For this week, I want to talk about what we studied as a class in the 2nd year Japanese section. I remember thinking “there’s no way we’re approaching the end of Genki already…”
Thinking back on it now, it doesn’t like seem as much as it felt like, but in 3 weeks we had covered 6 lessons. I found quickly found myself just as busy as I was during the mid semester grind at Williams. Granted I did have to do some catch up. The textbook for First-year Japanese at Williams is different than what a lot of other schools tend to use (Nakama rather than Genki). KCJS uses Genki 2, and though Nakama 1 and Genki 1 generally cover much of the same material, there are notable differences. By this point, I had taken notice that I knew different Kanji than my peers did, and perhaps fewer. Before the start of the program, and was surprised by how many Kanji in Genki 1 alone I didn’t know (not to mention the portion of Genki 2 that students at their home universities covered during first year Japanese). Furthermore, my classmates seemed to know more about grammar than I did (I had to become familiar with about 2-3 lessons worth of grammar on top of homework and class work). It was a pretty tough adjustment, but I found that I didn’t need to spend too much time on this catch up as I mainly learned and reinforced these points through immersion.
By the end of this week, it finally felt like I was on an even playing field. The following week, however, would come to be a new challenge for Genki and Nakama students alike…