Throughout this quarter I have intensified the ways in which I practice Japanese both in and out of school. In the last academic semester at the University of Hyogo I have been involved in more regular courses than the semester in the Spring and Summer. This is because I am not assisting a class in English like the class taught by the exchange teacher from Evergreen, and also because I decided to take on a larger load of classes this time around. There are 8 classes I am taking per week that are lectured all in Japanese. Throughout these classes, I tend to take notes on lecture points and try to understand what I can. It is humbling to know the amount that I don't know in terms of the Japanese language- in spite of the insistence of many of my Japanese peers, my Japanese is far from perfect. In terms of how much I did to improve on this during the last ten weeks is subject to criticism. There was plenty more effort I could have put into trying to learn everything during class time. Nonetheless, compared to what I did last quarter, I made several leaps forward in applying language studies.
The most important reason for this is the electronic dictionary I purchased at the beginning of the semester:
These dictionaries make it a lot easier to immediately identify a word either by its pronunciation or by drawing the kanji characters on the screen in order to find a word. By doing this, I have been able to understand key components of lectures so that I can somewhat follow along. The words I look up I record into a notebook like so:
I then review these words on my own time to help reinforce the knowledge, using the tried and true method of flash cards. Slowly these words have entered the pool of vocabulary I use in everyday conversation.
Conversation skills have improved as well. People often remark how much my Japanese has improved in the last 4 or 5 months, unexpectedly. While Japanese are prone to praise foreigners for their Japanese skills, the level I am at is proficient enough to know that when someone remarks that I've improved, I take their word for it. My ability to speak has improved quite a bit since September; I find less and less conversations where I am completely lost, even speaking with heavily-accented, older Japanese people. This has been a sign to me that my studies have paid off this quarter.
In terms of kanji studies, it has generally been the same as last quarter:
Generally, I review each page which usually contains ten characters each. Though, I concede that I have not been reviewing nor writing new kanji nearly as much as I should. After this post I will post the remaining characters from the previous blog entries.
Other than learning from classes, I have made headway in increasing reading proficiency at home through manga, books, and other materials.
Unfortunately the amount of projects involving language this quarter have been few and far between. Here is what I have so far:
The test I took last week (mentioned in a previous blog entry) and had returned to me today in "Technical Japanese". While there are some red marks the instructor praised my improvement in articulating Japanese in writing. The essay continues to the back of the page.
Here is the presentation on the Folk Song Club I did in "Japanese Language/Culture":
In terms of another project, I will be completing a presentation on my life in Japan for "Interchanging Societies" to be presented on the 21st of this month. As soon as I finish it I will post it here, but by then it will surely be past the quarter deadline.
For the remaining kanji I have studied, I will post those in an entry within the next 24 hours. Overall, the quarter has been very educational in terms of what I've learned. Within the classes I have been able to understand more than I could the previous quarter. As of now reading comprehension and writing is the only thing holding me back from being at an advanced level of Japanese. In terms of everything else, I'd say my Japanese is at an upper-intermediate level overall. In that sense, this quarter has been a success. Next quarter will be more of an effort to increase overall reading and writing abilities.
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