I believe that throughout the semester, I have become better at translating things in my head more quickly so that I can respond to questions in Japanese more quickly and with fluency. My goals for this semester were:
- Shadow anime in order to understand not only prosody of words and phrases, but also how to convey emotions.
- Go to office hours (especially with Shibata sensei) at least once every two weeks in order to get a better grasp of pitch.
- Speak conversationally with other Japanese students and native speakers in order to become more comfortable with the language and better at quickly forming coherent responses.
I have successfully completed one anime shadowing PE and plan to do many more. They are fun and they help me to improve upon my speed when I have the time to shadow them.
I have not been sticking to my second goal of meeting with Shibata sensei once every two weeks, mostly because her office hours mostly conflict with other classes and obligations. I plan to go to see her more to improve upon my pitch, fluency, and ability to quickly respond to questions posed in Japanese.
For my third goal, I have been exchanging a few sentences and with native speakers, but it is often very difficult because their accents are very different and they speak so quickly! I would like to add upon my third goal by going to more Japanese tables and speaking with fellow JPN 102 classmates outside of class.
I hope that I will be able to become more natural-sounding and fluent by paying attention to these goals.