Jumping for joy...in secret
It's secret because I'm not meant to let anyone (at school) know before my principal has informed me. In fact, I really shouldn't know yet, but I happened to call the prefectural PA today about a camp next week, and he was kind (or sneaky) enough to let me know. And there was some slightly crazed whooping for a little while there, for...
I've gotten into the CLAIR Translation and Interpretation course for my 3rd year of JET!!!
Honestly, the placement test for this course is the hardest test I've ever taken in my life. Harder than JLPT 2級. Felt harder than the J-Test too, because at least I was expecting that to be hard. And er...I'm only referring to Japanese tests here, huh? *sweatdrops* it's probably because I'm trying to get better at this language way too quickly, so I never leave myself enough time for thorough preparation.
So of course, that could also be because I wasn't completely prepared for it. I've done tiny amounts of translation before. Also tried translating into Japanese once, to raise money for the Australian bushfires. And I've been reading, with a dictionary, the news articles concerned with education, teachers and what not that my vice-principal picks out. Not to mention the manga and novels I've been struggling through, and the tv I occassionally watch. But I've never done on the spot interpretation for more than short sentences - once on a plane trip and again when an exchange student came to my school recently.
I took the test almost a month ago now, but I can still remember the minor levels of panic winding through my system...especially when I realised that I was the only prefectural JET taking it. I did ok on the vocab and grammar sections, but screwed up one of the listening parts, the English to Japanese translation, and, worst of all, the interpretation segments. My major weakness is that I have a terrible short term memory - I had great difficulty remembering what I was meant to interpret!
(Hm...I suppose "terrible" is not entirely true...but those were easy in comparison!)
Anyways, yes, I'm kinda on track to where I want to go. Now to get there.
I've gotten into the CLAIR Translation and Interpretation course for my 3rd year of JET!!!
Honestly, the placement test for this course is the hardest test I've ever taken in my life. Harder than JLPT 2級. Felt harder than the J-Test too, because at least I was expecting that to be hard. And er...I'm only referring to Japanese tests here, huh? *sweatdrops* it's probably because I'm trying to get better at this language way too quickly, so I never leave myself enough time for thorough preparation.
So of course, that could also be because I wasn't completely prepared for it. I've done tiny amounts of translation before. Also tried translating into Japanese once, to raise money for the Australian bushfires. And I've been reading, with a dictionary, the news articles concerned with education, teachers and what not that my vice-principal picks out. Not to mention the manga and novels I've been struggling through, and the tv I occassionally watch. But I've never done on the spot interpretation for more than short sentences - once on a plane trip and again when an exchange student came to my school recently.
I took the test almost a month ago now, but I can still remember the minor levels of panic winding through my system...especially when I realised that I was the only prefectural JET taking it. I did ok on the vocab and grammar sections, but screwed up one of the listening parts, the English to Japanese translation, and, worst of all, the interpretation segments. My major weakness is that I have a terrible short term memory - I had great difficulty remembering what I was meant to interpret!
(Hm...I suppose "terrible" is not entirely true...but those were easy in comparison!)
Anyways, yes, I'm kinda on track to where I want to go. Now to get there.