For those of you wondering about the title, I've decided to link this to a bunch of posts I did a long time ago about the different languages I've studied and their, all too often, grizzly fate. Therefore, if you want to read about my experiences studying Japanese before I came here, read this post.

For those of you studying Japanese or planning to study, what that post doesn't mention is the book I used: Japanese For Busy People I. I didn't exaclty "choose" the book, it was simply required for the course. However, despite the sometimes annoyingly obvious orientation towards business people, I found it a very good book to study by. Having now studied with Book II of the series, I can say there is a lot less vocabulary directed specifically towards business people, although that may also be due to my Book II being a newer edition than my Book I.

Book I I studied completely in Finland, and it laid a good base for getting to grips with the language. Book I introduced no kanji whatsoever, only hiragana and katakana. What I really liked about it in comparison to other methods I have seen is that the language is immediately useful, rather than the "A cat exists." kind of sentences all to common with beginning Japanese. It also does a good job of familiarising you with the somewhat unusual word order for sentences. Book II then I feel, really opens up the language, going into a variety of useful grammar and acquainting you very well with the -te -ta and other plain forms as well as the ways in which they can be used. It also includes practice for 160 kanji.

One reason the series receive my seal of approval is because I have been able to compare it to the teaching method issued to exchange students by YFU, my exchange program. This system, the "Kumon" involves the student ploughing through piles and piles of repetitive work sheets, which are then sent to a teacher by post for checking, and who then sends you a new set of worksheets. I gave the system a good try, but the repetitiveness is exceedingly de-motivating, and the system lacked a coherent way of teaching grammar, instead providing some tantalising tidbits in the corner of the page regarding some new little thing you were just presented. It's also quite annoying having the occasional exercise in tracing hiragana when you're at my level. The series also had a habit of having exactly the same text for about 20 worksheets in a row on which the exercises were based. Most of my fellow exchange students didn't bring any study material, but the fact that they have gone to buy new textbooks from Japanese bookstores is a testament to the failure of Kumon. So, now you know one way you shouldn't study.

As you probably expect, my Japanese has improved ridiculously during the time I've been here, something I would put down to about three reasons. First is that I've stuck to the same studying method for most of the time, which has allowed me to make steady progress into more complex grammar rather than floundering in the basics. I think this is actually a very important point, because if you change your method of study it is likely that the other method teaches things in a slightly different order. This means you will either not be able to full understand everything you study with your new method, or you will find that it teaches you things you already know.

The second reason is that I am not expected to participate properly during lessons at school, because obviously I have no hope of studying chemistry in Japanese. This means that I can have as many as four or five hours a day to simply study Japanese. Personally I am always happy to study on my own, because it allows me to take time doing things I find difficult and not linger on things I find easy. It also means I can study in a way which I know works for me, rather than in a way the teacher insists will work for me. The grim truth is also that you cannot really hope to "absorb" grammar from conversation and listening to people around you, not very quickly anyway. Rather I have noticed that studying grammar for a few hours and then putting it into use as soon as possible is by far the quicker way. I for example barely noticed the difference between the words 'shaberu' and 'shaberareru' before I read from my book that the other means "speak" an the other "can speak".

At school I also have so called "private lessons" with idle teachers. These are exceedingly useful when used as conversational practice, especially as the teacher can point out any mistakes I make and, should they speak English, I can ask them on vocabulary. And despite living here my chances for a solid hour of conversation are not particularly high. Occasionally though, especially at the beginning, the teacher might insist on grammar, in which case I would waste my time writing something simple like interrogative sentences, something I would have thought they knew I was able to do on account of having asked them questions in Japanese.

The third reason for my drastic improvement is the most obvious: I live in Japan, go to a Japanese school and stay at a family which speaks only Japanese. When I came to Japan I could not wait to practice the little Japanese I already knew, and while my initial efforts often floundered miserably, I was not at all shy about trying my best. But once again you cannot really hope to magically absorb speaking skills either, you simply have to pluck up the courage and use what you know to talk to people. I know this is much more difficult to some than it is the others, but I cannot imagine another better way. Although I said grammar is difficult to learn merely through listening to others, speaking with people, especially ones who are patient and interested is a great way to pick up vocabulary and learn to understand and to speak more colloquial language. Not to mention that being able to substitute the textbook's speaking exercises with real world conversation and being able to put newly learnt grammar straight to use also makes advancing through the textbook that much faster.

It might seem from what I have said that the only way to learn Japanese is to come here, which may be true should you wish fluency. However, I can also say that I was thankful for every single hour of studying I did in Finland, and that I would not have wished to begin my studies in Japan. In the same way I can tell everyone studying Japanese that the more effort you put into it the easier it will when or if you ever have the chance to visit Japan and practice your language. I also cannot imagine any better motivation for Japanese studying than the rewarding feeling of being able to put that studying to use.

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In other news, I am leaving tomorrow for a four day trip to Kamakura to check out some temples, so look forward to a nice big update and plenty of pictures. If you have questions about my post on Japanese feel free to ask, and don't hesitate to tell me if there is something I should have written more about. 

Time now for the last in my language learning series. It's a while since my chinese course, but I will do my best to remember the highlights.

I had been looking forward to the course since I heard it was available. Once again I was surprised at the number of people who didn't even consider the course, considering it absurd to attempt such a difficult language. Having found Japanese not worthy of the "difficulty hype", I dived in. Others simply took it to fill the minimum course requirements as it didn't require an exam at the end of the period. Having now studied two oriental languages, some of the western stereotypes regarding them strike me as quite amusing. One is the common assumption that they all use the same characters. However, should you observe a sentence written in Japanese, Chinese and Korean, you would find them all quite distinct. The difference is especially recognisable in speech.  Another amusing, non language related fact is how often people confuse Japan and China. I often laugh at this when people ask about my upcoming trip or about my language studies.

It was nice to find Sodfoot in the same course, and as you might have noticed, many of the scribbles originate from the course. To start off the course we were introduced to a host of characters who, although apparently about the same age as us, seemed to be all suffering from a severe hormone deficiency, BOY here being one of them. This seemed particularly odd when we did a chapter where they talked about upcoming driving lessons.

Our teacher was a nice Chinese woman, who I will mostly remember by how her face contorted into various odd expressions as she did her best to demonstrate to us correct pronounciation. Indeed the pronounciation seemed ridiculously difficult at first. "Wo" could be pronounced in four different ways to mean four completely different things.  Funnily though, her face also occasionally contorted when speaking in English. As could be expected, she did make her fair share of, seemingly obligatory, language teacher pronounciation mistakes, among them her instructions to fill in "the blankets" on a worksheet.

In addition to proper studying, we were delighted by a couple CDs sent to us by the Chinese embassy. Unfortunately, these were made in China. Firstly, whenever you navigated on the CD menu to a different area, an error message would pop up saying the correct music could not be found, meaning you had to manually open the music files on the cd whenever prompted. Genius as I am however, I thought we could get around this by copying the music to where the program looks for it. This took a slight while, but once done it all worked perfectly, - almost. Actually, it was still a mess. After finally being able to navigate the menus properly, we clicked on something about Chinese cuisine. Now all hell breaks loose, as the flash program attempts to open the pdf file, and thus launches Adobe reader, that being the default program for pdf files. We are confronted with a veritable barrage of error messages and warning noises.

Realising now that the CD is essentially a bunch of pdfs in fancy packaging, we simply browse to the CD to open them. Inside we find pages upon pages on Chinese culture punctuated with the occasional picture. Not one to waste her country's generosity, the teacher was then content to skim the various texts pausing for brief explanations at the pictures. For what was left of the class anyway. How they thought an encyclopedic eBook would help our studies... I don't know.

There isn't terribly much to say about what happened in the class aside from what you normally get with languages. The actual language on the other hand is completely different. Ridiculously difficult pronounciation (and I usually find that the easy bit in languages), and words which are very hard to remember beacuse they seem so similar; not to mention the ultimate mammoth task of learning the characters. In comparison, Japanese is quite easy. However it was an interesting course I was glad to participate in, and I think I will take the next one when I get back from Japan. Hopefully I will remember something, which seems unlikely, since I've forgoten most already.

That might've been my only decent analysis of any of the languages I've studied, well the most useful anyway I think. I did realise that to anyone actually wanting to know about what it is to learn languages, the series is quite useless.

 As a side note, some others and I have noted the very high average age of language teachers, possibly due to the fact that theyve spent most of their life learning different languages well enought to teach. This jumble of learnt languages then has the occasional side effect of causing general pronounciation to go awry. This has the more predictable side effect of earning ridicule from students. Luckily I myself am above such foolishness... eheh...

I had long wanted to study Japanese, and after our trip to China a few years back, I was completely fascinated by the far east. So, as soon as we got home I did some research and reserved myself a space in a Japanese course. What made it most remarkable was that fate had picked me as one of the subjects for an article for the Helsingin Sanomat on different Finns starting different hobbies, one of which just happened be Japanese language. It just so happened the journalist contacted my teacher, and it just so happened they wanted a male student, aged at least 15, and it just so happened that I was the only male student the teacher was aware of at the time. And thus the god knows how many sided dice which the Flying Spaghetti Monster tends to throw to determine our fate chose me, out of all the other people studying Japanese.

I was invited for an interview with the journalist before the course began to talk about why I wanted to learn the language, why I was interested in Japan etc. I was quite nervous, and alarmingly aware that anything I said could be read by thousands of Finns in a few weeks time, not to mention not being able to see the picture the photographer took of me. I don't remember whether or not I had started the course before the first part was published, but it was an interesting experience going to school the following day.

My journey to the first lesson of the course was quite comical. The teacher had warned in her emails that the place was hard to find, essentially a very small, Japan related library in Eira, a quaint old area in Helsinki.  I checked the busses and trams before I left, confident I would I would find it. I got to Helsinki with plenty of time, but was now confused as to where exactly was I to take the tram again. So, with plenty of time to spare, I looked at some tourist map near the railway station to plan out my route, and off I went. I walked for a while, then realised it might take a bit too long after all and started jogging. I had decided on the simple route of going all the way to the shore, along it, and then back up again. However, for some reason I decided to deviate to what I thought would have been a shorter path; instead I got lost. I asked everyone I saw for directions, including a foreign motor cyclist who was quite surprised when a random boy ran up to him, blurted out something in Finnish, then asked for directions in English, only to run off again.

Then, as if a sign from heaven, an advertisement for a service which could give you directions. So, I called at a crossroads. Unfortunately it was just a waste of time, and I resorted to my intuition once more. I picked a direction, ran, and suddenly saw the name of the road where I was supposed to be. Hooray I was there! Just in time... slightly sweaty... 

The articles continued appearing every now and then, and I continued with the course. Apart from having to travel almost one and a half hours every Monday evening, the lessons were thoroughly enjoyable. It was interesting to hear from people who visited Japan during the course, especially when they brought back interesting snacks for the group. The group had started with ten people, but fairly soon had diminished to about six per lesson. It was during the lessons I began to consider the option of an exchange to Japan, partly thanks to one of the people there who was a member of YFU. She also told me what a popular destination Japan was, and that it was very difficult to be accepted. This might have dimmed my hopes slightly, but also strengthened my resolve and only sweetened the ultimate prize.

Eventually the lessons finished, and I made the decision not to continue to the second course, as it would have only lengthened my already lengthy journey. Instead I opted to study independently, while searching for another course. This turned out to be the third course of Japanese at Kuninkaantien lukio, which was, apparently, slightly ahead of my skills and so I studied the difference in chapters and beyond during the summer. Unfortunately the course turned out to be a disappointment. The lessons were few and far between, and while they were a good three hours, I don't recall learning anything. It was a pity, because the other people there were great, and the teacher was hugely entertaining; it just seemed he never got to the teaching bit himself, instead giving us ridiculous homework such as translating his favourite song  into Japanese. 

So now I continue to study independently, (making the most of late mornings and skips in my timetable) which seems to be the most efficient option. Still, the first course was an excellent introduction to the language, and provided me with a fruitful experience. Ultimately of course, I aim for fluency during my trip, the ultimate crash course for learning the language.

Beginning in seventh  grade, I began to study Swedish at school. I had decided to concentrate, and not let it suffer the same fate as my first attempt at French. The first year went well with a delightedful teacher. She wasn't interested quite as much in Swedish as she was in Italian, and in addition to teaching the seasonal festive songs customary for language education in Swedish, she made sure we knew them just as well in Italian. She also warned us of "fake pizzerias" in Italy, where they sell cheap supermarket pizza to unsuspecting tourists. Invaluable information indeed.

The following year however introduced another old teacher for the students to prey on. She was our new Swedish teacher. In some ways she seemed experienced, yet she had to be at least half deaf not to go insane due to the relative chaos which often ruled the class. Either than or nerves of steel. Unfortunately she had about as much authority as one of my Danish generals in Medieval II (forgive the video game reference), who the game rated: "Young peasant girls laugh when this man tries to tell them what to do." In other words, very little authority.

I would very much like to blame her for the ensuing dip in my Swedish skills, but although it was often frustrating to try and study in such an atmosphere, I simly threw in the towel while some others with more wisdom persevered. In the end I did realise the error of my ways, and made efforts to catch up, the most succesful of them being near the end of the school year, which seemed to have had some impact due to decent grade from Swedish.

Her lessons weren't all doom and gloom though, as her personality did have its quirks. The most notable of these was her slurry English pronounciation, which while pretty good for a grandma, was amusing nonetheless.

Pleaseplease (Origins of nickname revealed later, read on!): "So, the Swedish test will be on the tenff" (coinciding with my birthday -_-)

Me: "So when was the test?"

Pleaseplease: "On the tenff."

Me: "Err, when?"

Pleaseplease: "The tenff"  *smiles happily*

For some reason I found that rather amusing, and tried again next lesson, but only managed to ask once due to the difficulty of keeping a straight face.  She was very intent on speaking English to us, it being an international school and all. We often begged her to speak in Finnish, as during the few occasions when she accidentaly did, it seemed her brain snapped into overdrive and she became sharp and completely comprehensible. On several occasions she asked our principal weather or not she could speak Finnish, the answer of course being no. I am still confident that had she merely switched her language to Finnish despite this, she would have ruled the class.

The second of her quirks was her statistically unbeatable record in politeness. A typical lesson would start something like this:

Pleaseplease: "Please, please, please, please everyone, please be quiet!" (You ought to get it now...) 

Pleaseplease: "Ok, lets see your homework please."

James Blunt: "Ok... lets see..." *begins to slowly turn pages*

Pleaseplease watches intently.

Randm guy on other side of class: "Teacher!"

Pleaseplease: "Yes please!" *hurries off*

I recall I wasn't the only one who recorded the amount of pleases said in the back of our notebooks. Recently my first course of Swedish in lukio began. We have a sensible teacher (albeit with dodgy eyes... yes... always something wrong with them...) and the first course appears to be entirely devoted to consolidating already learned skills, which is excellent for me, and slightly annoying for those who have no need for it. I've also been studying some Swedish during mornings when my first course is at 9:50. I would hate to miss the opportunity to learn the language. So, despite occasionally dubious performance it does seem my Swedish future is bright.

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In the future I think I will do some more posts where characterful teachers play a role. We may all moan and groan about our them, but it is great to have teachers with personality to make our days more interesting. Did I say that to avoid having an angry mob of teachers demolish my house after featuring them in my blog?  Yes, partly.

Also, if you are wondering where the previous Language Learning II post went.. keep wondering. 

Learning new languages is completely different to any other academic subject. In almost any other subject, spacing out for a while wont throw you completely off track. If all else fails, you can start pretty much afresh when the class moves into a new area. The opposite is true when learning languages, something which I learned the hard way. Back in England, I started learning French as a compulsory subject. For about a year I actually understood something. However, my studying practices at the time were hardly spectacular, and as time progressed any French I had previously learned began to spiral down into a black hole in some corner of my mind.

I soon found the French teacher had began talking gibberish, and as listening seemed like a waste of time, I thought I would instead do something constructive, such as building small catapults and pellet guns from ball point pens. Most of my diabolical contraptions failed miserably and only resulted in an ever increasing layer of debris at the bottom of my pencil case, not to mention a peculiar shortage of ball point pens.

Once I managed to make a deceptively simple pellet gun (ball point pen casing) which a boy sitting next to me promptly picked up; fired a shot at the class fatty, and thus paused the class for several minutes while the teacher lectured us on matureness. Meanwhile I sat terrified knowing that my tools of violence had made their way into the hands of terrorists, rather than being used to fight for freedom, prosperity, and entertainment.

My only comfort was that upon returning to Finland I would have the option to stop studying French. We returned to Finland and the day of reckoning arrived; I sat with the new school's French teacher and my parents. I told them I want to quit French. They told me that it would be an invaluable future asset, that I would regret quitting it forever, that I would have wasted all my previous French studies. Didn't have the guts to tell them I had already made sure of that. The French teacher said girls like guys who speak French. I would hate to admit that somewhere in my desperate 12 year old mind I actually considered that. Nevertheless, under mounting parental pressure, and perhaps the teacher's corny comment, the obedient little me obliged.

I regretted it, my god I regretted it. I don't think there was a single day, when after an afternoon French lesson I didn't come home complaining what a load of crap it was. After about another two hellish years of French (during which all of the remaining French in my head was sucked into the black hole) I made the decision to end the suffering. I wrote a letter to the principal. One morning, my mother had a phone call from her, asking if I was allowed to quit French. "Ah yeah, I sent a letter to the principal" I said while brushing my teeth. Dazed, my mother agreed. More than anything I felt relief, mixed with the comic foolishness of knowing I could have wrote the letter a year earlier.

When I cycled home an hour early that day, my conscience felt as though I had skipped school. Then I realised I could be in French right now, trying to seem invisible to the senile old teacher. This wasn't very hard, considering her age. I felt sorry that she had to put up with a class where only about half the people were learning anything, while the other half entertained each other by causing chaos and mayhem. I imagine the only thing that kept her going was impending retirement.

Teacher: "Blah blah blah..."
Guy1: "G 2!"
Guy2: "YOU SUNK MY BATTLESHIP! HAHAHAHA!"
--Repeat from top about 10 times.---
Teacher: "No more sinking battleships! I will kill you!"

Delighted with my success, I made sure to share my joy with everyone else, reminding those poor suckers whenever they shambled to another French class.

So ends the first part of my epic, language learning adventure... almost. This year I started lukio, or senior high school as it is to many of you. Having recovered surprisingly quickly from my French induced trauma, and hoping that the laws of physics might have been at least somewhat flawed, I began French again. I began from the very beginning (For your information "Bonjour!" is officially the first word in the French language.), hoping that perhaps something had not been sucked into the void. Unfortunately the laws of physics held firm, and I had no advantage whatsoever compared to the other first time French learners. However, this time I was armed with experience, not only did I know what not to do, by this time I had studied Japanese for almost a year and in the process had learned many techniques useful to learning a new language. I had also been inspired by how useful even a little language skills could be during our Tour de Europe.

My first French test is next Monday, and I am confident that this time, I will be the victor! Bwahahaa!! Then, I will have one more course of French after which I doubt I will continue, despite having been thoroughly pleased with my success so far.  I realised again today what an annoying language it is. "What the hell is that word doing there? I swear it wasn't there before!" This has happened to me several times so far, and I don't think I will be able to take it much longer. Also if the teacher shows us  any more of that horrid 80s, epilepsy inducing learning cartoon ("Muse" or something) I may well hang myself before I have a chance to learn any more French.