Another boring “about me” update, I’m afraid. In around 35 hours, I will sit down for three hours to take my Japanese language exam. It consists of two English to Japanese translation exercises and one Japanese to English one. Those should take two hours. The final hour is dedicated to writing an entire composition similar to the ones I used to post here once a week. It’s quite a demand and I’m pretty worried.

That said, I have worked hard in revision - especially learning Kanji and Kanji combinations. Even some really bizarre ones like 文部科学省 (The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), 耳鼻科 (Otorhinology) and 内科 (Internal Medicine).  Grammar wise I feel I am strong although it’s quite hard sometimes to know exactly which grammar structure to use when. The exams are intentionally made with sentences that are beyond our Japanese abilities, forcing us to adapt our knowledge on-the-fly. It sounds unfair but it’s what foreigners do in Japan on a daily basis. I just wish I didn’t have to do it. :(

On Friday I sit the infamous “Understanding Japan” exam. This is a general exam, again for three hours, about various aspects of Japanese society and history. Hot topics include the post-war reformation of the country, business practices, minorities in Japan and Tokugawa history. I find it all very interesting, but because the exam is so crazy general it’s hard to feel confident about what I know.

Of course, I’ll do a quick update after the exams to let you know how I did, and maybe a big one with the results whenever they arrive. Unless I fail. In which case this website will become mikeisdoomed.com or something.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 2:47 pm and is filed under University. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.