Finals at Todai.

A nudge from a dear friend and I realize, it's time to revive my in-passe blog. After my fantastic New Year experience in January at the host family, Tokyo welcomed me with “finals time” schedule. I had a whole month to prepare for my Japanese final exams and two oral presentations, so of course I took it “slowly” (read procrastinated all I could).

Todai Japanese classes at Hongo campus, as much as well-planned they were, had very weak execution, that left a lot to be complained about - little consistency, not very well trained staff, lots of time wasting, are just among many of my quibbles. Compared to Harvard or Princeton Japanese classes (undoubtedly the very best out there), I have to say Hongo ones were very much mediocre. Hongo campus “intensive” Japanese classes, offered from basic level 1 (those who have never read hiragana) to level 5 (those who need to hone their almost-perfect Japanese) were not intensive at all, and speaking in all honesty, I'm sure I could have learned more if I just went for same level, regular Japanese classes back at Harvard.

Komaba campus also offered Japanese classes, however:

1. the level was abnormally high (for students prepared to do academic research in Japanese)

2. the classes were once a week without homework, which meant more a joke than a class
   

But one thing I could never obtain at Harvard as I did here is the listening and speaking opportunity, an advantage stemming purely from my very presence in the very country.

So there is indeed a trade-off and my conclusion is: I need to study by myself here more than I ever needed anywhere else. That in itself is a huge test of my self-discipline and motivation. And the constant attractions and temptations of fun that Tokyo has to offer, are not helping me at all!

End of semester party for Hongo Japanese classes. Lots of food.

I also realized, that I have reached the impasse period, where learning new things are terribly difficult, because the only things left to learn are very advanced points. The basics of basics are taken in, expressing simple things, describing ordinary life-style has been attained. Now is time to talk about economics, politics, news, novels etc etc. The really important stuff. And so, also the boring stuff.

Funny thing though - ever since I came to Japan, my Chinese has not deteriorated (!), the reason being that huge percent of all of the foreign students are Chinese. So along with struggling with Japanese, I am unexpectedly exposed to lots of Mandarin speaking as well (and Chinese karaoke as well!). Oh, irony.

Current level: around JLPT 2 (Japanese Language Proficiency Test – an equivalent of English TOEFL), 1 being the highest. Hope to take at least one such test before I leave.