Slow progress と いちばんじけん

まだ

The first few weeks have just flown past me. Even today I’m surprised that more than half the week has already gone by.
Time going by so fast is a certain sign that I’m enjoying every moment of this journey, but it unfortunately also shows me how slow my progress is. I’m studying every day, making my しゅくだい as a good student, but I feel like I haven’t improved.

To be very clear, I do not blame the school in any way, It is me: I don’t make enough progress in the speaking part and I am for sure lacking in the listening part.
This is made very clear nearly every day at Seattle’s Best Coffee where I understand about 10% of what is said to me. On monday a barista was speaking to me concerning my caramel latte, and I did not understand ANY of it. I think she gave up and made whatever…
On the other hand: some of my fellow students are amazing, they seem to adjust so well in the ability of listening to the fast spoken Japanese language (all credit to them ofcourse)

So I’ve decided to double my efforts:
I’m following a かんたん日本語を PodCast, たくさんマンガをかいました(bought many manga’s) and even bought Harry Potter in Japanese together with the Japanese listeningbook. first experience: To be able to really listen to the Podcast I need to slow it down to a 0,8 speed 🙂

いちばんしけん

Last week we got our first review-test of all the material we saw up till now: I’m glad to announce that I did quite well! I was surprised at the score I got. This however was just a first test, the next ones will be far more difficult so I need to keep up with everything or I’ll be in trouble and disappointed with myself.

This week hasn’t been ideal though: I was ill one day, peaky the next and since monday I’ve slept badly so that hasn’t helped either.

Enough with the self-pity: Tomorrow is a new day and I will go full speed.