Japanese has never been an easy A, in my opinion, but third year Japanese is definitely something else. I believe the fact that I’m transferring from a 2 year institution where I took the language, to a 4 year institution that is continuing onwards from where their class left off previously, makes things  a little more difficult than I had originally anticipated. After the first day, alone, about 3 students dropped the class, so I figure that I’m in good standing if I can continue to keep up with the program.

I’ve come to find that the way these professors teach, (Dr. Watanabe and Dr. Konomi) by making sure each student has accurate pronunciation with immediate translation, is quite possibly the key to success. Not only do they want to teach their students Japanese, but they also want to ensure that by the time they complete the (third year) course – they’re able to successfully pass the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test), as well as speak quickly and efficiently, as other adults in Japan would.

So far, I believe the only thing that worries me, somewhat, is that much of the vocabulary the non-transfer students have learned, I have yet to teach myself along the way. Japanese has always taken up the majority of my studies, but not as much time as this class has. Regardless of vocabulary terminology and the amount of time I must dedicate to learning it, I’m going to need to work hard to get an A in this class.

In class, we accumulate daily scores which are based off of our overall preparedness, and ability to quickly respond to questions accurately. These daily scores make up for 40% of our grade, whereas most of our homework makes up about 10%. Then you take into account our quizzes, the midterm and final, etc… and it’s obvious that my daily score will ultimately reflect how well I do this term. As of today, I have a B-; but hope to improve upon this within the upcoming weeks. The first two weeks only helped me to realize what I need to correct, so if I stick to my plan, I should have sealed a possible A, hopefully, by the week of the midterm.

Here goes everything!