About the daily life

School...

So about two months ago, I moved from C to the first intermediate level class, D. A lot of things changed in our normal daily routine. For example acted videos about chapter conversation vanished and instead of having three books, we now have... five. Before our schedule was build on moving forward with the Minna no Nihongo book series, but now we do that only three days in a week. Remaining twon days we have speacial divided classes for those who are weak in kanji and those who has done kanji ok this far. Those who don't need extra prepping in kanji, will do N3 JLPT practising.

This class has turned out to be really usefull and also time by time challenging. When it comes to JLPT material, the texts have furigana only for kanji that are from upper levels (so in our case, N2 or N1). For the rest, they expect you to be able to read. But of course the schools rarely build their material JLPT in their thoughts, so I have found it to be good practise to challenge yourself with kanji you are unfamiliar. Also the art of guessing by contects and kanji radicals has improved a lot. For me the weakness is still definetly the reading, just because of the kanji. The N3 level listening and other parts of the test feels already rather easy, which is relief. After all, I am aiming to take the N2 level in December. Still three months to go! For that I am also participating to N2 extra class in my school, which doesn't cost extra for students, held once in a week after normal studies.

Other changes in school are the tests. I have been thinking that our tests have been rather easy. Before we had kanji test about every second or third week (we also did only 4 kanji in a day). So that has much changed now. Our kanji speed is double or triple, kanji test is now every week. The midterm exams are once in a month and the level has turned to be more challenging than before. During beginner level classes I usually had about 20 minutes extra time after finishing my test, so I would take my time to check the test in case of writing mistakes or so after turning the paper in. That is not the case anymore. Last time I had a minute extra before handing the test in and that was the case with most of us. I really like about this change, becouse before the tests also didn't really check if you were able to use the grammar more creative way, only to check if you knew the rule. Now there is a lot of half plank sentences you are expect to fill in the best fitting way. After this I am waiting the D-class finals same time terrified and excited.

Here is some pictures about my school stuff (essey included, we have to write them in these days in these "real" essey writing sheets. Before we did them with free lines.). After writing an essey we have to hold a speach based on that. Both writing and performing are worth of 30 points. 

Other...

Outside of the school I have been working part-time now since June, but by that time I only had one Finnish language student. Now the number has increased to four. I find teaching my own language really hard, much harder than you would expect. Maybe it is because you rarely think the rules or the grammar of your native language. Things just either sounds right to your ear or not. Other challenging side in teaching Finnish is the lack of teaching material, so I have basically made all my material by myself and it takes rather a lot of time. But teaching is so much fun, that it kind of makes it worth it.

Aside the work, I found a new hobby, kendo. I am so excited to see how it starts to roll. The school were the practise is held is only couple of hundred meters a way from my apartment and everybody are so nice there. I also found the art of making Temari by hand. Temari balls are made from lint and thread and... well nothing else. I made my first pair of earrings about a month ago.

I rarely update pictures about food or about the everyday life, so this time I decided to add a hin of that too. First there is pictures about a couple of aid packages we have received from Finland. I can say salmiak and Geisha chocolate has never tastes this good. Second row is from my favourite Kamakura cafe, cafe Bisquit. Their speciality is hot lemonade and grand size pancakes with fresh berries. Below that some of my favourite Ramen and an burger by J.S Burger Cafe. Then some of my favourite summer sweets: Baskin Robbins ice cream and traditional shaved ice with lemon flavour. With shaved ice you really have to be a quick eater. Mine melted in minutes. ^^ Below that more Baskin Robbins, but this time, my birthday cake. I am such a child I know. ^^ But it was delicious! Last pictures include one half made Temari ball and things from our balcony garden: huge paprika and delicious mini tomatoes. We also have enjoyed cucumbers and strawberries, but time for those is about over by now. That's all for now, see you ~

Welcome to School!

For all of you thinking to apply to a language school in Japan, I warmly recommend reading this no matter where you are coming from. For everyone else, sorry, this is probably very boring post. ^^

My school started Monday 5th of January 10am. We were handed a personal information form to fill in with a number in a corner. I was number 6. a Teacher guided us to a classroom where we were able to sit wherever we pleased. After a moment the teachers started calling out numbers starting from one taking two people at the time. Most of the students hadn't even arrived yet. I was called out pretty soon and it happened to be the interview test part. Of course I knew the interview would be held in some point, but it really came surprisingly fast. I went completely locked and when the interviewer spoke only japanese I jammed completely. My name? What was it again...? It went badly, but I wasn't luckily the only one.

The seriously surprising part were the classes. This is the part I want really to all of you applying to study to take a good look at, because this is where I was most surprised. I originally made my plans in order to apply to intermediate class in Yoshida Institute. In class levels that would have been the class D (starting class is A). So when we originally had checked the levels and books, we should have been able to go to D class. Maybe with few kanji less than them, but otherwice. Now to the truth. It doesn't go like that. The courses are much harder than what it seems in the paper.

We made an entrance test after the teachers had explained the rules of the school. Teachers had decided a test for you by the interview and what you had told them (how many kanji, how many years, how many books...). I was able to do the B-C test. Aaand it happened to be pretty tough one. We had one hour time and the test was 6 A3 pages long, I barely made it till the end. So be very realistic when setting your goals and understand that the language schools here gets after a some point very surprisingly hard (Basically in the swich between beginner and intermediate, intermediate students are already super talented). After the first shock I'm verry happy with my class.

My result was in between so I was able to decide if I wanted to go to A or to B class. I decided to pick out the B, but there is a condition to success well in the first grammary test held approximately 2 weeks after study begins. If you don't they will move you to A class no matter what. The school also has an ability to deport you from the country if they feel that you are not suitable to study Japanese. Of course that is a supreme matter and that would mean that if you cannot learn even hiragana and katakana in certain time (it was a quite long time tough, months or so), that would happen. (The school also tells that they will call to our parents if our attendance rate is falling, which is quite hilarious from a Scandinavian point of view.)

Also the Go!Go!Nihon doesn't really take any part for the course picking. The school didn't really relay on any information we had last year given to Go!Go!Nihon and it didn't affect on our entrance exams in any way. So I could have been telling to Go!Go!Nihon that I'm advanced leveller and it wouldn't really had made any difference. So don't take any pressure about the level you pick for them.

We started from the Minna no Nihongo book 1, chapter 20 in the B class. The speed is really nice, I really like the teachers. They only speak Japanese in the lessons and we have at least half of the 3 hours we sit in class speaking with each other and for the whole class. We study only 4 kanji in a day (with kanji I'm very much ahead, but it's nice to review these). Our class is pretty big compared to others, we have 22 students. About 1/5 is swedish, 3/5 from another Asian countries 1/5 is other European or USA/Canadian. I really like our class, people are really nice there! And so many languages are spoken there aside Japanese.

Oh and rules are pretty strict in here. Two times 15 minutes late is same as not showing up at all once. And for every time you're not showing up, you loose 3% (or more possibly if it happens all the time, I'm not really sure about this) from your finale course score. The score is build up from attendance, tests in a mid-way and home work = 300 points. And with the final exam total 300 points. So the complete total is 600 points. You have to score over 60% to be able to make it to next level. And if you wish to continue your visa (in order to continu studying here), your attendance rate has to be over 80% (so if it lows 3% everytime you're gone, count from that). And if you wish to continue to a "real" higher educational school, the attendance rate has to be over 90%. However, if you have influenza and paper from a doctor for it, it doesn't affect your attendance rate.

Our school is really lively and it is really easy to chat with other students from other classes too. I have already made friends with some people. Classes from A to C all study from 13:20 to 16:40 so it's pretty easy to meet people from levels close to yours. (D to advanced are studying at morning from 8am)

Here is some pictures from the park close to our school
and from Takadanobaba, where our school is.

Mata ne~

Autumn and JLPT4

The autumn has finally really arrived, the leaves are turning red and yellow and the weather is colder, though it’s still warmer than it usually is during fall. I’m a big fan of all the foliage colours and it always makes me just want to knit something warm and paint a lot with bright colours. Too bad I haven’t really had time for those things. For few weeks now I have been running from job interview to another and actually I managed to get contract with two companies which hire extra workers for grocery stores, cafes and bars. There is no such a thing as a minimum hours in a week, so it’s really mostly about luck and how volunteer you’re jumping to the metro and getting to work whenever someone calls you. I have done this couple of years ago and it’s easy as long as you don’t do any other plans you need to keep. And the variety of places you will work in is actually quite fun.

Japan… I don’t know how many times I have already written that it is getting closer. An obvious fact, but I guess writing it up makes it easier to wait ^^. I have been a huge fan of this blog called GaijinPot, very nice articles about different phenomena in Japan. One of the most interesting ones was this post about the “UchiSoto” culture in Japan. Reading that made me see the Japan little bit differently and also I had a great wake up experience about our last visit in Japan. It made me really see the natural reason behind the help we received and why we were treated like we were. I recommend reading that, it’s not that long.

From the subject to another, I’m actually really proud of myself for completing the first Kanji Book. I’m still going to do the reviews about the chapters (always after every 4-5 chapters I think) to check that I actually am still able to do even the kanji from the beginning. The next book will be little bit different to study because with this Book 1, I decided right from the beginning that I would study every kanji from that book no matter if those ones weren’t on the kanji list for JLPT4. In this point I guess I have to point out that for JLPT tests there doesn’t exist a real kanji list anymore. After the test was renewed few years ago they dropped all the official material out, leaving the situation hanging on those very flowing sentences about one’s skills (see them in on this blogs page “Project data”).

But because many people feel that it’s really hard to study without any base, most of the people still use these old kanji lists which you can still find from the web. Here is the list where I have based my estimation about JLPT4 kanji (the list is cumulative with N5 kanji too). One reason why I decided to read the whole Kanji Book 1 including all the 251 kanji (even when I circle out the lists kanji there comes only approximately 170 kanji from the book 1 and rest from the book 2) was that the list is old and not valid, though it still gives you a quite a good glimpse what is to be expected.

Cheers

Acha

Roppongi (Tokyo), 2012

Öland (Sweden), 2010

100 Days!

Yeah, so today there is exactly 100 days until we will get to the airplane and fly to Japan. Our apartment is already strating look like someones moving because we started to pack books and such already. We know that expesially December will be very busy and probably we don't have even much time to do packing and that is crazy because we have to think so many things already now! For example our apartments contract is expiring 31th of December, but due the fact that we don't have much time to do moving and leave the key close the date we are flying, we already have to do it about two weeks earlier. It's all for work. The December will be always the busiest month from the whole year since we both have something to do with retail business (though my job situation is not much clearer than before, I should get the information during next week).

But since this is 100 days until Japan -post, I try to write more about Japan and japanese language ^^. I'm very close to finish off the Kanji Book 1 which includes 251 kanji and after that there is not that much to go to have the whole amount for JLPT4 (we don't have to discuss about the other goal okey, please...?). Minna no Nihongo is completely other thing. It's massive amount of info, but I think the harder part is the selective reading in the beginning. We have been using different book series for the beginner parts but we wanted to purchase the book 1 as well to make sure our knowledge maches the expected (in our school they have used Minna no Nihongo serie in beginners course). But it's really frustrating time by time because so much you already know, but there is always something new in every chapter (or then the new thing is only disagreeing with the earlier info).

This is maybe the first time I have actually been worried that our level is not enough for the intermediate program. There was no sense to applicate for beginner program and our contact from Go!Go!Nihon thought this is the best program for us, but yeah, I still wonder. The others have been in Japan for 9 months already, talking and using japanese. And then we come with our knowledge made up from the tv series we hear and grammar books we read. It's not very comparable. I don't mind working my ass off to get the situation balanced but I for sure am worried that what if that is not even possible. I guess if we are too much behind we will just drop to the beginner (damn I hope not).

But here is something usefull for instance. Our real "savings versus how much we think we're going to spend in Japan during 9 months" -plan. So this is actually the estimation how much we will have saved in total in January, but since it's such a short time, it's going to be pretty correct.
I have to point out that all the amounts are just estimations and tried to be estimated too high (only rent is basically precise)!

Savings minus
- Public transportation for 9 months // 900 euro
- Phone and internet bills for 9 months // 900 euro
- Rent for 9 months from one person // 2700 euro
- Food for 9 months from one person // 1800 euro
- School for 9 months from one person (all costs + insurance, exaggerated) // 5 000 euro
-> Free money for entertainment for each month: approximately 320 euro

ps. I finally got a new computer and blogging is actually enjoyable again ^^
pps. This post has been changed (+ pictures added later 18th since the blogger for some reason didn't publish the last version about it...

Helsinki 2013

Linnanmäki (amusement park) 2013

Riding Dreams

So at least for a moment, Go!Go!Nihon has now everything they need from me. The documents where the name and personal number were highlighted were success and I managed to take scans from my old passport's pages where I had the tickets from my last visit (even the passport itself is invalid, the pages cut in half and so). So from that side everything looks great now and I hope there won't be any more problems.

I didn't receive an answer about the school fee for 9 months but when I googled by myself I found Yoshida Institutes own page where it was estimated. So now the school fee is also marked up to the monthly budget on the Project data -page. I'm still a little bit worried about the estimations, but at least we aim so much over that there has to be some moving space.

Kayna and Astria

My computer is having it's last moments and I really can't use it more than an hour at the time now. So no matter how much I'm intimidated that I have to put some money to a new one, it really has to be done. The idea about the money in the saving account would feel so much nicer, but luckily I've been working some extra again and saving for a new objective for my camera so saving and buying a computer don't necessarily rule each others out (though the objective must wait now, maybe I buy it from Japan).

I'm seriously worried about the schedule to read the Minna no Nihongo -books. While working full-time there is really many days when I feel way too tired to grab the books and start to study after work or before the shift, but for past few days it has had to be done anyway, no mercy. The greatest feeling is when I really have started to notice that I recognize all the time more kanji-combinations easier and also reading has gotten better, even though I'm still kinda poor at it. Especially katakana has been a struggle for me since you don't face them that often.

And this I must share: I hobby horseback riding with Mikko and we were kinda down when we realized that we can't ride for about one year. I was curious how common is the horseback riding in Tokyos area because last them when we were in Kyoto we actually saw a stand with couple of young citizens trying to get new members for their riding club. Back then we didn't speak Japanese more than just the basic how-to-order-food-from-restaurant kind of things so even when we tried there was no hope getting a riding lesson back then. I was very shocked when during my googling I found out that there is a stable in Yoyogi Park! Like in the most center Tokyo of all places (and only few kilometers from our apartment-to-be). And they actually rent a horse for you for 45 minutes for individual riding. The cost is pretty luxurious (because usually training hour for our in expensive stables in Helsinki costs something like this), 8 000 yen converted to be right now approximately 58 euro. But I think we need to be this crazy and at least try once if it is possible in reality (you can never know if there is some other expences they just don't inform on that page).

 

Gion (Kyoto), 2012

Book Delivery

Hi again,

Clock is ticking and cause of a morning shift I had to wake up at 5am this morning and now I'm super tired. So I'll just update you really quickly and continue tomorrow with better time (and with not so tired eyes ;) ). Go!Go!Nihon didn't answer to my questions about what I should do with the visa documents they had troubles with, so I decided to try this mad idea I suggested to them and circle up with red liner my name from every and each of the financial documents they asked us to send. Then I sent them again and added the questions about the school fee and the beginning date again, just to be sure to get the answer this time.

Well, this time I received the answer really fast, only in couple of days telling me that everything was good for now and the beginning date of the school is 5th of January 2015. I didn't get clear answer about the school fee so I have to continue whit that... So this "everything is good for now" period lasted only few days when I received a new e-mail with a new problem (seriously I don't get it why they can't list everything once). I had to update my passport and due to that I don't have any tags about my last visit to Japan in 2012 which usually you're supposed to add to the visa application so that they know (this is our civilized guess) that you haven't exceeded the maximum time of the tourist visa (3 months). So now I have replied that the passport is a new one and I'm not so excited to see if they are going to think is as a problem.

But that's all really minor when we compare that we finally got our Japanese books from Minna no Nihongo -serie (books 1 & 2 plus the translation and notes from both) from Japan finally and now we understood that there is basically only 4 months until the JLPT test (1st Sunday of December) what means only 4 months time to read all of these books and complete the kanji amount. So now all the thumbs up, because this timetable is going to get tight! Silver lining of this cloud is that at least the 10 first chapters from the Minna no Nihongo 1 should be just pushover since those are the basics of the basics and something we already know. But yey we actually got the books after almost 2 months waiting and they were actually cheaper than thought! Nights~

From the Beginning

So time to start the story here in Tokyo Through Blue Eyes. It's 22th of July 2014 and there is approximately 160 days until the take off. Me and Mikko have been completing all our documents for our student visas, paid the application fees for Go!Go!Nihon and now we're just waiting for the results. The school we picked is called Yoshida Institute located in Waseda, Shinjuku-ku and the program level we're aiming for is intermediate (starting from N4 level aiming to N2) which takes 9 months. We already have arranged the apartment for us from Tokyo, with a bit of luck and out nationality it worked out very easily for us. We're going to be living in place called Nekotalo (neko = Japanese means cat, talo = Finnish, means house), which is owned by very friendly Hirasawa-san. The room itself is small (only 19 m^2), but the rent and reliability as well as the location in Koenji made us feel strong about our decision. We're looking forward this so much!

One of our biggest concerns at the moment is, not very surprisingly, money. Month after month we've been re-calculating our estimation how much it will cost to live in Tokyo for one month, but it has appeared to be really hard. We've been in Tokyo only as a tourists before, so it is extremely hard to figure out how low we can actually go for example with the food cost (because even eating out was actually pretty cheap and back then yen was really strong against euro, now we have advantage over that because yen is now weak against euro). Also estimating the cost of using public transportation and calling by phone has been almost impossible even with all the googling and research we have done, so we're estimating it hopefully far too high (100 euro for both in a month). Mikko actually checked the student fee for public transportation for our route from home to school and the program estimated it to be from 20-50 euro. The reason why the range is so wide is that is that the student visa we'll have will affect the discount and we're not sure how much.

Our goal for the coming 9 months has been 10 000 euro. When you apply a student visa in Japan for 6 months the government expects to see 1 000 000 yen in your account as a warranty that you are going to survive with life cost there. We've applied for that 6 months visa, because there is no 9 months visa and the warranty amount rises fast to 2 000 000 yen. The 6 months can be extended very easily so that's why we are depending on it. So our warranty amount, the 1 million yen is right now equivalent to approximately 7 300 euro. We're already over that and with the way our savings are going now, we're going to easily pass the 10 000 euro. It's huge relief for me, though I'm still wondering how our finances and calculations are going to work out.

And then when it comes to this moment, our biggest worry after all is to complete the N4 level in JLPT test in December. Without any lessons or courses it has took quite much of a self discipline because the kanji amount is quite a lot for only half a year. And the fact that we ordered our Minna no Nihongo -books almost 2 months ago and still haven't received them irritates me since the time is running all the time.

Oh well, we're still looking forward for it so much and gazing the suitable flights gets me exited every time! And we're lucky to have awesome parents too who have promised to back us up if the worst case scenario happens even though it's really the last option, since we want to do this on our own. (but the idea about it that this won't be at least ruined by money is pretty comforting)
Happy summer for all!
Yours, Acha

 

Nippori (Tokyo), 2012