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The third semester of my Japanese degree is almost halfway over. In first semester we studied from "Genki 1", second from "Genki 2". Together those teach almost all the verbforms in existance and basically has you read single sentences, with a few paragraphs each chapter in the back of the book. At the end of these you still basically know zero Japanese but you have the FOUNDATION of Japanese, anyway.
Third semester goes through half of "Tobira", it's basically trying the pound the grammar from Genki into your head by making you read a ton. The focus is really on learning how to understand long sentences and paragraphs, and teaching you "more" ways to say the same thing you already can. At the same time we also have "reading short stories that were written 100 years ago" class, and "reading manga that was written in the 60's and 70's" class.
Whenever I can I study my butt off, so I "finished" the entire Tobira book 1-2 months ago already and now I'm just moving on to other books and stuff. After Tobira you can theoretically jump straight into immersion, but I don't feel like I'm quite ready. I've just started (as in, last week just started) memorizing new words with JAPANESE definitions as much as possible, and in general I'm just feeling more and more confident in Japanese, so the jump to total immersion is planned for this summer.
Anyway. It feels pretty strange to think, wow, it's been 3 semesters (though i did take a semester's break since my wife's family made it impossible to study full-time at one point) since I started learning Japanese in uni. With another year I'll be — in understanding, anyway, but from the hints I'm seeing probably also in writing — at the same level as a certain American who's been in Japan for 7-8 YEARS and who even studied Japanese for 2-3 years before they moved there. But I just want it to go faster. I want to be there NOW, I want to be fluent NOW. I want to prove I can learn Japanese super fast, and in general I don't want to waste time in my life. So it's really, really frustrating that I'm constantly hindered by my wife's family...
Third semester goes through half of "Tobira", it's basically trying the pound the grammar from Genki into your head by making you read a ton. The focus is really on learning how to understand long sentences and paragraphs, and teaching you "more" ways to say the same thing you already can. At the same time we also have "reading short stories that were written 100 years ago" class, and "reading manga that was written in the 60's and 70's" class.
Whenever I can I study my butt off, so I "finished" the entire Tobira book 1-2 months ago already and now I'm just moving on to other books and stuff. After Tobira you can theoretically jump straight into immersion, but I don't feel like I'm quite ready. I've just started (as in, last week just started) memorizing new words with JAPANESE definitions as much as possible, and in general I'm just feeling more and more confident in Japanese, so the jump to total immersion is planned for this summer.
Anyway. It feels pretty strange to think, wow, it's been 3 semesters (though i did take a semester's break since my wife's family made it impossible to study full-time at one point) since I started learning Japanese in uni. With another year I'll be — in understanding, anyway, but from the hints I'm seeing probably also in writing — at the same level as a certain American who's been in Japan for 7-8 YEARS and who even studied Japanese for 2-3 years before they moved there. But I just want it to go faster. I want to be there NOW, I want to be fluent NOW. I want to prove I can learn Japanese super fast, and in general I don't want to waste time in my life. So it's really, really frustrating that I'm constantly hindered by my wife's family...
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