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Japanese at Sheffield

Reply 720

frogout

4

i've met her many times irl :eating:

and pfft it's better for everyone that it's upside down :hand:

Reply 721

randomjak

kimoso

i've met her many times irl :eating:

and pfft it's better for everyone that it's upside down :hand:

has she met you or do you just follow her down the street? haha
and better for the bats maybe

Reply 722

frogout

4

the bats

and lollllll no, i've met her :teeth:

Reply 723

thefaceless

randomjak

a) hmm but surely a little more than that would help?
b) yay
c) two out offf?
d) how many people are noticably going to drop out after half a year or so? the dropout after 1 year on its own is fairly substantial... maybe that's just the end of year exams
e) dammit. hahah

Learning the whole language before coming would help, you asked what you need to know ;p Anything you can learn is good.

Two out of... ten or something. Nagai and Tranter.
The exam periods are usually the drop points, yeah, although the end of the year is always a lot worse. I'd say mid year is maybe... 30% of the first year number. Which I don't remember.
They're an endangered species in Sheffield. If you want to see them you have to be there in the first week. After that they vanish into the ether.

Reply 724

username42053

7

kimoso

LoL franpgb. also can i just say that yuffie is pretty :coma:

too as all will agree. fran's facebook photos are however not clear :moon:

Eh, I have pictures on there of me. Albeit some are in a distance, but I got some real fit ones (not) recently uploaded. I like my year 12 one only, go look at that one. I ain't a photogenic person alright. I'm sure you'll be bowled over when we meet in Sheffield irl and all.

randomjak

and yes fran's facebook pictures suck haha

You two are both perverts and stalkers. Both have pictures too on TSR so pipe down.

Kim is an emo so she has upside down photos, and ones with obscure and abstract angles.

Reply 725

guy_incognito

thefaceless

Learning the whole language before coming would help, you asked what you need to know ;p Anything you can learn is good.

Two out of... ten or something. Nagai and Tranter.
The exam periods are usually the drop points, yeah, although the end of the year is always a lot worse. I'd say mid year is maybe... 30% of the first year number. Which I don't remember.
They're an endangered species in Sheffield. If you want to see them you have to be there in the first week. After that they vanish into the ether.

Siddle is pretty awesome if you elect to have one of his lectures. I'm fairly sure he does some of the contemporary and literature stuff in Year II as well - which I missed out on. Bummer. Tranter is just amazing though. The man could talk about the use of Heian period married women's slang of central Nara and make it seem interesting for an entire lecture. The module I'm doing for him now, its just brilliant.

PS: this is gaijin everyone - I'm keeping a low profile and a new account after I got into a daft argument with the idiots who run this site. Please feel free to pester me about Sheffield if you want.

In our year, most people tend to drop before the exam. Although there seems to be a bunch of people who continued to study Japanese well into 2nd year despite scraping (and I mean scraping) the first year - depsite being told by Angela that the second year will be a lot harder and therefore... not easier. Personally this second year is not difficult as all the info is laid out for us - its just the goddamn statistics content this semester, which makes me want to strangle myself. Strangely, only the translation classes are interesting now - simply because we don't look at graphs and use horribly formal grammar about how to say '10% drop' and 'sharp increase'...

Presentation was good though. Forgot that Ishiwata was sticking a camera in my face and did the entire thing without any flashcards or script but went 5 minutes over the limit. Partly because my partner was slow reading... :frown:

I am so looking forward to next year, simply so I can focus on my speaking/listening skills. I should have all the kanji and grammar done - so next year is vocab central. Right now, everyone is just fed up of Japanese. We have four weeks to go and the passion is sucked right out of you when you get to this stage. Its like they want to make you feel like crap right before you go to Japan for a year. Thanks guys.

Reply 726

guy_incognito

A note about the sensei though. I really disliked Ishiwata's classes in the first year but really like them in Year II now. I think that's partly down to her English not being as good as the others. So obviously in the first year she has to speak English more, because most of the class no hardly any Japanese. But in the second year its like 70% in Japanese and as such, I think her humour comes out a bit more which is good. By the second year, you can easily just start speaking to the sensei in Japanese, which is good.

Arai, must have a lot of patience with me. Because in each one of her classes this year I have done no work and I think she must hate me. Hahaha. I feel sorry for her, because I am 100% demotivated each time I go into her class. I might do 4 weeks of making it up for it though. :p:

Kittaka - who I don't have in second year now, is just sooooo kind. We started having a random conversation in Japanese on the paternoster the other day. She's really nice.

I have a mutual understanding and shared humour of Japan with Nagai that gets me through my time in Sheffield without any hardships - although she still has an ironfist reputation amongst some of my colleagues.

Tranter - awesome nuff said. The man is a legend.
Siddle - again a legend.
Angela - sorta like Nagai. She likes to scare you because she runs the Japanese course at the uni. But she's fairly harmless as long you do your work and don't attempt to understand every single kanji. Second semester seemed a lot less 'hostile' than the first for some reason. Perhaps because you get used to her a bit more.
Miriam - haven't had her long enough. I think she's a good teacher though. But because our classes are quite big, I think the impact is diluted somewhat.

Reply 727

frogout

4

Hey, I think I've had Angela once as a substitute teacher on my Japanese evening class last year, is she english yeah? And was like the first person ever to study Japanese at Sheffield, or something like thaaaat? Everyone else hated her lol, but I (secretly) thought she was so much better than our normal teacher!

Reply 728

Llamageddon

18

HEY GUYS GOT YOUR WELCOME PACKS YET?? :hat2:

Reply 729

thefaceless

Actually, that's my mistake, I forgot Siddle. He's a great guy too. I think I forgot him because I was thinking of my fourth year, when he's apparently going to be on research leave :frown:

Same reason I didn't include Grayson on the list, he's a fantastic guy with an awesome beard but he's retiring at the end of this academic year. I really missed his surprisingly interesting religion and philosophy lectures during the ones here, they were so much more boring.

And well, if we're going into detail, then here comes a nice big piece. Bear in mind of course that these are only my opinions! Though quite a lot of people seem to agree with them.

Arai - Boring and patronising. Second year, semester 2, and she was still making us repeat simple sentences off the board slowly. It's just flat out insulting. Her listening lessons always involved answering really badly written questions (in English) that no one could understand too (and were at 9am) though they may have fixed this, god knows we complained about it enough.

Ishiwata - She's... okay. Honestly, the impression I get is just someone who's very new at the job, who could potentially end up likeable but right now seems more like you've expect a new supply teacher to be.

Kittaka (why does she get a smaller picture?) - In my experience, the Japanese grammar nazi. Her grammar homework review classes in the first year (the only time I've been taught by her) consisted of hauling people to the front of the class and picking out tiny mistakes in their work and making a huge deal about it. My flatmate last year insisted she's really nice, though.

Ko - Basically her lessons consist of her reading very formal style stuff in a somewhat broken accent. 'Boring' doesn't quite sum it up. She's not a bad person, and she is knowledgeable as a lecturer, but as a teacher... not so much.

Siddle - Yep, he's great. Especially if you get him for Japan's minorities in the second year - you will not meet an English scholar more experienced on Ainu matters than this guy. When I was looking for books to write my essay on them the vast majority of them were written by him. Loves it when people take interest in the topics he teaches too.

Nagai - Awesome. She deserves a bigger picture. She can be strict, yes, but she also has a great sense of humour and is generally a very friendly person. Basically, if you're doing what you should she'll be your favourite teacher, and if you're not... god help you? Also if you skip any of the other teachers' lessons she'll be the one who comes after you.

Tranter - The classics man. He's far too enthusiastic about the field for his own good, but it really shows and is almost infectious. He's really supportive of people His classical Japanese module in year 2 is most definitely worth taking - it's hard, but can be surprisingly useful! He's kind of the same as Siddle in that he loves it when people take interest in his stuff, which I really liked.

Coutts - She's kind of like... a stricter version of Nagai I guess? A lot of people portray her as some kind of ogre, but she isn't. Same rules as Nagai apply - do everything she wants to you to and you will have no problems. Her lessons are useful and informative. I might still like her if it wasn't for all the year abroad project mess.

Singh - He's not a bad man but his lectures are very boring and you really have to strain to understand what he's saying. Thankfully Glenn Hook has put audio recordings of his own lectures (same module) on MUSE, so if you want to skip Singh's lectures you can just listen to those. He did give me a first even though my bibliography was all in the wrong order though.

And while I'm at it...

Grayson - Just look at that beard. Is that not a fine beard?

I can't comment on any of the other lecturers because I haven't been taught by them - I get good impressions from Dobson, though. He has engrish on his office door.

[Edit: I fail grammar]

Reply 730

guy_incognito

kimoso

Hey, I think I've had Angela once as a substitute teacher on my Japanese evening class last year, is she english yeah? And was like the first person ever to study Japanese at Sheffield, or something like thaaaat? Everyone else hated her lol, but I (secretly) thought she was so much better than our normal teacher!

Angela or more formally, Dr Coutts - is our translation / reading comprehension teacher. I dunno what she does within SEAS outside of our lectures. She grinds Japanese out of you in an annoying yet rewarding kinda way.

Also, I heard Hugo Dobson is a semi-legend of sorts. Not had him yet, but the people who do the politics module say he is a good lecturer.

Reply 731

Llamageddon

18

randomjak

has she met you or do you just follow her down the street? haha
and better for the bats maybe

Reliablesource.org suggests it as a distinct possibility that kim is lying on this matter and that she does infact stalk yuffie as opposed to "meeting" her.

Reply 732

guy_incognito

thefaceless

Grayson - Just look at that beard. Is that not a fine beard?

Oh man Grayson is a legend too. Shame he is leaving. :frown:

Another lecturer who could talk about 19th century Korean pottery and make it seem amazing.

Reply 733

SomeNextPirate

11

thefaceless

Actually, that's my mistake

...

[Edit: I fail grammar]

Cheers, interesting :yep:

Reply 734

Keiron

Canon Word Tank or Casio Ex-Word?

Reply 735

randomjak

thefaceless

Arai - Boring and patronising. Second year, semester 2, and she was still making us repeat simple sentences off the board slowly. It's just flat out insulting. Her listening lessons always involved answering really badly written questions (in English) that no one could understand too (and were at 9am) though they may have fixed this, god knows we complained about it enough.