Discussion High School Japanese Courses

[xxeuphemia]

I'm taking Japanese when school starts this September, and I was wondering what level of Japanese we would be taught, and how good I would be by the end of the year. Its Grade 9 Japanese, for people with 0 experience. (Gr. 9 is when we can start picking languages).

I'm hoping its not going to end up like how we learned French in elementary school (We learned the same stuff EVERY year, fruits, numbers, etc)

But I speak and and read (most) Chinese, so that would help...a bit, right?

 

[Ju-da-su]

LOL

No offense, but wouldn't the curiculum differ from school to school? You'll have to ask your school's senior who had taken those courses or the teachers of those courses for the details of the class, not us. >_>"

100%, they'll teach you the hiraganas and the katakanas, since those are like the alphabets of Japanese, and probably some basic grammars and vocabs, enough for you to be able to construct a couple of simple sentences.

I'm not sure whether they'll start giving you kanjis in your first year though (my school didn't. We only started on the kanjis once we get to Japanese 2 course.) Some schools actually get some basic kanjis into the first year course, but I don't know if that'll be the case in your school or not.

So, certainly, if you ask me what level of Japanese you'll be taught with, it'd be the same as the level of English taught to kindergarten kids, or maybe first or second graders, aka basic stuffs since it's the course for beginners.

However, if you ask how good will you be by the end of the year, ask your teacher or your senior, and certainly, ask yourself as well about that. How good you'll become will depend on how far they'll teach you in your first year and most importantly, like any other subjects, how devoted you are into your study. I mean, when I was in my first year, I already start to try to read the shounen manga raws, taking note of all the vocabularies, grammars and certainly the kanjis, asking the teacher to confirm stuffs I don't understand in them, as soon as I pick up all the kanas. In fact, I start translate in my first year of study, but to my native language and with English script to double check and look at how the sentence structures works from Japanese to English. So, I basically got myself bits and pieces of the languages in the same level as what I'll study in my later years (second year, third year or even higher than that). On the other hand, a lot of my friends just don't give much into it, like don't even pay attention in class. So, in the end, they get near to nothing from it.

PS. Chinese may either help you or drag you when it comes to kanjis. Some characters in Japanese differ from its Chinese origin, and some differ even in its meaning, so be aware of those. Just don't get mixed up between them.

 

[saladesu]

About the Chinese, Ju-da-su is right. It can be both a great help and a hindrance. Writing kanji should be a breeze for you, regardless if you learnt fantizi or jiantizi when you learnt Chinese, because although most kanji are the same as fanti, there are a number that aren't as well (e.g. 当, 国). Most of the meanings are largely the same too, but you can't always assume that. For example, if given the words 「謝る」 or 「走る」, you might think they mean "to thank" (as in 谢谢) and "to walk" respectively, but they actually mean "to apologise" and "to run" ^^

And like Ju-da-su said, too, it's all about how much effort you yourself choose to put in. I don't mean to boast, but I learnt Japanese all on my own (reached JLPT2 level in <2 years) by reading manga and magazines and watching anime, dramas and variety shows armed with just a dictionary (and google for searching more obscure/colloquial words). If you could do that on top of proper lessons, surely you'd make great progress. You are your own limiting factor, not what you are taught in school

 

[Syphilias]

The fact that you are a part of this community means you're already ahead of the game. You'll do fine.