CLAIR Jet Programme Japanese language course

[Ginny]

So far, I have found that it's more of a challenge to understand the instructions than the Japanese.

WOW!! Me too

I just opened my Advanced books and absolutely everything is in Japanese!! There's not even any nice "new vocab" box any more - except for the odd translation of sentences, there is not a single trace of English anywhere!!!

Quite a step up from Intermediate

[NatalieHiroshimaPA]

I am doing Advanced for a second time and there is way more English this time around

[ThomasChibaPA]

My biggest complaint with the books was that I thought keigo (polite language) was introduced too early.

Maybe it's just me but having virtually nil Japanese skillz coming to Japan, I didn't feel like I was comfortable enough using everyday Japanese at the store, school, etc to then get slammed with ultra-polite way of saying things. I felt like a baby trying to speak like a king

Actually, the lower in rank you are the more you should use keigo (depending on the type of keigo)

The stuff in those books is the kind of speech you should be using with your coworkers, which is why they put in in there. Same with stuff like "fountain pen", although nobody really uses those anymore.

[YamanashiPA_David]

So far, I have found that it's more of a challenge to understand the instructions than the Japanese.

WOW!! Me too

I just opened my Advanced books and absolutely everything is in Japanese!!

Actually the instructions in the intermediate are all in English and I'm struggling to understand them!

In fact, while I'm being nitpicky, I would much, much, much, prefer it if there was no English on the audio CDs. I would like to just listen to these while out running or walking, and all the English introductions really interrupt my flow!

[Ginny]

I am doing Advanced for a second time and there is way more English this time around

Really?? I hate to think what it was like before!!!

[YamanashiPA_David]

How are corrections/errata communicated?

There seems to be a mistake in this month's intermediate test. Questions 40/41 to 50 appear to be numbered incorrectly (the numbers are correct up to number 40; the next question to appear after that is also number 40, but the answers run from 41 to 50 - so there also seems to be one more question than answer).

[NatalieHiroshimaPA]

I am doing Advanced for a second time and there is way more English this time around

Really?? I hate to think what it was like before!!!

To be honest I wish there was no English and no Furigana. All the Furigana is driving me mad because 4-kyuu kanji are furiganised which makes me lazy.

I personally feel I prefer the old Advanced Book. I also really don't like the double pages of "cram" I liked all the Japanese cram reading separated so that you don't have a mild heart attack and seek refuge in Perez Hilton

[YamanashiPA_David]

On the off chance that anyone is reading this feedback, I have another suggestion: at the moment the vocabulary for the dialogues are included on the same CD track as the dialogues themselves. Which means that every time you want to listen to the dialogue you either have to listen to the vocab, or manually skip through it.

Is there any possibility that the two could be separated, so that once you know the vocab, you can listen to the dialogue separately?

[shanePC]

I'm reading the feedback guys, much appreciated.

A lot of the stuff may be beyond repair if it is a major design change, but I'll see what I can do - not everyone agrees as you can see though too. The same thing happens when the Programme Coordinators sit down with the publishing company and the professors writing the books. We NEVER agree on anything...

Definitely mistakes though, we will fix all the mistakes we can.

Regarding the English on the CD - I agree. It shouldn't be there... The advanced book is a step up, but if you put your mind to it you can do it. The books are designed to be as linear and adhesive as possible, but especially with the advanced, it is covering a very different demographic than the first two, which includes many CIRs and Japanese majors. And a lot of those people aren't English speakers.

[NatalieHiroshimaPA]

And a lot of those people aren't English speakers.

That kinda makes sense with all the katakana vocab, but including easy kanji like 日本人 in Advanced?

[shanePC]

You mean the rubi on 日本人? Yeah, that's a bit overkill isn't it...

[YamanashiPA_David]

Me again!

I have a question, and a suggestion.

The question: Is it okay to discuss the monthly test on the internet? For example, there's a question this month that I'm not totally sure about - is it okay to discuss what the answer is and why on other language-learning forums?

The suggestion: There are now a lot of people who use Spaced Repetition Software to help their studies of Japanese. As a result of that, some internet communities have made spreadsheets of sample Japanese sentences to share with other learners so that those other learners can use them in their own SRS decks (if those other students can prove that they own the textbooks that the sentences are taken from).

Is there any way that CLAIR could make such a spreadsheet available to JETs? At the moment I'm just typing the sentences from the textbooks into my Anki deck, but presumably these sentences exist in some sort of electronic document that could be easily transformed into a spreadsheet that contains the sentences and their meanings.

I think it would be an amazingly valuable resource for JETs who are trying to learn Japanese, and it would be pretty easy to put together as, for example, a shared google document that requires a password that could be printed in the textbooks or something.

Just a thought, like.

[patrick]

To piggy-back off what Taurus suggested, it makes me wondering if creating a forum to suppliment the JET Japanese course wouldn't be a great idea? I remember when I was working my way through them, I felt stranded in some areas and didn't feel like I had a 24/7 gateway to access to discuss my question.

[shanePC]

Have any of you guys called the hotline?

I mean, we could make the forum. I'm just not sure how much time we will be able to devote to answering questions... is the hotline not useful?

[YamanashiPA_David]

I haven't called the hotline. I thought it was for more admin-related matters... In any case, if I sent them an email to ask them about the answers to a test question, I'd expect them to tell me to wait for the answers to come out, but that will be another two months or something...

Maybe I will email them now!