To study Japanese or not to study Japanese, that is the question!

I know it is too late for a year 13' to change decisions that should have been carefully discussed and taken a long time ago, but I am totally confused with my choice of course at university and I need help.

I know I am good at languages, this I know for sure. I speak three languages, I've been in the UK for only two years now and achieved a B in English AS and an A in French AS (which I used to study intensively back home) and, of course, I perfectly speak my native language.

I decided to continue studying languages at uni, but I chose something more exotic, more.. oriental :smile:

I chose Japanese. And right now, when I need it the less, people around me are trying to make me change my mind and persuade me to continue with French and English. But I don't want to!

The matter is that I know almost nothing about Japan and Japanese but I am absolutely sure that this is what I want to do! I've read some books (fiction and non-fiction) related to the country/tradition/culture etc. I've read about it in the internet (not very convincing, though) and I recently bought a book introducing to basic Kanji characters etc. 'Fair enough!' I thought, but my English teacher (the one who looks through the personal statements) doesn't think so.

What exactly am I expected to write in my Personal Statement about a subject that I've not officially studied before (and according to the courses' entry requirements - I don't need to have studied it before!)? I can hardly formulate it...
Do I have to be worried that I don't know much about the country and language (and if I knew what's the point of wanting to study it in uni?! :P), that I've not been to meetings, sessions, work experiences, exhibitions,.. etc.. involving Japan and Japanese?

I really want to do this subject but I'm no longer sure how to express this desire and how to impress an admissions officer anymore...

Do I really have to change my mind and go for something that I can cope with (French.. and English) rather than something that I really want to do...

This personal statement is pain in the a**, I swear :frown:

Reply 1

discombobulation

Many people study things which they haven't done before at any level.
I study German & Russian & I'd never ever even seen Russian when I applied to do it - so i just went on and on about culture and my proficiency in other languages :smile:

Seriously they dont expect A level Japanese n stuff!

Reply 2

_Sian_

I am studying Japanese right now. I have never studied it before. Ignore your English teacher, as far as I know all the universities that offer Japanese offer it as ab initio (others will offer post A-level courses as well but they will offer ab initio as well). This will vary from uni to uni but most expect you to have learnt a foreign language before, so because you've done AS French you qualify for this.

Don't worry too much about not knowing about the country at the moment, but as far as the language is concerned I would advise you to learn very basic grammatical structures so that you know what to expect and also to learn the hiragana and katakana before you start. I did all this and I'm two weeks into the course and have learnt nothing except odd bits of vocab. So basically it's given me the chance to settle into the course, the university and how things are taught without having to panic too much about the language aspects. Obviously with it being an ab initio course you can get away with knowing literally nothing as they should start teaching it from a very base level but obviously any knowledge is advantageous to you.

As for your personal statment, write what you've written here. Write about the books you've read about Japan, write a little bit about how you've taught yourself some basic kanji, write about why you like languages generally and how you started to like them. I wrote about aspects of Japanese society that interest me and I took beginner's Chinese in my final year of college. I've never been to Japan and I've met very few Japanese people, but I showed that I have a genuine interest in languages and Japan.

Reply 3

kellywood_5

You should definitely stick with Japanese because that's obviously what you really want to do. Particularly with more exotic languages like that, you're really not expected to know loads about the language and the country before you start because they'll teach you from the absolute basics upwards. Even with Spanish, which must be a lot easier to teach yourself than Japanese, my first class today consisted of the alphabet and random words like 'hello'. In your personal statement, you just need to show passion for the course by writing about the books you've read and the basic preparation you're doing, plus the reasons you chose to study it in the first place. Talking about your enthusiasm and ability for languages in general is a good idea too.

Reply 4

GreenBlood

Thank you so much, guys! :biggrin:

I feel a little bit more confident than before... In fact, I arranged a meeting with a Japanese teacher in a local high school for friday and I'd like to talk to her about the language etc. I'll ask if I can visit some of her lessons in the next few weeks. That might be helpful too.

What worried me was that I saw some examples of personal statements of people applying for foreign languages (French and Italian, I think it was...) and their statements were literally overfilled with so many facts and things they know and they've done, places they've visited... etc.
I can talk about my passion in languages here and there, it's part of my everyday life, but about Japan and Japanese I can only write a paragraph or so...
Hope it will be enough. Maybe I should try French and Japanese rather than only Japanese... :smile:

Reply 5

nikki

Languages that people haven't learnt before are obviously not going to have the same sort of statements as for languages that people have been learning for years!

Finding out more about it is definitely good, but they won't expect you to know much about the language, they'll be looking for reasons why Japanese and not another language. Japan has so much stuff that you can talk about though! There's the uniqueness of the language (three scripts, classed as an isolated language), traditional culture (geisha), modern culture (anime, manga, games), history (e.g. WWII, Hiroshima, the invasion of Korea), business (plenty of international companies from Japan), geography (Fuji, the effect of all the earthquakes and tsunamis), literature (haiku, Tale of Genji), film (especially the recent horror exports), music (traditional music, jpop, karaoke), art (calligraphy, origami, woodblock prints), sport (sumo, martial arts, fencing), food (sushi, sashimi, miso, all sorts of noodles, sake), religion (shinto, buddhism)...

Take a look at Wikipedia's list of English words of Japanese origin for some more well (and not so well) known things.

I would find it much easier to write a statement for Japanese than German. :hmmm: