But more to the point… Woohoo… we made the paper! Well done, us!

Loughborough Echo Article

日本

I of learnted enough Japanese to get an A* grade at GCSE.

Now, if you’ve been following these blogs, you’ll know I have a slightly dim view of GCSEs. And I’m still willing to uphold those views. Five of us went to pick up grades this morning, and four were A*s. Two of them were seriously not expecting that kind of grade, having made known cock-ups in the exam, feeling like they didn’t know enough to answer the questions. So that begs the question – are the exams quite hard but don’t require many points for a good grade? What’s occurring? I would have thought someone should be pretty confident in an exam to gain an A* in the results. I don’t think it was false modesty from them either – they were genuinely surprised this morning.

And the other person who picked up her grade got a D. But she only sat half of the exam. She was whisked away with work before the writing paper and didn’t sit it at all. Obviously she is also over the moon with her result, but surely there’s something wrong where you can sit half an exam and still get a pretty good grade? I’m not knocking it – she’s pretty good at Japanese and deserves a good result, but I’m sure there’s something wrong with the system.

Anyway… congratulations to all who have picked up GCSE grades today, I hope you all did well!

And, as they say in Japan… YATTA!

So when we turned the page and were greeted with the following diagram (crudely represented) you can imagine the amusement.

猫はテーブルの上にいる

The section heading was “kaimono” (shopping) and I’m not sure why there was a plumber on the left and a businessman on the right. But that’s just how it is. Must have been cheap clip-art. The section was actually about ‘here’, ‘there’ and ‘over there’ and there were three pictures, but I couldn’t be bothered to draw the cat balanced on the businessman’s hand.

It’s like hovercrafts and eels… must be one of those universally translated phrases…

English: The cat is on the table.
Japanese: 猫はテーブルの上にいる。
Finnish: Kissa on pöydällä.
French: Le chat est sur la table.

Any more…?

A lot of the reading was about characters rather than words or grammar, but with a couple of longer passages put in there. The listening was pretty easy once you worked out the theme of the current section. One concentrated solely on ‘this’, ‘that’ and ‘that over there’, so you were only listening for a single consonant (kore/koko/kono, sore/soko/sono, are/asoko/ano) ten times and you could get ten points out of it.

There was one part of the listening, though, where there was a more comprehensive passage and, as usual, with my brain not tuned in correctly, I heard almost nothing of it. It’s funny… in Japan I can understand Japanese perfectly. When I’ve been listening to English all day, I can’t understand a word of Japanese. Probably because I have to flip a switch in my brain that accepts the different word order… the Japanese build up a picture of events, and then cap it off with a verb.

“Yesterday, with friends, to the library, because it was raining, didn’t go”
or
“Yesterday, with friends, to the library, because it was raining, went”

I heard an interview with a Japanese interpreter and he said it’s really hard work doing live interpretation – you have to look at body language, tone of voice and so on to guess whether the verb at the end will be positive or negative so you can present it before it has been said.

Buy anyway… I’m not sure if it was easier than my French GCSE from many many years ago. Probably harder because it’s in bloody Japanese! All those meaningless squiggles all over the page!

It was sad to see three empty desks; people who had originally registered but dropped out before the exam. It was good, however, to see eight people taking it. Last time I did a Japanese course, only two people finished. Having an exam probably encouraged some people to stick it out. One surprise was the young lady who hasn’t been to any classes for a whole term, who turned up to sit the exam anyway.

Coming next, on Tuesday, is the writing paper… better because there is no ‘wrong answer’. But worse because of the open scope – having to demonstrate all your skills in a low number of characters. Please demonstrate your skill and versatility as a singer – but you only have one 3-minute song to do it in.

Time for some cramming…

For example, an article about the GCSE exam dictionary fiasco I wrote this morning. I’m quite pleased by the low number of corrections – it means I must have some idea what I’m doing!

Of course, it pays to write quite short pieces because people are more likely to read and correct them for you. Unless you’re already pretty fluent and also very interesting!

Anyway… if you’re studying a language, go and give it a try!

Recently some Finnish friends came to stay at my house. I understand a little Finnish and so I was able to listen to them. In four weeks’ time I am taking a Japanese exam. There are words in Finnish and Japanese that sound the same. For example “kippu” (ticket) in Japanese is “lippu” in Finnish. Also, there are Finnish words that I think sound Japanese. For example, in Finnish, “window” is “ikkuna”. Now it is difficult. Sometimes when I am speaking Japanese, I stop and say “Ah! Sorry… that is a Finnish word!”.

最近フィンランド語を話す友達が私のうちに来ました。私はフィンランド語を少し分かりますから友達に聞けました。四週間後に日本語のしけんを受けます。ある言葉はフィンラド語と日本語で同じそうです。たとえば、切符（キップ）はフィンランド語で「リップ」と言います。も、あるフィンランド語の言葉は日本語で聞くそうと思います。たとえば、窓（マド）はフィンランド語で「イックナ」と言います。今、難しいです。時々私は日本語を話す時に止めて「あっ！ごめんね～　フィンランド語の言葉ですよ！」と言います。

Old: 1 hour 15 minutes
New: 1 hour

Not a major issue to start on. Although percentage-wise it’s a big difference, it’s only 15 minutes. In fact, if the paper is just as difficult, the shortened time will make things harder.

Old: 4 tasks
New: 2 tasks

The old paper has a couple of simple exercises to get you going before launching into the short and then long writing tests. No major issue again – it depends on the rest of the paper.

Let’s look at the two main writing tasks in detail, beginning with the short task:

Old: Up to 190 characters on a single subject. Suggested: “about 165 characters”.
New: Up to 190 characters on a choice from four subjects. Suggested: “75-180 characters”.

I guess this means you can learn limited vocabulary and still ace the new exam. You rely on luck (or actually knowing all of the subject) for the old.

The long task:

Old: Up to 400 characters on a choice from two subjects. No suggested number of characters. Instructions written entirely in Japanese.
New: Up to 380 characters on a choice from four subjects. Suggested “minimum 300 characters”. Instructions written in English apart from titles for two of the essays. Those are written in Japanese with English translations in parentheses.

It really is starting to sound easier. But let’s see if there’s any real clincher. Something that really gives away the reduction in standards…

Oh… here it is… let’s look at the front of the exam paper…

Old: You may NOT use a dictionary.
New: The use of an appropriate bilingual dictionary is permitted in both Tasks 1 and 2.

I need say no more.

Likewise in my Japanese studies, I’ve been pretty harsh on myself. I’m frustrated that I still can’t pick up a Japanese book or newspaper and just read it. Last night I was working on my latest assignment, a 400 word essay about a recent event, and struggling once again.

This morning, however, it dawned on me as I looked at last night’s work in progress…

That’s really not your average every-day level of skill is it? I’m actually doing alright! I think I just need a little patience to go with my hard work.

A t-shirt manufacturer, I can just about forgive for getting Kanji upside down, but a booklet intended to help teachers guiding our young and impressionable future citizens? Not really on.