ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE Languages Other Than English (LOTE) => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Japanese SL => Topic started by: Holdstill123 on February 18, 2020, 05:34:23 pm
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I am in year 9 and I am planning to do japanese as a vce subject, is that a good idea?
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I am in year 9 and I am planning to do japanese as a vce subject, is that a good idea?
Hey Holdstill123,
Welcome to AN
My first question to you is, do you enjoy learning Japanese?
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Yes, I look forward to my Japanese classes whenever I have them.
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Yes, I look forward to my Japanese classes whenever I have them.
Hey, that's great, I also think you answered your own question. You should continue Japanese than.
What concerns do you have, if any about continuing the subject?
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Hey, that's great, I also think you answered your own question. You should continue Japanese than.
What concerns do you have, if any about continuing the subject?
What do you think is the most important thing to learn early on when starting vce jap?
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Hey there,
I did VCE Japanese and my school placed a real emphasis on grammar. We finished learning all prescribed VCE grammar about the end of year 11, which gave ample time to then focus solely on building up vocab and ensuring we knew all our prescribed kanji. There's no real 'right' way to go about studying Japanese, but I think one of the most important things you can do early on is to ensure you're putting in a bit of revision every day or so, so that you're able to build your skills gradually. Cramming generally doesn't work that well in LOTE related subjects imo!
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Definitely recommend pursuing it if it's something you enjoy. 👍
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What do you think is the most important thing to learn early on when starting vce jap?
I did VCE Japanese and continued it into uni (I have a minor in Japanese studies, despite having a Bachelor of Science (Hons)!). Apart from grammar as mentioned by Jigsaw, here’s a few things I think would be nice to hone in on before VCE Japanese:
1. Your reason to study Japanese - if you like Japanese, there’s probably a good chance that you’re probably interested in some degree to their traditions and culture (whether it be traditional or pop culture e.g. anime, manga, J-pop, electronics, food), their way of life (生活), the language itself or something else entirely. I’d suggest you find some aspect to enjoy about it outside of purely “this is a subject at school I have to learn”, if you haven’t already.
2. Japanese speaking and listening skills. Totally optional, but you’ll likely find the VCE Japanese journey a little easier if you work a little on these two skills. Whether it’s finding a Japanese-speaking friend (who can speak semi-formally i.e. uses the です/ ます form with you) or listening to Japanese media, it’ll help to make the final oral and written exams a little easier. Again, totally optional.
3. Another optional thing you could do is to try having a go at writing with げんこうようし (that square box manuscript paper). There’s a few “rules” that come with writing using げんこうようし, so I can only really see benefit in learning this a bit earlier. (Emphasis on optional.)