General Q&A for stuff I forgot to mention in other posts

Hey guys! Thank you so much for the comments/questions that you sent me, I'm slowly working towards answering them all. This is just to fill in some gaps I might have left in my videos and if you still have any questions please ask me!!

I did a video about classes I took in Japan and how my experience was with them. You can click HERE to watch that video. A viewer asked me if I had any problem with the Japanese language in my classes. I had TONS of trouble with understanding the classes language wise at first! It took me a while to get used to listening to my teachers speak in Japanese, then it took a time to understand what they were actually saying. It was definitely not an easy process, and a lot longer than I thought but it wasn't impossible.
I took Japanese (こくご国語) with my homeroom class and lucky for me, they were on the Old and historic Chinese section. As a Chinese-Canadian, that was extremely easy for me to handle since a lot of it was stuff I already knew. In fact, I was the only one raising my hand most of the time when the teacher asked any questions about the meaning of the phrases! That was about the only time I actually felt smart in my high school carrier haha! In contrast, the hardest courses were Math (すうがく数学) and Sciences (かがく科学) for me. I'm not a very good student in these courses to begin with, less to say when I don't fully understand the language it was taught in. Math was manageable with the numbers but calculators weren't allowed so it was a huge hustle for me to calculate everything by hand (which I haven't done since grade 6). They had a lot of Katakana (カタカナ) which meant the words were foreign but I still had trouble understanding them only because I never liked Math. Science, on the other hand, was much more traumatic. I took Chemistry (かがく化学) and Biology (せいぶつがく生物学) and both required lots of writing and most of the material was in Kanji (かんじ漢字). I just remember every single class, me and my fellow exchange student Miia, sitting in the back of the class and copying what the teacher wrote on the board. Yes, I have asked myself multiple times why I did that to myself. And I persuaded Miia to join that class. I'm sorry Miia.

I went on exchange with an organization called Greenheart Travel (CCI) which does both high school exchanges, volunteer programs and teaching programs across the globe. They're based in Chicago, US and have been in business since the 80s. I did a lot of research before I completely put my trust in them but they were extremely patient and helpful with my 101 questions AND my mom who didn't trust anybody she can't see in person. They did send me a T-shirt that I love because it is SO comfortable but this is 100% not sponsored by the company. Trust me, I will tell you if something sucks. I did have to fill out a lot of forms like medical forms and forms about myself which is understandable since they're responsible for me while abroad and they're trying really hard to find a host family that suited me (they absolutely nailed it).

Many messaged me, worried about re-doing their year in their native country after exchanging and I really am not a specialist in these things PLUS your school and my school must be very different. I spoke to my guidance counselor at school BEFORE completing my application with Greenheart to make sure my high school would allow me to be away studying for half a year. Luckily, they were fully supportive of my decisions and they explained to me what I needed academically to pass onto my senior year. I had already accumulated 2 grade11 credits in grade10 so I only had to do four more courses in the semester I got back in order to graduate in time. So I think some planing is definitely needed but I decided to go abroad a few months before I was packing for my trip, nothing to stress about. Pulling from my personal experience, talking to your school beforehand is probably the best thing to do after you made your decision.

This is it for now, as I said in the first line of this post, please let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment down below or...
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How I learned Japanese

Hello~

It's been a long time since I posted... Oops...
School has been unbelievable recently since I'm in my last year everything just piled up T_T

This post will be dedicated to my journey in learning Japanese before going on exchange and I hope this will help you!
Here's a video if you don't like to read and please don't mind my hair...

I started learning Japanese in grade 7 and continued until grade 10. It was a good four years of in class learning in my life. I went to two different Japanese schools for two years each. The first one was during Saturday mornings from 9 to 12. This is where i began to learn Japanese in a classroom as I pretty much self studied it before this. 

In that school, a lot of students were Canadians wanting to learn Japanese as a second or third language out of interest and it does go up to a pretty high level. We used GENKI I as the textbook for the first year to start us off with the basic reading and writing skills along with fundamental conversational skills. It also teaches you Kanji! I think this is a pretty good book since it has both English and Japanese text which is much easier to understand. I think it works best in class though only because there would be a teacher to help you out when you have questions. It explains a lot of the easier grammar rules in the language in English but I find it a bit confusing sometimes. My second year there, we were using GENKI II which is essentially the part2 in the GENKI series, with slightly harder grammar and Kanji. 

The second school I went to was organized by our school board to encourage international language learning. It's free but if you don't have the textbook, you need to borrow one which needs a 60$ deposit. It counted as a school mark and credit so it was more serious. Many of my classmates were either Japanese or half Japanese because they would get a free mark booster through the course. It went by school grade opposed to levels so I was put in the beginner class for the first few weeks but I soon begged my way out to the grade 11 level. They started to use GENKI II in that level while I was already halfway through so it was still very easy for me. The next year, they tried to finish the book and at this point you should be at a certain level of fluent in the language. Again, this depends on the person since we all learn differently. 

I find I learned most of the useful conversational stuff by watching animes, dramas and TV shows in Japanese. That's just how I learn, I imitate what I hear and see. 

I hope this post was somewhat helpful to you. If you have any further questions please leave it down below or you can contact me by...

Email

Instagram @migoko2

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Back to my Japanese High School!!!

Greetings from Japan~

After a long ride on the airplane, I'm finally in Japan!! I'm staying at my old host family's house because they are such sweet people and don't think of me as trouble :p
It's so HOT in Japan! Yesterday, when i went to my school, it was 35 degrees but with the humidity it was easily over 38 degrees!!


The next day I went to my host school Kanagawa Sougou Sangyou High School (LiSA) to see my classmates and teachers. It was a blast!! The only flaw was that I didn't have time to video tape everything. I did take lots of pictures though!
It was such a great time and reminded me of the time when I was there. Since it was the last day of school before summer vacation, they didn't have class and instead was cleaning the school and had a school meeting. Everybody was as welcoming as I remembered. It felt great to be around them and I literally felt like I was at home. Some people I didn't get to see on my last day were there too, so my wishes were completed. We had a mini class party with the Maple syrup snacks I brought. It was one of the best days of my life!!

Just got into the school

Class Party

Signing notebooks for my classmates lol

The school meeting

My teacher is too cute >_<

Dance Club! (One of them wasn't there)

Tobi~~ He was the Kendo Club captain when I was there!

Before being able to take our best shot, this happened...

Then this...

Then this...

 And finally this

These guys are from the Rugby Club at my school!! 

And this happened...

After school finished, I went out to eat with my friend!! It's been about 6 months since we were able to do stuff like this so we got carried away but it was so much fun!!

Her cellphone is incredibly cute >__<

First Purikura since 6 months ago!!

It was more enjoyable than I thought to go back to school! Some of the people I know have already graduated while others are about to graduate next spring. I'm so glad I have the opportunity to see them once again before everybody goes towards their own lives. 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to comment down below!

Other ways to contact me:

Email: liumanou@gmail.com

Instagram: @migoko2

Japan Student Exchange Q&A Part2

Again, thank you to everybody who asked me questions in emails!! :D

Before I start, I would like to remind you that today is the opening day for World Cup 2014 in Brazil! Canada is, unfortunately, not part of this amazing event. However, the Japanese team, Samurai Japan, is going to be playing this year and their first match will be on Saturday >_< I mainly look forward to Atsuto Uchida and Makoto Hasebe!! They are my two athletic crushes recently :3 They're so cute *_*

Uchida Atsuto

Hasebe Makoto

 Ok, before this post becomes a rant about my Japanese crushes... Lets get to the questions ;)

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Q7. What if I experience homesickness?

I didn't get any homesickness while I was in Japan! I was really busy with school and school clubs. So the best way for me was to keep myself busy and find close friends in Japan to feel less lonely. 

Q8. What happens when I have a problem with my host family?

Try to communicate about the problem with your host family first but if it doesn't work, then go to your counsellor. The company will try to find a new family or they will try to talk about it with the family on their side. 

Q9. Can you chose the city you were going to?

I wasn't able to chose it myself. I was lucky to be placed in Kanagawa since it was only 40mins by train from Shinjuku station which is downtown Tokyo. I'm not sure how the companies decide on locations but I assume it has to do with your application and what they think your personality is. 

Q10. Will you be with another exchange student in the same school?

I had four fellow exchange students in my school. My host school was very focused on English and foreign languages, like Chinese. Therefore, there will be many exchange students every year coming from different countries. Our company didn't allow us to "hang out" too much with other exchange students but it was close to impossible since we basically all had the same friends and all knew the same people. 

Q11. Can you wear makeup to school?

My school was very westernized and they didn't have much rules for how you looked. They allowed everything reasonable and didn't have an uniform. However, most schools in Japan do have regulations for your looks so be careful! 

Q12. How do you make friends in Japan?

It's different from person to person since our personalities are different. I personally love sports so I joined sports clubs at my school and became very familiar with people on the teams, mostly guys since we didn't have a lot of girls in my school. Another thing is to become close to your classmates so that you can get to know other people from other classes through them. Go talk to them yourself since most of them are too shy to talk to you and make conversation with them. I got really close to the girls since there was only eight other girls in my class and there was a total of thirty. Don't think that you're special because you're a foreigner! This might sound weird, but it's important to consider yourself one of the Japanese students in order to blend in with them. 

Hopefully this wasn't too long for you to sit through and I wish this helped people with questions. If there's anymore questions that you want me to ask, comment down below or 

Email: liumanou@gmail.com

Youtube: Manou Liu

Instagram @migoko2