Darlo's World

Taking a break from my learning 1200 new kanji, vocab and grammar points before Friday for my “pass the year or fail the degree” exam, I’ve found myself stunned with the progress I made today and at the same time sickened by the fact I really didn’t put the effort in earlier when I had much more time. I’ve managed to cover 4 of the 76 chapters we needed to do, and although the odds of me passing on Friday are about the same as me bungee jumping from the Tokyo Tower by that time, we can take a resit in September. However failing in September will mean … well, let’s not go there.

I’d printed off the target kanji, vocab, grammar in such a way across 40 sheets of A4, giving me the challenge of learning one a day. This means in 40 days (I’m aware that the test itself is in 5 days, but I’m planning to make sure I can pass the resit having accepted the non existance of the aforementioned bungee jump scenario), I will have covered everything and still have time to go over it for a good revision session. The main negative part is obviously I won’t come across these words written in the street in daily life. Though to be honest the only time I saw the word 売春 (baishun, prostitute) since being here, was in the Kanji in Context textbook and anywhere I happened to be practicing writing it down (not in public this one).

I did manage to put another upload on the videos/photos of Japan section, though it’s only one today. However, tomorrow I’ll try to whack on even more. So here’s a video of part of my daily commute to Kobe; Juso to Tsukaguchi on the Hankyu line.

By this time next month it will finally be over. The bane of existence for Leeds University students on the year abroad in Japan, the Year Abroad ‘Kanji’ Test. The test, for which we must teach ourselves 1200 things (including grammar points, kanji & vocab, with emphasis on the kanji) will be on the 8th of May, unfortunately the day after my religeon exam.

I wish I could say that I’ve been studying along all year in preparation for it, but that would be an outright lie. Don’t get me wrong I have studied for it when I’ve had time free, but no where near enough. I guess I’ve got a month now to see how I can get on, but alas this means I only have a month and a couple of weeks in this country I’ve come to think of as my home. Quite sad really.