Learn Japanese

Missed the deadline for JLPT last year, this year i’ll be in Canada for the test so I don’t know if I will be able to take the test (nor whether there will be any point).

For now I’m just chatting to friends in Japanese and studying a little kanji every now and then. Shigehiko bought me the DS kanji game… i’ve played for a total of 3 minutes so far.

会話はちょう面白い… でも勉強はぜんぜんしたくない。

Studying with Shigehiko I think i’ve realized that my Japanese, in terms of everyday casual use, is better than his English. However he can handle far more difficult situations than I can. Hence when it’s about something serious, we always speak English. Writing has come to a standstill it’s hard to find the motivation…

もうめんどくさいね。

Passed JLPT Level 4 (321/400), now this year onto level 3 in December.

Too level 4 (REALLY easy, since i’ve been in Japan for 2 1/2 years and my level is well beyond 4), and i’m going to take level 3 at the end of this year… shouldn’t be too hard… I just need to learn about 140 more kanji by the end of the year.

Did my first ‘lesson’ only in Japanese the other day. It wasn’t as hard as I expected. Now I know how my students feel. I did think I could understand an explanation of Japanese in Japanese but I could. Yay.

I can have a fairly reasonable conversation now. It helps when I go to my nail salon in Ebisu… because they don’t speak any english… so we chat i Japanese for 2 hours. And Suguru helps me by speaking Japanese whenever he comes over. He really wants to help me.

I’m going to take the test at the end of the year… not sure yet if I’ll take level 4 or 3… if I keep up the study.. LV3… if not… LV3. Gotta learn more kanji and vocabulary. Listening and speakin are not such a worry.

So i’m taking a one month vacation back in Australia, and most evening i’m studying again. I figure i’ll be in Japan at least another year, so I might as well take the test. That way I’ll hopefully have a piece of paper saying I can speak Japanese. Makes me much more employable within the tourism industry.

...and having a Japanese boyfriend once again helps the studying.

I know hiragana now, and some kanji (man, took me long enough). I have a lot of vocab, but i’m practicing stringing it together in sentances and even conversations. It helps having a Japanese boyfriend, I’d like to be able to talk to my boy in more than one language… and it shows respect for a persons culture.

So with language exchange, Japanese boyfriend, Pimsleur and Minna No Nihongo, I should be better soon.

I’m studying again… this time I can read a bunch of hiragana and a few kanji. I can speak a lot more and understand a lot more now… I wanna chat to more j-boys, so learning Japanese is definately a good way to go. Living in Japan for over a year, you’d think I would have tried harder.

I went to Ochanamizu with Gavin the other day and I was horrified by how easy it was fo him to ask the shop staff questions about the snowboarding goggles we were going to buy… I think my listening skills are pretty good, but my speaking, reading and writing skills need work. Currently i’m working on my writing and reading skills.