Re: alaart's log (mainly Japanese/Chinese)
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 5:09 pm
Nothing too interesting, but for the sake of completeness, a bit about daily university life, which became very tiring. I maybe slept around 5h most days.
I'm a bit struggling with all the homework. Every class has it, and they always have short deadlines like only 2 days to hand in some tasks, but my schedule is usually already full, so the homework hits me out of the blue and I have to cram it in somehow. I'm usually very throughout and rather slow with the homework.
On my J-Cat Test 2 months ago I did so poorly, that the teachers wanted to put me into the A2 course. But I protested and participated in the B1 courses till now. today finally got the okay for permanently entering the course. one of the teachers said she generally never does accept students skipping to a higher level, and she is very strict, so I feel it is a compliment, that she lets me participate.
The B1 courses have a lot of written language that is new for me. The written language takes time to adapt to, most of the other students are Korean or Chinese, so they have less trouble with the written language. I feel written language is the thing were I definitely have progressed since coming to Japan, but it is only the tip of the iceberg.
Another struggle has been the bureaucracy of Japan. Countless emails, letters and instruction papers - all in Japanese, and it takes time to get through them. I wanted to take another teaching job at the University, but then they handed me like 5 pages of Japanese instructions. The deadline day of filling out the forms came and I was tired. I just threw the whole application into the trash because I didn't have the nerve to translate and organize it - so no second part time job for me
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I still haven't studied a single minute of Spanish outside of class. I feel embarrassed not being able to conjugate verbs, and not understanding some grammar bits. Also I signed up for the wrong course: I signed up for the Spanish course outside of the Spanish language department, which is half the speed of the regular classes. So I'm basically in an extra slow class, but ok. Since I'm busy, it may just be better that way
-
I introduced myself to the Chinese students this week, I participated at other universities events to meet more people and met some Chinese people there. My Chinese is already way worse than it was in Taiwan or Germany. I reactivated old Anki decks, since I had excess time on the subway, but turns out I really forgot most of the words. I studied them between March and July when I was talking daily and watched subtitled television on yabla. (In total around 2500, I reactived 500 for now). It's just brutal that I forgot so much, I worked so hard in spring.
Amongst maybe 20 Chinese people I approached so far in my one month in Japan, I finally found two that want to study with me, one wants to improve English, one German. So I will return to my 3x week Chinese language exchange schedule I had in Germany. I hope this reactivates some hidden memory and the stuff I studied before will return.
-
Next week is the polyglot conference. I have classes though, so I skip two days of university classes for the travel back and forth, I take the night bus to the event and the Shinkansen back. Won't have any time for sightseeing or anything other than the conference, but still - very much looking forward to the event. Also I have some study time on the bus and train - so I'm also looking forward to that.
I'm a bit struggling with all the homework. Every class has it, and they always have short deadlines like only 2 days to hand in some tasks, but my schedule is usually already full, so the homework hits me out of the blue and I have to cram it in somehow. I'm usually very throughout and rather slow with the homework.
On my J-Cat Test 2 months ago I did so poorly, that the teachers wanted to put me into the A2 course. But I protested and participated in the B1 courses till now. today finally got the okay for permanently entering the course. one of the teachers said she generally never does accept students skipping to a higher level, and she is very strict, so I feel it is a compliment, that she lets me participate.
The B1 courses have a lot of written language that is new for me. The written language takes time to adapt to, most of the other students are Korean or Chinese, so they have less trouble with the written language. I feel written language is the thing were I definitely have progressed since coming to Japan, but it is only the tip of the iceberg.
Another struggle has been the bureaucracy of Japan. Countless emails, letters and instruction papers - all in Japanese, and it takes time to get through them. I wanted to take another teaching job at the University, but then they handed me like 5 pages of Japanese instructions. The deadline day of filling out the forms came and I was tired. I just threw the whole application into the trash because I didn't have the nerve to translate and organize it - so no second part time job for me
-
I still haven't studied a single minute of Spanish outside of class. I feel embarrassed not being able to conjugate verbs, and not understanding some grammar bits. Also I signed up for the wrong course: I signed up for the Spanish course outside of the Spanish language department, which is half the speed of the regular classes. So I'm basically in an extra slow class, but ok. Since I'm busy, it may just be better that way
-
I introduced myself to the Chinese students this week, I participated at other universities events to meet more people and met some Chinese people there. My Chinese is already way worse than it was in Taiwan or Germany. I reactivated old Anki decks, since I had excess time on the subway, but turns out I really forgot most of the words. I studied them between March and July when I was talking daily and watched subtitled television on yabla. (In total around 2500, I reactived 500 for now). It's just brutal that I forgot so much, I worked so hard in spring.
Amongst maybe 20 Chinese people I approached so far in my one month in Japan, I finally found two that want to study with me, one wants to improve English, one German. So I will return to my 3x week Chinese language exchange schedule I had in Germany. I hope this reactivates some hidden memory and the stuff I studied before will return.
-
Next week is the polyglot conference. I have classes though, so I skip two days of university classes for the travel back and forth, I take the night bus to the event and the Shinkansen back. Won't have any time for sightseeing or anything other than the conference, but still - very much looking forward to the event. Also I have some study time on the bus and train - so I'm also looking forward to that.