Yesterday I started doing a Japanese pronunciation class for native or advanced speakers of English. My first impression is that the class is going to be very useful. The teacher is very enthusiastic and feels strongly that not enough students at our school learn to speak Japanese "properly". For the first class she got us to do our self- ( Read more... )

I had another elective today after my normal lessons. It’s a conversation class and today was actually the second week. I took this particular class, because I wanted to improve my ability at speaking casual Japanese. Unfortunately the class is rather easy, especially compare to the speaking tasks I do in my normal classes. Also, the structure ( Read more... )

Today I had one of my elective classes after my normal lessons and this time it was reading. The teacher for this class is an older lady (most of the teachers at the school are young) who until today had never taught me, but always says hello if I see her in the corridor etc. Maybe my reputation as a troublemaker precedes me! In class we read an ( Read more... )

Last Friday I went back to the Kansai area to see my friends and get my stuff that Kendo Guy has been keeping for me. In order to save money I took JR trains instead of the bullet train and so the journey lasted about 3 and a half hours. I was pretty tired by the time I arrived in Osaka. I had arranged to have dinner with a good friend who ( Read more... )

I’ve now been studying in Okazaki for nearly two weeks now. So far things are going well. The teachers are very good, the lessons are of a high standard and the other students in my class are generally really nice. However, after a couple of days I felt that the class I was in was a bit easy. In particular, the textbook we were using was one I ( Read more... )

I have been in the city of Okazaki for a couple of days now and have just started my first classes at the Yamasa Institute. The last few days have been pretty eventful ( Read more... )

This year was my first Christmas in England for three years. When I was in Japan it never felt like Christmas, even when I tried to do typical Christmas things. So I was looking forward to spending a traditional British Christmas with my family. The Saturday before Christmas Day I had a small gathering with a few friends from school. One of my ( Read more... )

Two weekends ago I went to visit my friend Miss Lemon who is currently living and working in Trondheim, the third largest city in Norway. I was pleased to hear that she is enjoying her new job and is adjusting well to life in Norway. We spent the four days mostly just hanging out and did some sightseeing. Apart from visiting a cathedral and a ( Read more... )

On Sunday I took Level 2 in the Japanese Proficiency Test for the second time, after failing last year. The first good thing was the test didn’t start until 1.45 in London, so I had time to meet two friends from my course for lunch. When we got to the test site we were surprised by how many people were there. We actually had to queue up outside ( Read more... )

Yesterday I went to karaoke for the first time in the UK. I went with three people from my Japanese course and a few other people they invited. Before that we went to a Japanese restaurant called “Taro”. I had mixed sushi and gyoza, which tasted okay but I’ve had better cheaper sushi in Japan. After that we went to karaoke, which I had been ( Read more... )