Japanese for the Leaving Certificate? advice needed !

racheldna

I'm just finished T.Y and going into fifth year.
I was wondering, is it advisable to take Leaving Cert Japanese? I've started learning the hiragana and I really love Japanese culture, the language, anime, manga and Japanese video games. I'm thinking of studying Japanese in DCU and hopefully becoming a translator.

Anyway, I'm currently doing French (which I have no interest in). I got a B in higher level for the junior cert.

Would it be best to stick with french (ugh) ? Or start Japanese lessons?
Anybody have any insight?
ありがとう

spurious

No reason you couldn't do both. It's unlikely your school will let you drop out of French classes.

MomijiHime

I'm also hoping to do Japanese for leaving cert (and French is compulsory in my school) so I started learning it properly over the summer. Like Spurious said, why not do both? If it gets to be too much you could just learn one of them on the side but not do it for the lc so there's not as much pressure, that's what I'm going to do if I find it too difficult.

yoajing

I had a friend who took Japanese as one of his LC subjects. I think he even said he was going to include it in his top six. He was aiming for Medicine, by the way. He said the exam is ridiculously easy compared to the likes of French or Spanish, the reason being that a lot of non-Japanese students take it up (so they gotta make it a tad easier, you know). If you think about it, it makes sense, considering how, for instance, Polish would be more or less on par in terms of difficulty with French/Spanish/German exams seeing as a lot of Polish-speaking students take it up as a subject.

spurious

Japanese and Russian are intended to be two year courses.
French, Spanish, Italian and German are intended to be five year courses.
The non-curricular languages e.g. Polish/Swedish/Lithuanian etc. are expected to be at native speaker level.

februaryair

I just finished my Leaving Cert and I did both French and Japanese. If you really want to do it, then go for it, it's doable, just put the effort into it

DublinArnie

I'm considering doing Japanese also. Do you guys recommend any schools that teach this in the Dublin area? or is it better to self-teach ?

Beca19

I'm considering it too but I'm in the west and there doesn't seem to be anywhere doing classes or any grinds teacher.. Is it possible to do without a teacher? I'm thinking it could be difficult preparing for orals!

spurious

There are Japanese people all over the country. Put an ad online looking for a teacher. There may even be some in the grinds thread.

februaryair

The Post-Primary Languages Initiative run Japanese classes in Dublin, Cork and Sligo. They're really good and the only fee is for your textbook.

languagesinitiative.ie/languages-japanese

Japanese Lessons

Definitely do Japanese, if you've got the slight bit of interest an are willing to dedicate yourself to it, it really will be quite enjoyable. It's also a two year course so I think it's quite doable.

I'm offering lessons in South Dublin if anyone is interested.

Best of luck!
Any questions feel free to message me.
Shereen Perera

Konata

racheldna wrote: »

I'm just finished T.Y and going into fifth year.
I was wondering, is it advisable to take Leaving Cert Japanese? I've started learning the hiragana and I really love Japanese culture, the language, anime, manga and Japanese video games. I'm thinking of studying Japanese in DCU and hopefully becoming a translator.

Anyway, I'm currently doing French (which I have no interest in). I got a B in higher level for the junior cert.

Would it be best to stick with french (ugh) ? Or start Japanese lessons?
Anybody have any insight?
ありがとう

Just a note regarding studying Japanese in DCU. You have 2 options to study Japanese - one with Business Studies and the other with another language (Japanese is only offered as a beginner langauge so your 2nd language would have to be an intermediate one i.e. French or Irish in your case). However it's the 2nd course where you get the chance to study Translation aswell so I definitely wouldn't drop the French just yet to keep your options open.

Japanese in DCU starts off at the beginner level but progresses very very quickly so I definitely think that people who have studied it previously have an advantage. I didn't do it for the LC myself but did night classes before starting the course so had a similar knowledge to the LC students. So yea, I would say go for it. If anything you might find out whether you like it enough to study it at college or not anyway!