japanese at UMaine was of very little use to me here. Honestly, when I first came here, I could barely speak a word. The extent of my Japanese ability was “where is. . . “, or “is this. . .?”, and the like. Because of this, I was put into the lowest level Japanese class here, Elementary Japanese. However, this was far from a bad thing after just a couple weeks in the class. I was really learning in this setting! Not just because of the fact that I was in Japan, but because of the fact that the classes were taught entirely in Japanese. I began learning rapidly at this point and after a couple of months, I found that I could engage in intelliglble (albeit still simple) conversation.
It was then that I realized the most important thing in language learning – the language! I think a lot of language learners, looking back, miss the point. They are taking classes more to learn about the language, rather than actually use it. By immersing yourself from day one in a language, like I was able to here for the first few weeks of my Elementary Japanese class, you quickly learn more than you would in a semester-long class in a month.
So that was what I found out in the first semester. Now the second semester is here and I’m at the halfway point of my stay here in Japan. How much Japanese do I know now? I can easily hold a conversation in Japanese with my friends for several hours now. I actually feel that my strongest suit is my speaking and listening ability, moreso than my reading and especially writing. But I’m far from satisfied with myself. I feel like I’m only just past crawling and beginning to walk, and I think soon I could begin to run. I often feel like I’m on the edge, the cusp of fully understanding sun up to sun down everything I see and hear. Because of that, I’m studying as much as I ever have. I’m glad that I extended my stay here so that I could continue to fully devote myself to language learning. If you are going to come to Japan for a foreign exchange, definitely stay here for two semesters at least! Not just because being in a foreign country is a great time, but because you will only just beginning to find your stride after a semester. I feel now that I can continue to study and learn Japanese almost exclusively for the next several months, without burnout and with a steady increase in ability.
I guess that wraps it up – I just wanted to layout some of the things I’ve been thinking about myself and Japanese. Hope everyone had a great Halloween, I know I did! Check my Twitpic for some of the pictures.
Themocracy
great to read about the progress you’ve made! So exciting to be able to see the change. :-) Gambarou!