soo the head of the japanese department at my swedish uni thinks i shouldn’t’ve been let into the BA thesis prep course / shouldn’t be allowed to write my BA paper (next semester) because i haven’t taken the level 4 japanese courses at their school (since i’m studying abroad in japan my course history is different from the other students’ by one single semester — but why the hell do they allow you to study abroad if they're then going to claim you studying *japanese in japan for a year* is going to *push back your graduation in your JAPANESE DEGREE for a year*??). and he only said this NOW, like 12 weeks into the BA prep course with only 6 weeks left : /

as in everyone else has taken 1 semester of (japanese) translation, (japanese) linguistics or a haiku analysis class and apparently stuff like 1 year of studying abroad in japan, 8 years of experience in hobby translation, or of self-studying languages, or of being in a bilingual household means i can’t possibly know anywhere near as much about translation or linguistics as people who’ve done none of that and then have taken a single semester on it in university. i’m not saying i know everything you’d learn in a class, but i’m not exactly at level 0 like he thinks i am. this is a swedish guy, the other teachers for this course are all japanese and already told me they know i haven't taken those classes and they seemed to think it was fine that i was in the course.

anyway now i’m supposed to read a shit-ton of “intro to linguistics/translation” textbooks that specifically focus on japanese (because apparently stuff like papers that analyze translation differences between languages don’t count as sources/you knowing anything about the topic of “translations”, if they’re not on specifically JAPANESE translations). if you know of any i can find online, because no way am i paying a month’s worth of rent on buying linguistics textbooks, please let me know.