Thread by @sakaimii

How was studying Japanese in college? Did you enjoy it? — I loved studying Japanese in college, but I will admit that my class was also like...really intense LOL
I feel like I should make this into a thread because there were a lot of Wild Things about it curiouscat.qa/sakaimii/post/…

So we studied from this book called JSL—Japanese the Spoken Language, which is this book that was developed in the 80’s to help businessmen do business in Bubble era Japan. So it’s like...really aggressive about getting you to actively speak Japanese, particularly formal Japanese

We’d have to study the chapters of the book and practice these drills on our own and then we would effectively be tested on whether or not we mastered the drills in class. You were not allowed to speak English in class, so it was very clear if you didn’t do your homework

The teacher would bring in props, walk up to you, and prompt you in a way that would lead you to say whatever you practiced in your drills.

Classics included the teacher bringing in an empty wine bottle and asking you, a freshmen, if you would drink some wine—the context being that since most of us were like 19, we were under the drinking age and thus should respond with the negative form of the verb “to drink”

If you didn’t do the drills you would have no idea what’s going on because you’d have no context. And then teacher would look at you cooly, saying (in Japanese), “I see Person-san did not study today.” before immediately turning to the next person. It was intense.

Additionally, since this was 80’s Businessman Book, it started with us learning Super Keigo way before we learned how to speak like actual people so when I went to study abroad in Japan a lot of people were like , “why are you so formal...you should like a clerk” lmao

Also JSL had educational videos but they were all produced in like 1991 so we all got to learn how to say “word processor” in Japanese even though the last time they were relevant was when I was like. Five.

But I’ll give JSL credit, it really helped me jump into speaking Japanese with a certain degree of confidence. The writing book that went with it, JWL, was garbage though. I was severely behind in my writing and reading abilities when I studied abroad lmao...

But actually going to Japan and putting what I learned to the test was pretty rewarding. And while my teachers were intense they were all very passionate and warm ladies who I will always be grateful for. A lot of people quit the class, but those of us who stayed had a great time