Mired in a sea of Kanji

So, this is my first actual experience of an Asian educational system. And I've learnt, rote learning is their god.

Lucky I'm not a hater of mindless repetition, or I might actually die. In class, we listen to one sentence from the text, then without looking at the book, the teacher asks one of us to regurgitate that line, letter for letter... each particle counts!

So, it's really a test of short term memory, more than anything. Then the teacher writes the sentence on the board, putting only the particles and blanks the rest, and another person has to say the sentence, just by looking at the particles. Then, we discuss what each particle denotes, and why x verb uses y tense.

Then we look at any pertinent grammar structures, making sentences to show we understand them. This is the actual hard part, because we're not allowed to make 'simple' sentences. Usually, students make sentences about politics, or health system or environment. Now that's all well and good, but the vocabulary needed to support making such formal sentences is phenomenal. And I'm totally not there. So some of us sit there, going 'huh', while the Taiwanese, Korean and Chinese students keep spouting complex kanji compound words.

But, said Asian students can't actually speak Japanese very well. Oh, the irony. Their accents are so thick, I can't really understand them. But I did get complimented by the teacher for my accent! She asked me whether I had lived in Japan when I was little, haha. I guess it's rare for a learner of Japanese not to have a strong accent. Guess I just have a good ear for these things.

So I'm basically learning how to write formal, academic Japanese. And doing alot of kanji practice to catch up with the other kids in the class. Our teachers are very strict with kanji, so I can't be lazy... which is good. At Sydney, the teachers are so laid back I never feel pressure to study. Here, I have a feeling my Japanese is going to improve alot. Hopefully, by the end I'll be able to read novels and newspapers without too much trouble.

In other news, Orange Range, one of my favourite Japanese groups is playing at Keio University, at the school festival. This is totally awesome, as I've always dreamed of going to their concert. So it's very fortuitous that they're going to play here! Very, very excited.

I've sort of just hidden at home, studying, so don't really have any exciting things to report. I'll be going to Karaoke with my neighbour, Yuki from Berkeley and Aya from Denmark, tonight.

Today, I'm just going to chill because I've finished my homework! We have to write it on 'report paper' which has the Keio logo on it. Lol.