Shuuryou Shimashita!
09 May 2009
Hurrah! I've completed my first year! I took my final two exams of the year today (Japanese Language: Aural and Oral) so I'm officially finished for the year. It was such a huge relief to finally get these two exams over with. The listening exam was a lot tougher than I expected it to be. Not only was the speed at which the people on the tape spoke faster than what we're usually used to, the sheer amount of information we had to get down as well was immense. It was all I could do to scribble down some really rough notes and hope that the examiner would be able to read them. I don't think I missed too many bits of vital information but my handwriting could turn out to be a problem. I know it has been in the past. There's nothing I can do about it now, though, apart from hope that they don't penalise me for the messy presentation.
The speaking exam was probably the most nerve-racking of all the exams. I didn't find the role-play section too difficult, but I may have got my intonation wrong in a few places. The general conversation section about a memorable summer holiday was a lot tougher. Before I went in, I had a whole soliloquy worked out in my head and I was ready to go through it from start to finish without stopping. Unfortunately, I suffered the same problem as I always do and left too big a pause after my sentences; thus giving chance for the examiner to ask me a new question. After that I was merely reacting and my original plans went out of the window. I felt that I could have added some more complex grammar constructs into my speech but I was too busy trying to make sure that I didn't have any periods of long silences. Overall, I think I did fairly well. I'd be disappointed to come out with less than 70% for both of the exams.
Now that all my exams are over I can look forward to a couple weeks worth of intensive Mahjong training! I have to make sure that I'm ready to face the opposition in Hanover on the 23rd. The only problem I can envisage is that there are only three people going to the tournament and that might pose a problem when trying to find a fourth player for our training matches. We'll be wanting to play at least once per day, everyday and I'm not sure how willing the casual players will be to play so often during those two weeks. There's always the option of playing three-player Mahjong, but that's so different to four-player Mahjong I don't think there's any point. I'm sure we'll be able to work something out though.
Posted byHocchan at 1:26 am
