August 24, 2006

  • nihongo

    So after a six (6) year absence from studying nihongo (Japanese), I finally decided to go study again.  Most of the local universities have already started class or are starting next week, and it's too late to register. 

    So... I decided to go to the local community college.  The feeling there was kinda weird.  I mean, I'm used to being around older people from not only work, but my graduate school courses (I graduated w/a masters in '05.)  Anyway, the prof. said I should come by and sit in in her 201-level class.  Big mistake for me.

    I was so freaking rusty.  Although I could still read hiragana and katakana, I forgot a lot of the vocab and verb conjugations. Worse, I guess she didnt know who I was and asked me to stand up and have a conversation with another classmate, and I freaking froze. I had no idea what was being asked and I couldn't even reply....  Later, I explained who I was, how long ago I took Japanese, etc.  I figured I should just start over from 101. 

    Community college classes aren't really convenient for the working professional.  Who has time for MWF 10:00-10:30?!  So anyway, my boss recommended this university called USDA.  I was like "USDA?"  Isn't that the organization that grades beef?
    Believe it or not, yes it is.   And best of all, they have weekend/evening classes. They also have shorter semesters, and they have one semester per season.  I like.

    So yep, come September 18th, I'll be learning Japanese again! 

    Now only thing is to decide on which textbook to get.  One uses romaji almost exclusively (based on the Amazon.com review) and the other one uses hiragana and katakana right away.  For those who know or have studied Japanese, what do you think is better???

Comments (6)

  • I would personally get one that uses hiragana and katakana right away if you're already familiar with it! :D What textbooks are you looking at? I recommend the GENKI textbooks because while it does use romaji for maybe the first two chapters, they also use hiragana and katakana early on~

    ...I wanna go back to studying Japanese ;_;

  • pls manage your time carefully! You have already taken too many class...piano, tkD plus Japanese!!!That's crazy...No time for bbg la ..too bad :(

  • cool!  yeah, most colleges are for working people, but some have night classes...like the engineering school i went to...it sucks though when you ARE a student..because you're there until 10 pm on certain nights.

  • lol...luck. it's hard to re-learn a language.

  • good luck with japanese, hehe. Listen to j-pop and maybe it'll accelerate ur learning :)

  • definitely use the one that uses hiragana. i don't think you'll really learn japanese with a book that doesn't use at least hiragana and kanji. In school, I use genki. I love it.

    and i thought about taking the usda courses on japanese before, too, during the summer. hehe. =) good luck!

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