Study Japanese every day

I actually have been doing this. We still don’t have all our Japanese textbooks of course but we do have 2 of Todd’s. Every night, I go over that chapter, that last chapter I was studying with Uno-sensei this summer when we had our last class. And then, when we get all our books, I won’t be too far behind.
I hate to feel it slipping away…

are somewhere on a boat. Todd’s are sitting here on the table next to me. I think I’ll pick them up and look over some things…

I finished the first set of Japanese language books. With our teacher in America, we “finished” them, too, but she skipped around a lot and only pulled out key points to focus on. With my teacher here, I completed almost every detail of every chapter…you know, plus I was trying to speak it to my neighbors etc. So studying here has been a lot different than in America.

Uno sensei brought me the next set of books. Of course, there’s no way we’ll finish these before I leave (we may not even start them) but this way, Honda pays for them! and I do have them so I can study on my own.
Maybe.

I have been studying Japanese for about three years now, I guess. I started out by myself and then Honda assigned us Jun-sensei and we studied with her for 14 months, skimming through Japanese for Busy People and most of Minna no Nihongo. Then I actually came to Japan and started at the beginning of Minna no Nihongo again which was ok because it was like a needed review and so much of it was very easy.

But yesterday, I actually started learning Japanese. I mean, I knew verbs and other vocabulary. I knew what I’d been hearing for over a year now and could figure most of it out…but chapter 20 in the book is where we actually start to learn how real Japanese talk, using plain style speech instead of a formal style.
I feel like I’m starting over!

The results of the tests are in and I passed! Wow. The guys Todd works with all got their results this weekend with some passes and some fails (G. took a higher level) and so I checked the mailbox but then forgot all about it when there was nothing there…
Then I noticed that Nadine called three times in a row this afternoon so I called her back and she was all excited because she’d passed. So I checked the mailbox again and there they were…I was almost too scared to open it…but I passed! I got a 79% and 60% is passing.
Woohoo!
This makes me especially happy because I had thought that if I failed, I could take it again next year but now I won’t be here next year at test time… I could take it in Ohio but…ha! I probably won’t! Plus, I won’t have to make the decision to take the next level either!
Yay!

_{Unfortunately, Todd did not pass…but barely. He is still happy with the results because he did better on the test than he did on any practice tests…}

That’s all I’m going to say.

I took the third section of the 2004 test. This is the kanji and vocabulary test. I got an 87% and finished with 4 minutes to spare. This means I technically passed the 2004 practice test with a 63%. Barely passed. But I really needed this, needed to do well on at least one part of this test to boost my confidence again.
5 more days until the test!

The test is in 6 days and there are a million and one things I have to do this week before the test that are completely unrelated to the test! Two school programs and classes and blahblahblah. Plus, I took a listening section of the test today and FAILED! Why do my scores keep going down now!? Shouldn’t I be getting BETTER?! I just wish it was a week from now and the test was over. I get too easily stressed.
Sorry for all the yelling in this post. I’m just feeling really overwhelmed and bugged!

I took a 4th practice test, just the difficult grammar section. The listening and the kanji section aren’t exactly easy but compared to the grammar, the kanji section is and the listening section…well, you can’t do much to control that or practice. Either you hear and understand, or you don’t.
So I took this section with the strategy of starting at the end where the questions are worth 4 points each instead of 2 and they seem to actually be easier. I still ran out of time in the middle and went 6 minutes over to finish about 10 questions. However, the whole plan backfired. I missed 3 of the 4-point questions and the ones that I took the extra time to finish? Got them all right. So they don’t really count. Aaargh!
I think I’ll just do the test front to back, going a little faster. Starting at the end could work if those questions are as easy on this test as on others but…how can I tell? Plus, flipping pages around, back and forth, back and forth, added to my anxiety. I couldn’t focus. I’m a read-the-magazine-from-beginning-to-end kind of a girl…

The test is in 2 weeks. Yesterday, I made a study sheet with all the concepts and conjugations and inflections with which I’ve been having trouble. Vocabulary words that seem to have different meanings when they’re used with these new and unfamiliar conjugations. I really think just writing them down helped and hopefully studying them will make a difference.