nyak

I’ve recently started studying languages properly again. Currently working mainly on Vietnamese. I decided to start posting again, but on Instagram instead. I’ll be super grateful if anyone would follow me on my new instagram account @thebanhbeo

Hi! Thanks for the question! Not at all! The language centre will hold placement tests either before you leave for Japan or when you arrive to check your level of Japanese. The curriculum of your Japanese training would differ based on your class placements as well. However, the uni you will attend is decided largely based on the course-wide exams (mid-year, year-end). So you have to fight for your place in your uni of choice with the other students who have received the scholarship.

Japanese isn’t even the most difficult or the deciding factor of uni placement most of the time. Usually everyone gets good at Japanese by the end of the year. It’s the other subjects (math, science, Japanese history etc.) that is the crux. At least for the language school in Tokyo. The Osaka side does things differently.

Hi! Thanks for the question.

I would say in general to focus on maths or sciences (if they apply to you) instead of trying to study Japanese. If you already know Japanese and wanna push it a bit, that’s ok. You have time to brush up your Japanese after you get accepted. But you should focus your time on the other subjects as they seem to weigh more. Especially so if you are not doing Humanities. 

Obviously you would do the past year papers. I’ve heard the EJU syllabus is quite similar to the MEXT exams so you can check that out for math, science etc. The way they word the questions in math is a little different from my country so you kinda have to get used to that. Make sure you time yourself as well. I could do the math problems when I was practising but it didn’t occur to me that I had to complete the paper in an hour. I ended up barely finishing half the paper during the actual exam.Note: Score requirements differ from country to country and year to year. 

The math only had blanks for final answers (we did hand in papers with our working on it but I doubt they marked that). Extrapolating from this system, it would maybe be a good strategy to focus on easy questions (like the first part of every question) and get as many answers correct in the limited time allocated rather than methodologically try to answer all the questions. But that depends on the mark allocation and your own way of doing things. Since only final answers are graded, careless mistakes can cost you everything! I was Humanities so I devoted all my time to math (English and Japanese weren’t a problem for me). Identify your weak points and work systematically towards fixing them. There are past year papers from 2010 on the internet floating around. The links I had are all broken now (sorry) but if you look hard enough I’m sure you’d find something. 

I found resources and other people applying for the scholarship at this forum.

This is probably a few months late I’m so sorry!!! I just wanna announce that I’ve moved on from paper planners since the second half of 2018 (pls don’t unfollow me in disgust). It was just so much easier to edit stuff and link the google calendar from work etc. 

Here’s how I do it (I hope I blocked out enough info...):

I’ve also been trying out this note-taking app called Agenda that links your notes to events in your calendar so I link my class notes to the class I have. Technology is amazing and you save money and trees? I still like normal planners but I’m too busy for one... It’s sad. 

As you all know, I’m studying undergraduate at Kyoto University under the fully paid MEXT Undergraduate Scholarship. A few people have been asking me questions via DM and I just wanna say it’s totally welcome! I would love to talk to yall personally if you have any questions.

Hello! I think there is a myriad of ways to improve proficiency and you just have to keep trying different things until you find something that works for you. So I’m gonna narrate what worked for me and hopefully, you’ll find something that you can use!

Disclaimer: I had Japanese class i.e. ‘formal education’ once a week but I hate memorizing things like verb conjugations and all that so I slept through class often (I regret only a little bit).

The breakthrough for me, as embarrassing as it may be, was nico nico (the video site). I have never really said this to anyone else but I obsessively watched video game Let’s Plays on nico nico for hours every day and it somehow made me fluent after a few years. At first, I didn’t understand anything but I gradually understood more and more. I credit that to the floating comments (google it if you don’t know what I mean). 

The benefits of the nico nico format were likely twofold:

1. These comments were written responses to whatever the uploader was saying so it helped me to guess what was being said contextually.

2. The comments would sometimes echo what the uploader was saying like subtitles so having guessed the meaning of the word from context and having it shown to me as a comment allowed me to learn the word (kinda like flashcards).

I would call that the ‘input’, then I chatted with Japanese people online quite often so I used whatever I learned and got feedback from that (i.e. the output). You could just practice with your mum or relatives but that may restrict your topics of conversation so finding language partners may be worthwhile? 

Idk if it’ll work for you since it’s super unconventional, maybe you can try watching YouTube videos as an alternative (I’m sorry aaaaaaaaaa).

Hi anon! It’s definitely not a bother :D I had like 2 people in my year who wanted to do something art related (in an art school) but later changed their choice of university to a less specialized one. They decided to do art history etc. in a normal national uni instead.

Hi! I did the one-year training at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. I don’t think I could’ve done uni in Japanese otherwise. It also helped me make friends that are invaluable in my uni life (would probably have been seriously depressed during my first few months in uni otherwise). So I would recommend it but it depends on your situation.

As for my major, it was basically a whim? I initially wrote Japanese Linguistics cause that made the most sense to me but I changed it to general Linguistics at the end of my one-year training. You can change your major within the categories provided by MEXT and it also depends on the uni you wanna go to. 

So I just wanna share this story with you guys. Hope it makes your day like it did mine. I went to this cafe I regularly frequent the other day and ordered something light cause I ate curry at 2am (lol). The owner was like “Do you not have an appetite?”. She probably thought it was cause of the heat (37 degrees guys) and she gave me free cold soumen!!!!

I wasn’t actually sick and idk what sort of glutton I appear to be to her but it was just a really nice gesture. I haven’t been mothered since I started living alone in Japan cause I’m only surrounded by college kids you know???

Hi! Sorry I got to this so late. 

Was it difficult to get

So the scholarship I got is the MEXT undergraduate scholarship. It’s not difficult to get where I’m from since competition isn’t fierce and I knew Japanese already so I had an advantage of sorts. In some countries like Korea, or Thailand, where the scholarship is pretty popular, it can be quite difficult.

What's university in Japan like?

Hmmm... I joined the scuba diving circle (that’s their term for chill clubs, bukatsu are the crazy clubs that train 6 times a week) so it’s fun! My circle always has chill activities like gathering at someone’s house to make food together etc. so socially it’s quite ok. 

Academic-wise... Japanese unis at the undergraduate level are basically a joke. I’m not kidding. There is no culture of scholarship or something similar learning community. That is not to say that no one is interested in academics, there are definitely people who are passionate about their work. But it’s not a community, you know? I take French 4 times a week cause I wanna be good at it but I’m just called ‘意識高い ishiki takai’ or crazy. It’s all about getting the bare minimum to graduate here whilst enjoying life (or slaving away doing part-time work to support yourself).