PE Reflection (1st Half) and PE Goal (2nd Half)

PE Reflection (1^st Half):

Between the end of last semester and now, I feel like my Japanese has improved in a number of areas. Although pitch and intonation will always be a problem, it seems like it has become less of a problem nowadays as I have been getting used to listening to words and thinking about their pitch patterns. In addition, I feel like my fluency has gotten a bit better. This is probably because I finally got used to conjugating on the fly and am slowly remembering important grammar structures such as we use them more and more in class. In addition, I feel like I have had an easier time composing entire sentences at once rather than having to put them together piece-by-piece (although some of the new topics have been harder for me to deal with than others, such as casual speech).

While my Japanese has undoubtedly gotten better, there is still a lot of room for improvement. One area that I have begun to find particularly troublesome is listening, which has proven to be very difficult for me in both daily conversation and during exams. As such, I feel like the only way to get better at listening is to converse with more people in Japanese on a regular basis. Furthermore, even though my fluency in Japanese has improved, I am still nowhere near being able to speak at a comfortable pace on a regular basis, especially with the complexities involved in the topics we have been learning recently.

PE Goal (2^nd Half):

·        Go to office hours on a regular basis

·        Try to engage others in casual conversation as much as possible. Don’t be afraid of getting things wrong.

·        Do the optional listening exercises. Since they aren’t graded anyways, spending only a couple minutes on them is better than not doing them at all.

·        Go to language table (unsure of how this goal will go, given my current schedule)

·        Go to anime club, which I have admittedly been missing lately due to various circumstances