Japanese

Year 8 Japanese Semester Report

Students of 8A and 8G have spent Semester 2 mastering the basics of Japanese language: the general vocabulary and grammatical patterns.

As a non-Indo-European language, Japanese is a very different language compared to the one(s) we generally operate in on a daily basis, which I think is what makes Japanese seem like a harder language than it actually is.

Students embraced the learning of the vocabulary. They practised the set words relating to travel and daily activities enthusiastically on Education Perfect and memorised them to an excellent level. “Loaned” words such as フェリーferii made that easier if a bit funny process at times.

Mastering sentence structures proved to be a bit more challenging, considering the differences in the word order and the use of particles to indicate functions of words in a sentence. On the bright side, Japanese is a language of very few exceptions, making it quite easy to perfect the language rules in the end. 

Students were engaged in practical activities in class and their hard work resulted in very impressive unit test results.

For the final assessment of the year students were tasked to design a storyboard to discuss everyday activities of their protagonist. Students produced a wide range of ideas and supported them with creative and interesting visuals, which you can see in the photo gallery.

I am very proud of our students and what they individually and as a group demonstrated this semester. I hope they continue to successfully explore Japanese language again next year, or otherwise demonstrate a continued growth in their ability to be accepting of others’ points of views when engaging with the diversity of global citizens in the future.

みなさん、よいとしをおむかえください。

D. Radelj