Japanese for the leaving?

_ReyRey_

Hi, I'm very interested in learning Japanese and hopefully doing it for the leaving and I have a couple of questions.
1) My school do not offer Japanese as a subject so could I actually do it for the leaving and if so would I have to go to a different exam centre for the exam?

2) Is there any Japanese classes in the Meath area? Would going to classes outside school and self-teaching be enough to do well in Japanese?

3) Next year I will be doing TY and Mandarin Chinese is taught to the TYs. Would this confuse me or are the languages anyway similar?

4) If you've studied Japanese for the leaving or otherwise, did you find it easy to pick up and do you find it easier than European languages?

5) If you can, could you suggest some good leaving cert Japanese type books.

Sorry for all the questions, thanks in advance!

DublinArnie

I'm also planning to do either Japanese or Russian for leaving cert too. I've heard foreign language exams except German, Spanish, French and Italian are set at a native level. So the exams are harder than like HL German at leaving cert because they are designed for people who speak the language natively. But i've heard of people who started learning it at ty or 5th year and did well overall in the leaving cert.

I don't know i'd be interested if anyone answers your questions!

_ReyRey_

Really? I've actually heard it's easier than the usually leaving cert languages9European) because they're 5 year courses and Japanese is only a 2 year course. Interesting that we've heard opposite to eachother!
If you take up Japanese would you attend classes or is it taught in your school?

DublinArnie

_ReyRey_ wrote: »

Really? I've actually heard it's easier than the usually leaving cert languages9European) because they're 5 year courses and Japanese is only a 2 year course. Interesting that we've heard opposite to eachother!
If you take up Japanese would you attend classes or is it taught in your school?

My school doesn't teach Japanese. I will attend grinds and classes outside school. Trinity college offer Japanese classes in the evenings, and I live close by, I wonder if they will allow senior Secondary School students to attend their classes.:pac:

ray2012

One of the above poster said that Japanese for LC is harder than HL in languages like German, French. That is not true. It is true that the extra-curricular languages (languages that only native people to that country where the language is spoken) are at a really high level. Languages like Bulgarian/Swedish/Portuguese etc, and many other languages, are on the leaving cert course, but you can only do the exam if you were native to that country (or something like that). So I, being 100% Irish, wouldn't be able to do any of those kind of languages. However, Japanese, can be done by anybody for LC as far as I know. Therefore the standard is much lower than that of a native. As well as that, it is only a 2 year course, making the course far simpler (I would guess), than HL French or German.

_ReyRey_

Yeah mine either, I've no idea why they have Chinese if it's not even available for LC! Ah you're lucky you live in Dublin, the closest place to me that does Japanese that I know of is Ashbourne and I wouldn't be able to make it afterschool Hopefully someone around the area does grinds though.

DublinArnie

ray2012 wrote: »

One of the above poster said that Japanese for LC is harder than HL in languages like German, French. That is not true. It is true that the extra-curricular languages (languages that only native people to that country where the language is spoken) are at a really high level. Languages like Bulgarian/Swedish/Portuguese etc, and many other languages, are on the leaving cert course, but you can only do the exam if you were native to that country (or something like that). So I, being 100% Irish, wouldn't be able to do any of those kind of languages. However, Japanese, can be done by anybody for LC as far as I know. Therefore the standard is much lower than that of a native. As well as that, it is only a 2 year course, making the course far simpler (I would guess), than HL French or German.

Ah! Thanks for clearing that up! Would Russian be considered an okay language to pick up for Leaving Cert for non-native speakers?

_ReyRey_

ray2012 wrote: »

One of the above poster said that Japanese for LC is harder than HL in languages like German, French. That is not true. It is true that the extra-curricular languages (languages that only native people to that country where the language is spoken) are at a really high level. Languages like Bulgarian/Swedish/Portuguese etc, and many other languages, are on the leaving cert course, but you can only do the exam if you were native to that country (or something like that). So I, being 100% Irish, wouldn't be able to do any of those kind of languages. However, Japanese, can be done by anybody for LC as far as I know. Therefore the standard is much lower than that of a native. As well as that, it is only a 2 year course, making the course far simpler (I would guess), than HL French or German.

Yeah I've heard that also, thanks for verifying

spurious

Both Japanese and Russian are two year courses and that is the standard expected. The exams would be roughly JC OL standard if comparing them to French or German, or the other 'usual' languages.

You don't need to attend a different exam centre for Japanese or Russian, you just need to tell your school's Examinations Secretary in plenty of time that you intend to sit the exam. The SEC will organise the oral and a paper to be sent to your school.

Sentid

I'm going into fifth year now and am hoping to do Japanese. There are free classes in Cork and Dublin but being in Limerick/Tipperary region that's very awkward for me. You can do grinds too in places like the Tutorial but they're very expensive.

_ReyRey_

Sentid wrote: »

I'm going into fifth year now and am hoping to do Japanese. There are free classes in Cork and Dublin but being in Limerick/Tipperary region that's very awkward for me. You can do grinds too in places like the Tutorial but they're very expensive.

Thanks for letting me know :-) It's a pain that it's not offered in more schools really. I'm going to look into the Dublin classes and maybe I'd be able to attend at the weekend or something. Hope you find somewhere to learn it!

feargale

What's the sense in restricting Swedish, Bulgarian etc. to natives of the relevant country? Is the Dept. of Education afraid that someone might learn too much about Bulgaria?

_ReyRey_

feargale wrote: »

What's the sense in restricting Swedish, Bulgarian etc. to natives of the relevant country? Is the Dept. of Education afraid that someone might learn too much about Bulgaria?

It's for the natives to gain points where they might lose them in Irish. It is sorta ridiculous that they're restricted though.

eurostop94

I just finished LC Japanese so I can tell you all that it's a very manageable subject.

I did the free classes in Dublin for 5th and 6th year; they were really fantastic. My teacher was great, we could always email if we had problems/questions and she made the classes really fun. It was tough enough having to be there for 3 hours on a Saturday morning but I would definitely recommend them to people who are considering it. If people are worried about having too much work in 6th year, don't. II took at on as an 8th subject but I had friends doing it as a 9th. I didn't have to put in half as much work as I did other subjects (I usually did my homework the day before or on the bus there...) and I still managed to get an A1 so it was really worth it! Also I was out most Friday nights and getting up for class wasn't that bad so don't let that stop you, if there's anything I learned it's you need to turn up to every class and do all the work they give you.

If you're looking into it and live in or near Dublin/Cork/Sligo they have free classes available to LC students : http://languagesinitiative.ie/languages-japanese

If you can't make those, grinds and private classes can be very expensive. The book, Nihongo Kantan, is really good and I'd say if you're motivated you could teach yourself. The classes in Trinity really aren't enough to cover you for LC; they only do 1 or 2 hours a week and move too slowly. If you're able to make it to Trinity then go for the LC Saturday classes instead.

Bazinga_N

eurostop94 wrote: »

I just finished LC Japanese so I can tell you all that it's a very manageable subject.

I did the free classes in Dublin for 5th and 6th year; they were really fantastic. My teacher was great, we could always email if we had problems/questions and she made the classes really fun. It was tough enough having to be there for 3 hours on a Saturday morning but I would definitely recommend them to people who are considering it. If people are worried about having too much work in 6th year, don't. II took at on as an 8th subject but I had friends doing it as a 9th. I didn't have to put in half as much work as I did other subjects (I usually did my homework the day before or on the bus there...) and I still managed to get an A1 so it was really worth it! Also I was out most Friday nights and getting up for class wasn't that bad so don't let that stop you, if there's anything I learned it's you need to turn up to every class and do all the work they give you.

If you're looking into it and live in or near Dublin/Cork/Sligo they have free classes available to LC students : http://languagesinitiative.ie/languages-japanese

If you can't make those, grinds and private classes can be very expensive. The book, Nihongo Kantan, is really good and I'd say if you're motivated you could teach yourself. The classes in Trinity really aren't enough to cover you for LC; they only do 1 or 2 hours a week and move too slowly. If you're able to make it to Trinity then go for the LC Saturday classes instead.

I'm going to the Cork classes from next September onwards I was looking for someone who did it and what they thought of it! I'm glad you got on well so

Jijsaw

Bollocks if I'd know about Japanese in Sligo back in August, I'd be doing it now. But then I'd be doing 5 languages for the LC :eek:

Anybody here doing it at the moment? Care to send me some notes from the past month??

Bazinga_N

Jijsaw wrote: »

Bollocks if I'd know about Japanese in Sligo back in August, I'd be doing it now. But then I'd be doing 5 languages of the LC :eek:

Anybody be here doing it at the moment? Care to send me some notes from the past month??

Five Languages? :O Oh my god!

I haven't started Japanese yet, but the Japanese teacher told me that the textbook (Nihango Kantan, I think?) is what they use so if you got that and worked off it you should be able to do it