University of Sheffield

Sheffield

Anyone Else Starting the Japanese Studies Course in September 2011?

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So. How good are you all at Japanese language? I've never had the opportunity to study it as an in-school subject, so I've really just taught myself the basics.

Did a 20 credit module at the uni I attended previously and wrote JLPT N5 in July. But I've not revised over summer other than the required kana.

Everyone starts off from zero anyway, so it's a good chance to learn everything properly and without confusing "shortcuts" my previous teacher insisted on. :x

University of Sheffield

Sheffield

Reply 341

Donbar

Guess I'll be seeing everyone on the course in around 5 weeks time (yes it's that soon!).

I've been self-taught for around 2 years with some private tuition on and off as finances allowed. It's hard to quantify what vocab I know, but I know the rules of politeness forms, sentence structure, -te verb forms, inflections, couple of dozen post-positions and a load of other stuff I can't think of at the moment. Writing/reading wise I can read katakana and hiragana, write hiragana (though I'm out of practice with katakana), understand about 200-ish kanji, read around half of that and then write half of that again. :P

I don't know where that is on the scale of what people enter the course with. I like to think I've got a good foundation for the course though. :smile:

Reply 342

RedTide

^ Pretty much exactly that. It's good to know I'm not the only one who doesn't already have an A level in it.

Reply 343

Chain

I'll be starting the course as well with some basic skills in the language this September.

I've visited an evening course for the last two years (once a week, 6 months per year), where I learned to read and write Hiragana and Katakana, and some Kanji (though only about 40). Also we did some basic grammar (KOSOADO, Te-Form) and finished off this year with time and dates. Maybe I will revise some of that in the following weeks, but as the course will start off at zero I don't think that there really is a need. I might just try and improve my handwriting with the Kanji :biggrin:

Reply 344

07734

Original post by RedTide

^ Pretty much exactly that. It's good to know I'm not the only one who doesn't already have an A level in it.

Don't worry RedTide, I don't have a A-Level in it either. I'm self taught like Donbar above buttttt he/she seems way more advanced then me.

Original post by Chain

Nice to meet you Chain :biggrin:

I read that we have a kana test in the first week so practising your handwriting would be a good idea. Mine is soooooooooo bad in both English and Japanese -_-. I need to practice too!

:biggrin:

Is everyone getting excited now? :biggrin:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 345

RedTide

I don't think I'll ever be content with my handwriting in Japanese. I think I'm doing okay until I realise that my last kanji in the sentence is five times the size of the first one.

I'm pretty excited, though I'm not sure if I'm excited about the course, or just going to Uni in general.

How many anime/manga fans have we got here?

Reply 346

Chain

Original post by 07734

Nice to meet you Chain :biggrin:

I read that we have a kana test in the first week so practising your handwriting would be a good idea. Mine is soooooooooo bad in both English and Japanese -_-. I need to practice too!

Nice to meet you too :smile:

Well I guess I'll be pratctising then. Surprisingly though my handwriting in Japanese isn't anything near as bad as my handwriting in English. Writing in Hiragana works actually quiete good already, but some Katakana and especially Kanji are still pretty bad :wink:

Original post by RedTide

How many anime/manga fans have we got here?

I guess I'm one of them. :biggrin:

However, I used to watch/read more than I do at the moment, so don't ask me about new series. The newest Anime I watched in the past few months was "Katanagatari".

Reply 347

avila

Original post by RedTide

I think I'm doing okay until I realise that my last kanji in the sentence is five times the size of the first one.

Are you using lined paper? If so, that's why. Try boxed paper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genk%C5%8D_y%C5%8Dshi

Reply 348

GuineaPrig

We should all meet up in intro week and have some コーヒー。AND archery. :colonhash:

Reply 349

avila

Archery on horses while wearing umanori → live-action Japanese history.

And +1 for coffee.

This thread was missing one of those cheesy countdown timers btw.

Reply 350

RedTide

Speaking of which, I'm gonna be joining the archery and aikido clubs. Anybody else?

Reply 351

GuineaPrig

Hopefully we're all in the same group together. :smile:

I'm worried about this kana test because I absolutely for the life of me can never get か right, it always looks weird. -_-

Plus I still have a hard time differentiating between シツ,　ソン when it's handwritten. I can manage it fine when it's typed.

Reply 352

avila

I have real problems with ふ; it looks different every other time I write it. But I'm more worried about my kana neatness in general. The people who came up with them must be rolling over in their graves.

Laugh at me.

I always envied the Asians in the previous Japanese class. They wrote all the characters perfectly within a week or so. There was one kid who could only string together the most basic sentences, but whose handwriting looked like that of a native speaker. :frown:

Reply 353

07734

Original post by GuineaPrig

We should all meet up in intro week and have some コーヒー。AND archery. :colonhash:

Original post by avila

Archery on horses while wearing umanori → live-action Japanese history.

And +1 for coffee.

This thread was missing one of those cheesy countdown timers btw.

Original post by RedTide

Speaking of which, I'm gonna be joining the archery and aikido clubs. Anybody else?

Me!!! I wanna meet up too :biggrin:

私は　コーヒーを嫌い、でもホットチョコレートが大好き。Can I come to? I wanna try archery as well but my hand eye coordination is beyond terrible. No one is allowed to laugh! :colondollar:

Original post by GuineaPrig

Hopefully we're all in the same group together. :smile:

I hope we're all in the same group too. I met some....em....questionable people on the open day who were moaning among them selves about studying with non-A-Level people and being "pulled" down :frown:

. I hope I'm not in stuck in their group. I know we'll all even out by Christmas but I don't want to listen to complaints until then about it being too easy or something.

My handwriting also makes ソ and ン look too similar and　ツ and シ. I've been practising with maths paper (as it's cheap) and my characters have gotten better BUT I seem to go right back to really messy different sized characters when I used lined paper again. :'(

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 354

GuineaPrig

Original post by 07734

Me!!! I wanna meet up too :biggrin:

私は　コーヒーを嫌い、でもホットチョコレート　が大好き。Can I come to? I wanna try archery as well but my hand eye coordination is beyond terrible. No one is allowed to laugh! :colondollar:

I was thinking of joining a club but not sure which one. Maybe a self-defence one too.

I love the timer Avila. XD Also, your characters look way better then mine! I'd upload a sample but my scanner is in the U.K and a litttttttttttle too far away for me to use it. Sometimes my characters look waaaaaaaaaaay too big on lined paper. I use squared paper too but I like to practice on lined as well to see if I've improved.

I hope we're all in the same group too. I met some....em....questionable people on the open day who were moaning among them selves about studying with non-A-Level people and being "pulled" down :frown:

Yeah we can all meet up beforehand. :smile:

Those snobs will be in the more advanced group anyway I believe, so there'll be nothing to worry about I'm sure!

I want to join some societies but I'm already scraping the barrel finance-wise as it is, so I think I'll have to be selective about it. I would like to do a martial arts one but I keep thinking I'm too old to start now! :redface:

Reply 355

07734

Original post by GuineaPrig

Yeah we can all meet up beforehand. :smile:

Same here

but if someone came with me then at least I wouldn't feel so stupid. I never did any martial arts as a child either so I wonder if I'm just too out of shape now to even start.

I wonder if they'll stick mature and internationals together. One uni I visited said they liked the separate classes into mature/internationals and A-Levels/BTECS because mature and internationals were more likely to understand what the other was going through. I assume they meant that A-Level/BTECS students were used to studying and being in a education environment while internationals and mature students will be less used to it or at a slight disadvantage as it's not in their native tongue.

Reply 356

RedTide

I did Tae Kwon Do for a year a while back but that's it for me. I've gotten really interested in martial arts over the Summer though, so I'll definitely join at least one club. The available clubs are Aikido, Jiu Jitsu, Judo, and Muay Thai. There's Fencing too if you're a douchebag.

Reply 357

Chain

@avila
Your kana look pretty good to me :smile:

Have you already tried writing "fu" like this?
That's how I write it.

Original post by 07734

I wonder if they'll stick mature and internationals together. One uni I visited said they liked the separate classes into mature/internationals and A-Levels/BTECS because mature and internationals were more likely to understand what the other was going through. I assume they meant that A-Level/BTECS students were used to studying and being in a education environment while internationals and mature students will be less used to it or at a slight disadvantage as it's not in their native tongue.

I'm used to be in an educational environment and I don't mind at all the classes not taking place in my native tongue. I've actually never had any class that officially took place in my native language. :eek:

Reply 358

Donbar

I'm also in for coffee and Archery. I've always been interested in weapons, and though I'd prefer swordsmanship (kendo or kenjutsu) archery will also be a blast. I did do it for a while many years ago so I'll be way out of practice now. I'll definitely be taking up one of the traditional martial arts though.

@avila
that's some very neat kana you have there. My Japanese is better than my English writing as well for some reason, probably to do with each character being written individually as apposed to stylised. My J-tutor taught me a trick for writing シツ　ンソ The long lines all go in opposite directions to their counterparts. shi and n go right and up, tsu and so go down and left. The little ticks are also different for shi and tsu, with shi's one on top of the other while tsu's are side by side. As for reading them, there's no real way around them, even some native Japanese get them mixed up. My J-tutor is married to an Englishman and so has a really awkward last name ランソン。 Whenever she's in Japan people always end up pronouncing her name wrong when reading it.

@07734
on my application I wrote in the notes section that I'd be happy to be paired with international students, specifically Japanese, so here's hoping a couple of my roommates will be from Japan :smile:

Reply 359

avila

Original post by Chain

@avila
Your kana look pretty good to me :smile:

Have you already tried writing "fu" like this?
That's how I write it.

It's how I used to write it, too. Then my teacher noted it wasn't "proper" or something ( :confused:

) and she'd proceed to draw the "central part" like an upside down question mark or something. The top was sort of joined into it. It's hard to describe.

Whatever, I'll just go back to writing it like in the picture. :smile: