Back in 8th grade, I took German 1 (since Japanese wasn’t an option that year), and just like in my high school’s Japanese 1 class, I learned mostly about nonlatin letters, grammar, and vocabulary. Learning about the grammar of another language for the first time really put me into perspective on how the rest of the world’s languages work, even if it was only one language. There are many parallels between German and Japanese, specifically the particles. Both languages are very prominent in particle use, which can be difficult to understand. Since I want to be a polyglot, this is super knowledge is super useful for me to get a headstart with lots of different language grammar. Also, I want to try to work around the world, so being a polyglot will not only help me just for fun but for my future career too.

---

This semester’s class was different from any other Japanese class I’ve ever taken. My biggest challenge was the way that the material was taught. For example, in high school, we would spend about 2 weeks on each topic, since we had all school year we could spend more time on topics, which is why I never really needed to study because I would memorize the topics within all our class time. But in college, from what I’ve observed, is that we go over a new topic every class and don’t really mention it again, so I need to do something that I usually don’t do for Japanese, which is to simply study. We use these topics in the class and homework (RWPA 3, for example) that we do, but since I’m so not used to studying, I forget the things I learn instantly and I struggle with the new topics we learn and stick to my “old Japanese speak” that I used in high school. Overall, I think this class was a “slap in the face” for how I need to treat my language learning from now on, It really helped bring me back down to earth and make me tell myself that I need to work harder for now and the future. Even though my grade is really good, my knowledge is still lacking, which is most important to me.