L-R : moi, Helena (South African), Henri (also South African), Farhana (Bangladeshi), Dr Noman (from Yemen), Daniel (of Paraguay), Konan (Ivory Coast) and Alden (fellow Malaysian).
We’re finishing our 2nd week of Japanese intensive language courses. What I’ve learnt so far is roughly equivalent to about 2 months’ worth of the lessons I took back in Malaysia. Here we have full day classes everyday whereas I only had to attend 2 hours per week then.
I’m really quite glad I invested the time and effort to go for those lessons. I can understand how overwhelming it is to learn so many new words and phrases everyday. But the human mind is amazing, it can absorb so much information when required to.
Having great classmates make the classes interesting. We have a healthy blend of the funny, serious, enthusiastic, poker-faced, studious and eager. Most important of all, everyone has a good sense of humour. It helps when we forget words or mix up certain phrases. For example, just the other morning, Helena, from South Africa, accidentally greeted one of our sensei with “Arigatou Gozaimasu” when she meant to say “Ohayoo Gozaimasu”!
Even though I am quite half-banana, I’m so glad I went for POL* for a few years in primary school. The very little words I still remember helps when it comes to reading kanji. I really need to get an electronic dictionary soon. Most of the Korean and Chinese students bring one around since it’s so light and useful.
One of the best things I like about this course is that we also have 2 sessions of Volunteer Class whereby we chat with Japanese students and try to improve on our language. The first class was conducted under some sakura trees on the campus grounds where we had our own little ohanami**.
I can’t wait to get better at this. It can be quite frustrating when I can’t express myself in proper sentences. It’s like having bits and pieces of words which are not stringed together – they don’t make much sense. Oh well, I have 5 more months to go.
* POL = Pupil’s Own Language classes for ethnic groups in National Type schools (eg : Chinese, Indian)
** ohanami = activity of enjoying the cherry blossoms, usually accompanied by food and drinks
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