#nichibun

As the new semester is about to begin, It's the perfect time to give you an overview of what last semester's coursework entailed. I was in Level 1, which was an incredibly accelerated beginner class.

We used the textbooks Minna no Nihongo. There are two textbooks. Most programs finish the 2 textbooks over the course of a year (one per semester) but we did both. We did a new chapter almost every day. Every time we finished a chapter we had a vocabulary quiz. Then every few chapters we had a big grammar test. We also had kanji quizzes 1-2 times a week.

We also had a conversation class where we learned how to converse in a bunch of different situations (hospital, store, asking for favors, etc.) For our midterm we had to role-play two of these situations with a Japanese student. Luckily I didn't get the suuuper difficult prompts (phew). The final was fun and really hard. We had to write and perform a drama. There were two groups. My group did Mean Girls! I ended up as a Sub-leader, writer, video, and lead character!

My final class was "Special topics in Japanese Culture." The first half of the semester was about contemporary Japanese culture. We learned about Manga, J-pop, Slang, etc. We also had a Kimono demonstration! (I was the model!!) Then we had traditional culture. We learned about shinto and buddhism which are the two main religions here.

So in Japan, every class you take has a separate final. Because every period of my morning Japanese class is technically a different class, each one had its own final exam. So first period we had grammar/kanji tests for different sections of the book. Then the second period class tested our different Japanese skills. Essay writing (2 essays), Conversation, Speech (a powerpoint with the same topic as one of our essays), Reading comprehension, and listening. The conversation and the speech were recorded for this semester's placement.

In the end I got all A's in my language courses and a B in culture. Because of my grades, the recordings, and my placement test score I ended up in...

LEVEL FOUR!!!

Nichibunken (日文研), is an inter-university research institute in Kyoto. Criticism on 日文研: the real purpose of Nichibunken was to improve the image of Japan in order to prevent criticism of Japanese trading practices and improve sales of Japanese goods abroad. (~ 1980's increasing trade surplus USA)