Books for Leaving Cert Japanese

conormurphy

Hey guys, I'm in third year now, I'm going to do Transition Year but in the next year, I'll be the only person in my school doing Japanese. I was wondering what books I should get? I heard about one called Genki, I googled it and it seems to be for Middle School Students in America?

Any help is very much appreciated

Piste

Yeah Genki is the one that seems to be used the most, it does give you a very high standard of Japanese! I think it's actually used by college students in America! It'd be worth getting some Hirugana and Katana workbooks and learning from them too just so you get the symbols down!

gaybitch

Hey, I have Genki and it's pretty good. It'd be worth your while downloading the hiragana and katana charts and putting them in the back, and getting a copy to write down any kanji you encounter as well. A dictionary would be useful, and also you can get hiragana/katakana workbooks to help you learn them.

Japanese is great, you'll enjoy it, just don't become one of those anime freaks. No body thinks it's cute when you end a sentence is "desu yo!" just because you can, I'm just putting that out there.

conormurphy

Haha, thanks

Is it really hard to learn all the hiragana, kanji etc?

If I were to study Japanese for half an hour every night from Transition Year, how long would it take me to finish the course?

Piste

it wouldn't take that long, are you planning to teach yourself right up to leaving cert? Cos like the oral and aural will be pretty hard if you do!

There are two very good workbooks, Katakana kantan and Hiragana Kantan that are great for learning those two alphabets.

conormurphy

Yea, I'll teach myself but in 6th year I'll probably try to search out somebody who can help me as far as talking goes. I might get some tapes too.

The actual questions on the paper don't seem awfully hard to me?

And there are questions about the culture too right?

What did you guys get in the Japanese in the leaving anyway?

Piste

Pfft I'm in 5th year and I'm not doing Japanese for the Leaving, waaayy to difficult and 9 subjects is overkill!

King Ludvig

Im in 6th year and do Japanese. Our class use the following books (all recommended):

Japanese For Busy People (Kana Version)
http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=4770030096

Japanese For Young People (Kana Workbook)
http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Young-People-I-Workbook/dp/4770021801

Japanese for Young People (Kanji Workbook)
http://books.google.ie/books?hl=en&id=xFm_KeBNKrAC&dq=japanese+for+young+people+kanji+workbook&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=rS2R2ZM5T0&sig=an9tYFzYfk9L3mUJ2AgxBxNmPVQ


Fair play if your gona teach yourself japanese, I cant imagine that'd be easy...

Brian

There's plenty of books/other resources out there for reading and writing. For the aural section I recommend just watching as much fan-sub anime as you can, and for oral I recommend JapanesePod101.com - it's free too

I taught myself Japanese for six months or so through solely JapanesePod101, but stopped as I took up French in a grind school instead. I would've kept up Japanese if I could've gotten lessons, but I wasn't organised enough to stick to a routine with teaching myself at home.

failsafe

I remember reading a post (here I think) by the guy who set http://www.leavingcertjapanese.com/ up a few months back, but doesn't seem to have made much progress on it since! I keep meaning to get around to writing up a syllabus on zulunotes when I get the time so that students like yourself can use it to read up on & discuss it, and pitch in as you go along, but it keeps slipping to the back of my long to do list!

clartharlear

Sumimasen. Ima, Nihon ni sunde iru to nihongo benkyo shimasu.
Toki Airurando kaerimasu, mada benkyo したい desu.
Doko no koko de Nihongo wo naraimasu ka. Daburin deshou?

Excuse me. I'm living in Japan and studying Japanese now. When I return to Ireland, I still want to study. At what schools do you learn Japanese? Maybe Dublin?

(Romaji de, Berlitz Essential Japanese wa ichiban suki na hon. Hiragana toka katakana toka kanji de, Minna no Nihongo wa benri desu)

King Ludvig

Ashbourne Community School in Meath does Japanese.

gaybitch

Contact the Japanese embassy. They'll put you into touch with the Marino Institute I think it is, and they organise classes in St Michaels on a Saturday morning. Once it's not too much trouble for you to trek out to Ballsbridge every morning, with a hangover as I invariably had, you'll be grand. The teachers were really good.

clartharlear

Sorry. By "Maybe Dublin" I kinda meant "I suppose only Dublin" in a sort of sarcastic way. I'll actually be in Cork next year. Thanks though!

About the Japanese embassy, I checked out their website. They only have postal and fax details. Phoning is a bit mendokusai anyway with the time difference, but I can't believe they don't have email! Grr.

I'd actually just like to get something on paper for my study of Japanese. Would it be really weird for a 28 year old teacher to do a leaving cert paper??

spurious

clartharlear wrote: »

Would it be really weird for a 28 year old teacher to do a leaving cert paper??

No - there is no upper age limit for the Leaving Certificate exams.
I went back and took Art a few years ago. The only thing is, if you have previously sat for a Leaving Certificate, you will have to pay the repeat fee, even if you are only sitting one subject.

gaybitch

Google the Marino place. They pretty much organised ours, and it was out in St Michaels. It was FREE! And very good.

ehraz

clartharlear wrote: »

I'd actually just like to get something on paper for my study of Japanese. Would it be really weird for a 28 year old teacher to do a leaving cert paper??

You would be better off doing the JLPT. It's more widely recognised.