Mind your language December 3, 2010

The time is here, once again, my friends, for me to completely procrastinate and do anything and everything that is not Japanese language study. You guessed right! The JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) is on Sunday, 2 days from now. I have very regrettably signed up to take N3, a level which I am not at yet, even though I complacently thought I would be 3 months ago.

Actually, I have a very bimbo reason for taking N3. You see, they revamped the JLPT this year, resulting in it having 5 levels instead of the previous 4. Last year, I took old level 4, a very pussy level, so much so that if I didn’t pass it, I would have shot myself. Pass I did, obviously, and got myself a shiny level 4 certificate to show for it, which I think I have misplaced. Sigh. The old level 4 corresponds with the new level N5. So this year, the logical step up is to take N4. But, I don’t want to have 2 certificates with the number 4 on it, so I thought, what the heck, let’s skip a level and take N3 instead. Very smart, cabby.

Everything would have been well and good if my Japanese language learning had not plateaued and subsequently stopped moving. Everyone says that being in Japan would greatly accelerate the learning curve. That may be true, mine did grow exponentially in the first 8 months or so, but no one ever said that you would get so sick of the language that you would just stop trying.

Also, I have a very bad habit of losing motivation when I get bad at something, learning a language no exception. 12 years or so ago (God I’m old), I took French for a bit. The beginning was fun and interesting, and I was excelling in it. However, when it got beyond learning fun vocabulary, simple phrases and basic grammar, I found myself unwilling to make that effort and my brain shut down. But, French was a little different, I didn’t see any reason I should learn the language except to kill time while waiting to go to university. I can’t even remember French any more beyond the basic bonjour and au revoir.

For Korean, interest was definitely there. Caught unabashedly in the Korean wave that swept, and is still sweeping, across Asia, I really wanted to know what I was listening to and watching, without relying on subtitles. The interest to learn Korean held up longer than French. For 2 years, I was going faithfully every week for lessons, and I made good friends that helped motivate me. Even as I attended lessons, though, I plateaued. I stopped absorbing, and I kept asking myself, why should I learn so much of a language I’m not going to use beyond understanding dramas? I think the real reason was that it got too hard. I had to actually make the effort. It wasn’t like I could do my homework 10 minutes before the lesson and get away with it anymore. I really had to think, and I was making a ton of mistakes with the grammar, and I shut down. Having stopped Korean for Japanese, my Korean language skills are mediocre at best, way worse than someone that have studied the language for 2 years should be. I am ashamed. Is it enough to say that the desire to get back into Korean has been reignited recently? It might just be me in denial and not wanting to study for the JLPT, not that I have been.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Japanese language. It loved it in the beginning, and absorbed it quickly. It did help that I got interested in Japanese entertainment. I picked up things from TV and music. In my first few months in Japan, I would watch only Japanese TV, and it accelerated my learning. Also, knowing Chinese has its advantages. Even though I did not know how to pronounce the kanji, I could understand them (somewhat, my Chinese ability is not stellar) Moreover, in the initial few months, I really wanted to be able to communicate.

Now, I think because I can communicate adequately enough to get things done without help, not surprisingly, I lose motivation to want to improve. I go for Japanese lessons once a week, one on one with my private tutor, and during those lessons, I learn well, but it all gets thrown out the window once I get home. Japanese TV has lost its appeal. I still watch it, just not so much anymore.

It’s frustrating because I do want to try to become fluent in Japanese, but I’ve lost the push I had before. It’s annoying to be a jack of all trades but a master of none, which is essentially what I am, in language learning ability and other things in life. I wonder when it was that I began to think that being merely passable is ok? Sigh.

I’ve said so much. But very fundamentally, if you whittle it down to the bone, this post is actually a HUGE excuse post to say that I AM SO GOING TO FAIL MY JLPT N3 ON SUNDAY!!!!

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