Nope...I'm not done yet. Almost though.
Now that I think about it, it's really like a "stroke of luck" or "moment of folly" that I decided to take up Japanese. I do not have any particular interest in Japanese Anime or their celebrities or even JPop (I don't think I even listen to them). So I don't even know why I took it. I think the most likely reason was because many games (particulary RPGs, which was my favourite genre at that time) were based off Japanese, so I'll probably understand the game more.
Anyway, I was taking it more as a "fun thing", and I have no intention to become super proficient in it or be able to understand Japanese films...At first I want to just take year 1 and see how it is. Quite easy, so I took year 2. Very hard...but since I've taken it for 2 years, why not just finish it. So I took for the whole 3 years. Heh.
Year 1: Ehara Sensei! I still can remember the first lesson when I stepped into the classroom (since there's no one I know) and she began rattling some Japanese. Totally catch no ball. (I can sense the whole class also sweatdrop) Anyway, first lesson was to write some 'hiragana' characters and do some 习字 kind of work.
That period was a very tough time man...getting to know 46 different characters and write them. I remembered using all kinds of strange ways to memorize them. Like "す", I'll think of it as "chinese 10" followed by a "numerical 9". Then "さ" I'll think it as drawing a "pirate hook"...LOL. Later on, those "unorthodox" ways start to fade away and the words start to come "naturally"...heh...I think the best thing about year 1 is learning those verbs. Eat, Drink, Sleep, Go, etc...etc.
Year 2: Still taught by Ehara for the first half. "katakana", even more headache. It's not like it's more difficult than "hiragana", but because you're already super familiar with "hiragana" and now there comes another set of letters that's written differently yet sound the same with their "hiragana" counterparts. Geez. Again use same techniques (mostly is using chinese characters) to memorize. Like "エ" is basically a chinese word pronounced as "he".
2nd semester was more jia lat as we (Glenn and me) had to switched our lessons due to timetable constrains. Taught by...Chisato. Geez...that's like the most boring lessons ever. The class is super quiet and......dead. (I think there's only ilke 12 students every time)
Remember we did an assignment (Audio recording of Japanese storyline) with Moon Yew at Glenn house. Now I go listen still quite funny...Anyway, didn't do as well compare to year 2 because of the "tons" of module assignments. Cant' even finish the proper assignments liao how to fork out extra time to study Japanese. (Although I still forked out time to play game)
Year 3: Wee..Yukiko Sensei~! I actually felt that Year 2 is more difficult than year 3. No idea why. Year 3 seems very..."formula based". Once you know the rules, you can easily switch "forms" and do every single questions. Year 2 teaches a lot of different grammatic stuff and loads of vocabulary which require memorizing.
Anyway, 2nd semester was more "sian". Cause it was during the internship and I didnt want to take the stupid e-learning. How the hell are you going to learn a language by doing some random stuff on the net. So even though I worked till 6, I still made a point to just go attend the 1 hour lesson. (Or else I think I will totally flop the Oral)
Did an assignment about Japanese survey with glenn, where we simply anyone "pong"...Haha. Unexpectedly I did well for the 3rd year (I thought I was going to do quite bad beause of the 2nd semester). Wee~
Summary: That's it for the new Language. If you ask me now I've probably return 50% of the things I've learnt to the Senseis, but the other 50% is likely to be more useful...Haha. It's unlikely that I'll continue my studies in this language (Unless somehow something spark my interests in it again)
Didn't regret it. Very good experience. And I can actually catch some Japanese jokes when I look at the animes now...
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