learn more Japanese

Truth is, this goal has no limit. There’s no limit to “learning more Japanese”. But when I see how much I’ve improved, I really see that I did learn a lot more. However, this year I helplessly started to lack time, and the topics only started to get more and more difficult, so I knew my learning wouldn’t be very productive, and I quit [quit the photography class later, too].

So yep, this language probably has no limit of how much you can improve. There are such subtle things that really take time and practice to grasp. But I guess I’ll survive if I’ll end up having a conversation in Japanese. :]

We got the JLPT3 listening task… Not too hard, but there were some tricky parts. It’s definitely harder than JLPT4, and listening was always my weak part. Also, I was in a conference/lecture about Japanese culture, and the whole thing was in japanese [with translators, though], so I was able to see how much I’ll understand. I have to say, I pretty much understood the majority of what was said there, which made me pretty damn happy!

We’ll soon be preparing to pass JLPT3. That’s kind of… Shocking.

Wow. And I’m also confused about our literature, because, just like everybody else, we studied from GENKIIIIIIII :D, and now we’ve nearly finished both parts, so now we’ll probably test-drive some books to see which fit us, so we can continue studying.

We did some honorific language the past few lessons… It was so complicated… I really don’t think I’ll get a big score on the test.

My teacher suggested me to apply to a public speech contest, held by the Japanese embassy. OMG xDD well… okay xD So, I have a few days to prepare a 5 minute [OMG DDx 5 minutes??] speech about anything I like. It will be pretty much me vs… well, pretty much vs. university students that, as far as I know, didn’t even pass JLPT.

Okay, let’s not get overconfident, but I feel pretty awesome right now.

So, our assignment:
1. Translate a text [from Japanese to English]
2. Write a paraphrase of a story that we listened in class. In Japanese, of course.

And some exercises, I think. The point is… damn, we got translation exercises and a paraphrase – and that’s pretty rad. We don’t even get translations in our English classes in school. Well, we’ll see how things will work out for me.

Kanji test went pretty good. I didn’t know the pronouncation for 発表 [happyou], but I wrote the translation, which often happens to me, so my teacher called me ‘the Chinese girl’. Umm… Then we had to write ‘daily life’ – seikatsu [生活], which I wrote as… well, I have no idea what I wrote [分真 – bunshin?]. The rest were just minor mistakes. We also discussed the [very, very stupid] mistakes we made during the JLPT4 test. Oh, god. We could have all gotten like… 10% more… I mean… I actually connected two adjectives by using と. Well, stuff like that. Seriously, how does that happen?

Okay, so JLPT4 was awesome… I did great. 73,5%! Kanji test tomorrow. Umm… That’s all I have to say? Yeah! I know too much kanji, and my vocabulary is tiny compared to the amount of kanji I know, which makes my knowledge pretty much useless. I need some kind of a… dunno… vocabulary builder software? Trufax – I do.

I’m doing awesome so far. We did the JLPT level 4 listening and grammar parts, and mine was the best! [actually, we’re already in the middle of level 3…] OMG! And overall, I’m really happy with my progress.

My vocabulary is not big enough, and I know a SHITLOAD of grammar, so… I really have to expand my vocabulary, and not be lazy xDDD I’ll soon end the Level 3 program. I asked my teacher what’s next, and she said ‘even more fun’ xDDDD

My ultimate goal is to be able to translate Japanese songs. I’m planning to become a session musician and go to Japan… well, I actually want to be everywhere, but I know I have to go to Japan first! xDDDDD