PE Reflection (1st 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 (2nd 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
