Tell me about your Japanese Class

[barok 0]

So I am in a Japanese class at my local University, which has one of the best programs in America, complete with textbook writin' professors, and heaps of graduate-school studyin' Japanese ladies as TA's.

 

But the class is populated by jerk-off humanities majors, and anime freaks. And it is amazing how lacking in conversational ability the average student is.

 

"uhhh nihongo de heya wo ireru toki kutsu uhhh wo take-offsuru koto ni natte imasu. " Is the typical banter.

 

Kanji Quizzes every other day, lots of work with grammar and particles, lots of reading from a textbook full of dialogs, but very little to encourage actual conversational use.

 

It's good, but if there was a seperate discussion section it could be great.

 

I miss the days sitting in Iwasaki-sensee's living room in Nagano where we just talked about my snowboarding adventures, while she blasted the keroscene heater to the point where I thought she might have a temperature-regulation defect in her genetic code.

 

I do miss Japan.

 

I almost forgot, tell me about YOUR class, or how you learned Japanese . . . please.

[badmigraine 0]

I learned it just by being in Japan for so long, hanging out at bars and with women and with bilingual Japanese and foreigners, and by picking up a textbook or taking a few lessons here or there.

 

A completely ramshackle approach that gave me a kind of pidgin-talk way of communicating with scant kanji literacy or grammar knowledge to prop up my small but functional vocabulary.

 

I sure would like to do a complete, formal course, but I am a hopeless misfit now, with odd skills, bad habits and yawning gaps in my Japanese.

 

I'm sorry to hear you can't find better J conversation in Madison, but maybe you can take comfort in future payoff that the oft-neglected nerdy textbook study will surely give you.

 

There's never been anything in your SJG posts to suggest to me that you can be kept down for long! I'm more inclined to feel sorry for your wormy classmates, who, it seems, don't have the glittering mountain of future conversational opportunities lying in wait that you do.

 

How about getting into Japanese chat rooms and message boards on the Net?

 

There's a universe of them, from powder to perverts, and it might make a nice synergy of conversational urges and textbook/kanji skills.

 

By the way: Wisconsin...SHEESH! Where will you be riding this winter? It's probably as flat as Michigan.

 

[zwelgen 0]

at my unversity in NZ we had 4 hrs of grammar and kanji a week (ie "book work") then 1 hr in the audio visual suite, watching videos, reading stuff out loud etc and 1 hr of conversation classes a week. These were pretty fun actually, small class of about 8 people and we had to make role plays, do speeches, talk about our favourite ??? etc.

 

It sounds like lots but I felt woefully inadequate when I came out, whether this is cos Im pig stoopid or not I dont know.

 

The people in class were pretty cool, and I got to know them pretty well with so much class time and we used to hang out lots after class etc. Most of them were doing law/business etc degrees in conjunction so it was a nice break for them from the heavy stuff.

[DrEvil 0]

I bet you impressed them with your first-hand knowledge there barok, hey?

[bobby12 0]

I did two years of the CLAIR Japanese textbooks that they give free to JETs. On top of that, for the last year I have been doing 2.5 hours a week of prvate classes in my house, plus weekly workshops at the community centre.

 

I got 3kyu after 1.5 years, and am taking 2kyu this dec (2.5 years into study). But I will definitly fail 2kyu this time around, cos my kanji sucks.

 

I cant write kanji, but apart from that my Japanese is quite well rounded. (I mention this cos sometimes people are fluent but they cant read kanji, or write hiragana etc).

[bobby12 0]

...just want to add that to pick up the language you definitly have to study. You definitly cant pick it up by osmosis like you would in France or somewhere.

[mogski 0]

Here's how my uni studies were.

 

Should note here that my course was participant limited to 30 people a year and the prerequisite was to have taken Japanese at High School.

 

Day 1 through 4

 

9am till 3pm

9-10 Kanji class.

On day one we began with a test on the previous weeks 20 kanji, followed by a lesson on the 10 new Kanji. Day 2 onward was pretty much rote learning of the new Kanji to be tested next week.

 

10-11 Grammer, Vocab, Conversation etc.

Did the whole lot in here. Role playing with fellow students, comprehension and sentencing building, vocab.

 

11-12 Language lab.

Listening to Japanese on tape and repeating out loud while a tutor sat up front and would spy on your progress. Every now and then the tutors voice would bellow out in the head phones, "mogski, that is pronounced..." Certainly was not good for the heart.

 

1-2:30 Japanese contempary and modern culutre, socio economics, politics.

Every second day, we did the lot here on the Japan. Broken down and analysed every little facet of the Japanese demoinour, habitat, screwed up govt system, everything.

 

Where the above was not schedled in an additional grammar vocab and wahtever lesson took its place.

 

2:30-3:00 Optional free study in Language lab etc.

 

This entire program happned 4 days of five with the fifth day being only a 10 minute Oral and Aural test one to one with a tutor whom was either native or of native ability.

 

This went on for three years with each years level getting raised on a fairly steep gradient.

 

The course was desinged so that those graduating would have a level equal too or surpassing Level 1 of the Jap test, but with the academic credentials to move to Masters or PHD if one chose.

 

It is the only course of its kind in NZ and is said to be the best.

 

I chose to make Japanese language my major and for this reason I joined this intensive Japanese only program that was in its second year of degree status in NZ. Our entire three year existence was at uni was Japan. Only two other papres were required to be done extramurally throughout the degree, but everything was Japan. We were drunk on Japan by the end. Becuase of the nature fo the course many began to doubt their interest in Japan. My year started with 30, dwindled to 20 in the 2nd year and then down to only 10 in the last. From this only 9 graduated.

 

It was hard and repetitive as I had already done the basics once at High School and then again as an excahnge student here in Japan prior to uni and then once again in uni.

 

But I came up with a degree at the end and the whole world as my oyster and I end up in this place! What went wrong.

 

Barok, know that at my place it was similar. Humanites students, anime freaks, martial arts crazies and some normal people like myself

 

Good luck.

[woywoy 0]

I did Japanese all through high school and then for 3 years at university. My Japanese at the end of high school was pretty woeful due to the fact that we spent 99percent of the time on reading, writing, grammar and kanji. No wonder everyone had so much trouble with the listening exams.

 

I thought university would be better but it didn't really turn out that way. The classes had a reading/writing slant to them and as zwelgen said, we only really spent an hour or two a week on supposed "conversation". Most of the time this constituted prepared pieces and thus was effectively useless if you ever had to involve yourself in a "real" conversation with someone Japanese.

 

Having said that, however, I feel that having a proper foundation to build oral and aural language skills on is important. I scoffed at my many years of studying Japanese before actually going to Japan for any significant time but compared to others that didn't have that foundation to build on, I was somehow streaks ahead. Grammar, reading and writing and the rest of it may be super boring to study but it does you good in the end, barok. Dont give up!

 

I found the kids in my Japanese classes to also be a real mix. I was one of those kids doing a combined degree so Japanese was a good break from economics, finance and all those other delightful subjects that one must study in order to get a commerce degree. There were alot of Taiwanese, Hong Kong Chinese and Koreans doing the same Japanese classes as me and they would often talk about all the brands and famous idols and all the rest of it that they seem to worship. Then there were the typical anime freaks and computer game lovers. There was a small crew of good people who I became very friendly with and hang out with alot these days.

 

I always tried to suggest to the teachers at uni that it would be more beneficial if we allocated more time to conversation classes to improve our speaking and listening skills because what was the point of learning all this grammar etc. if once you got to Japan you could not even conduct a simple conversation. I got a variety of answers to my suggestions, most of which involved budgets and teacher to student ratios and then the history and tradition of our "great" university. Anyway, I think it has got a little better these days for the kids at uni but I still would recommend kids to go off to the other big 3 unis over here if they want to do Japanese.

 

Good luck and dont give up!

[zwelgen 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by woywoy:

Having said that, however, I feel that having a proper foundation to build oral and aural language skills on is important. I scoffed at my many years of studying Japanese before actually going to Japan for any significant time but compared to others that didn't have that foundation to build on, I was somehow streaks ahead. Grammar, reading and writing and the rest of it may be super boring to study but it does you good in the end,

Yeah Id agree with that. Speaking and listening is about the only thing you are going to pick up by osmosis but if you dont have the grammar foundation then its even harder. Ditto with kanji - once you know some words make sense and you can read lots of thing knowing what it means but alas the only way youre going to get any better is to sit down and learn them.

Mogs where did you study that? Sounds intense. Did you get a bit burnt out at all? And why werent there really any freaks in my classes? There was a limit of 20 people in each of the 2 classes but everyone seemed pretty normal and up for a laugh. I cant believe I missed out on 6 hrs a week with freaks that would have broken the monotony.

[damian 0]

I took 3 lessons a week for the first 9 months then only 2 per week for the last 9 months and have failed to learn a damn thing thanks to my minute ember of interest.

 

I spend my entire lesson trying to distract the teacher from actually conducting a lesson. You name it and I will use it as a diversionary topic. Usually I try to explain to her how silly the concept of me learning a language is as I usually do anything to avoid communicating with people in English speaking countries, let alone Japanese. [i am the kind of guy you can sit next to at work for 12 month and talk to perhaps 3 times].

 

She is a great old chick though. Must be about 75 years old and really funny. We often have quite a laugh, except on the days when I am in a bad mood and am probably the rudest student she has ever had. I feel sorry for the crap she has had to put up with.

 

So far I have refused to learn any kanji and also flat out refused at least three times to learn the silly counting and number stuff (which I think was first served on me in lesson 4 or so). I have held her back quite well and think she has given up. In the beginning lessons I also deflected her attempts to teach the days of the month, except for coconut which is the 9th, I think.

 

I find it pretty tough to drop my work and do a lesson as either I am very busy being very busy or very busy attempting to look like a functioning employee when in fact I have become transfixed on my mouse curser, slowed my heart beat down to 1bpm and almost managed to shut down the non-essential parts of my brain. This is of course my prefered state of existence and when she rings and interupts I do not take to it well.

 

Then out of no where I will have a lesson where I sit down and converse in polite Japanese with her for 15 minutes, without a pause or a word of English (or one silly counter or disturbed digit).

 

This has only happened a few times and it blew her away and freaked me out.

 

Is Spanish easy to learn?

[Ocean11 0]

I dunno if Spanish is easy to learn db, but if you want to order anything in the canteen at a company in London, you'll certainly need Spanish. When I was there, English just didn't cut it.

 

I fool Japanese people into believing I can speak Japanese by saying half a sentence, then letting it trail off. I do this because I have no basic grammar ability, and once I get into a sentence, I can't find the way out again. Most Japanese then kindly finish off the sentence for me, and if it's close to what I wanted to say, I give them a friendly smile. This is what's known in the trade as 'a communication strategy'.

 

The trouble is, all the 'Japanese teachers' I have ever had have all fallen for this too. A trained teacher would pick up on it immediately and realise that something was wrong. But most Japanese teachers aren't trained, or if they are, their training would be considered utterly contemptible in the outside world. So basically I got all my teachers to speak for me, thus obviating the need for me to learn to do it myself. This is what's known in the trade as 'a complete waste of time'.

 

I once sat in on a Japanese 'teacher trainer' who was teaching JETs who had smarmed their way onto a 'reward for good behaviour course'. This was supposed to be a high value deal that would qualify them to become teachers of Japanese when they got back to their own countries. After dabbling in the usual 'Japanese brains are evolved from orangutans' and other total drivel, the teacher then 'taught' the students to 'count syllables', using 'ohayogozaimasu' as an example. She stressed the importance of being able to count them, and get them all in. I very nearly burst, sitting at the back of the classroom trying to stop myself saying "For fk's sakes! Nobody ever speaks like that!!" They had two or three days of this goodness, and I'm sure they made excellent teachers.

[mogski 0]

Having done the basics in grammar and vocab and Kanji three times over in my Japanese career, I have to strongly agree with woywoy. The basics are tedious but they are the most important part.

 

Zwelgen, I went to what is now called CIT in CHCH. Beats any other course that I know off in NZ. Not that I have tried the others, but I have defintely seen the product of them and that speaks for itself.

 

Anyone here from the South of the Pacific ring studied at Monash(?) Uni in Australia?

[badmigraine 0]

Mogs, posting before 10 a.m. at work?

 

A fine thing. A fine thing indeed!

 

I think the stoke factor is ratcheting up for everyone now. Come on, winter!!

 

[mogski 0]

I must admit I am more alive now with these colder mornings. The excitement is building!!!!

[spaz 0]

I'm thinking of taking a Japanese class but deciding on which one to go to. One is much more expensive but is run by JApanese native speakers and there seems to be an emphasis on talking, the cheaper one seems more textbook based.