(this is a repost)
hi i think i should give a background first haha. I’m a high school student and I’ve been on and off studying Japanese for almost 3 years. my school has this cultural immersion activity held every year with one of their sister schools in Japan, specifically in the Shimane prefecture. I was chosen as one out of four students in my school who will be touring a group of 21 Japanese students around some notable tourist spots in my city. I’ve attended formal language classes and I’ve been certified with JLPT N4, but that was around a year ago. I haven’t fully committed to studying due to my loss of interest and I’ve been occupied with entrance exams. I’m not so confident in my abilities anymore, I think the longest conversation I can hold is with the cashiers from convenience stores… My reading and listening skills are a lot better than my writing and speaking.
To say I’m nervous is a complete understatement! I’ve also been asked to be the translator for the main program, I’ll be talking alongside the host but in Japanese instead of English. The teacher-in-charge told us it is encouraged to talk to them in English but to be mindful of their language level, which I understand. He told us that speaking in full Japanese is our last resort. My main worry is holding a conversation when they have any questions regarding the cultural sites we’ll visit, should I prepare a list of hypothetical questions? I have around 18 days to refresh my language skills. I wanna focus on grammar the most, that’s what I’m worst at. Does anyone also know a useful guide to understanding Japanese sentence structure participles? What are the most effective techniques so I can avoid doing badly in conversing with them on the day itself? I know confidence is key but I don’t think I can fake it ’till I make it anymore haha… thank you in advance! \^\^ (also very sorry for the amount of questions I have, I just really wanna get all my bases down)
edit: fixed typos
update: I did it! I was really nervous when I first saw them haha, but I was eventually able to lead my group just fine, though we got mixed with another group somewhere in the middle of the tour. During the tour, I made the OK gesture (👌) to see if they understood and it worked really well. Word of the day was 熱い! It was so hot during those two days, I lent them my umbrellas and was able to make small talk. In the end, I’ve become insta mutuals with a lot of the students and I feel really cool haha, a lot of people in my school are jealous that I got to be with them. (Though, they wouldn’t be jealous once they saw the packed schedule we had on those two days. I’m a living corpse now.) Thank you all for the advice! Learning the words was a lot more helpful than focusing on grammar haha, despite my broken grammar, knowing the words and their translations were really useful. I got 日本語上手’d for the first time, when I had to translate my native language to English to Japanese, and vice versa… Never again… I wasn’t so bothered though and laughed a little on the inside, my first Japanese learning milestone!
by pippapi