Sunday, March 18, 2007

LANGUAGE UPDATE

It's just a few days past 3 months since I breathed a sigh of relief that my attempt to learn a new language has come to a close. I sat for a nerve-wrecking examination that lasted for like what felt like forever, and missed out on a friend's important day because of clashing schedules, and stopped my NaNoWriMo novel at 32000 words to study!

Anyway, the exam was fast forgotten, what with the mad rush to get other things finished and general mundane stuff such as work and all... until one day a paper with a few of our names was passed around, seeking our opinion on taking further classes, to upgrade our level from 4 to 3 (it's backwards, I know)

I nonchalantly crossed the space next to my name... No way am I gonna put myself through that torturous process again.

Yeah, so, the results came out the other day (Thursday) and it was opened by the people at work! What embarrassment! However, I suppose after all the good luck wishes that I received from you all, I kinda need to tell that I actually passed (Not with flying colours of course... that will only happen when pigs fly! Ha! Ha! Well, I sort of failed my listening test, but overall I passed. (Jumping with joy here)... It also looks like the few sacrifices I made paid off... Two less things to be bitter about!

I wonder if this is how the world really works or is it just me, but despite passing, I'm afraid I'm still unable to converse in Japanese fluently.... This might be a future real life scenario:
Japanese person: Speaks in high speed Japanese...babbles on...
Me: Hai... (pretending to understand)
Japanese person: Continues speaking in high speed, and adds a 'ka' to the back of her sentence intonating a question while looking at me questioningly...
Me: Ah, wakarimasen (I don't understand) followed by a foolish grin.

10 comments:

  1. Hello from Portugal
    I went for holidays to Algarve, in the south of the country.
    Now, I write in portuguese and in english, if you want to visit me again, you can read it in english.
    You can see nice pictures there.
    Last year I visited England and Scotland. Soon, I will put here, my pictures from holidays.

    Waiting for YOU.
    Bye. Hugs.

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  2. You might be surprised how much you retain, especially if you find ways to speak it as much as possible. I think that's really the key to truly learning another language - it should be spoken often so you don't forget.

    Congrats on your result!

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  3. Darling no baka. ;)

    Ian

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  4. Congratulations! If you want to become even more fluent, you should do what Travis said. And maybe watch a Japanese-language DVD regularly.

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  5. Terra,
    That's wonderful. Congratulations!
    Naughty colleagues to open your letter at work.
    What the others suggested is absolutely spot on.
    Japanese DVDs films - Anim on astro if you're in Malaysia is it channel 25 has wonderful adult cartoons in japanese.
    Listen to tapes. There must be loads of internet videos you can catch on to. good luck!

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  6. kalinka: thanks for dropping by... i'll check you blog when i get the chance...

    travis: thanks for the advice... so i shall add some anime into my tv routine... :)

    ian: :D

    lizza: thanks for the advice too... :)

    susan: thank you... but it was the HR manager who opened it (he was the one who lobbied that the company pay the exam fees for us!)

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  7. I'm planing to learn Japanese too. Where do you think its the best place to learn? You finish all the levels already?

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  8. Princess,
    We had a teacher from ICLS who thought us (inter-cultural language school). Unfortunately, i do not have their number with me... the school is in subang jaya, i think.

    Anyway, i only studied up to intermediate 2... which is sufficient to prepare you for the level 4 international exams

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  9. I'm interested to learn at ICLS actually. How long have u been learning? Meaning you went to Subang to learn?

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  10. When I read this, I cannot help but to laugh! =D It reminded me of the time when my friend who also was learning Japanese and she taught my friend that "Hai" means yes in Japanese. I continually jabbered Hai, Hai, Hai for the rest of the day, much to her annoyance. Hahahaha!

    I can totally understand how you feel. As I'm learning German now, my teacher's husband tried to converse with me in German and I gave him blank looks and smiled politely. =P How was I supposed to answer him, I don't know many German words. =(

    Speaking of languages, do you have any tips on how can I broaden my Malay vocabulary? It really is horrendous at the moment as it suddenly shrunk to a primary kid's level. =(

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