Do you go to cram school?

In Japan, many children go to juku, 塾 (じゅく), to prepare for entrance exams for High School, University, etc. These kinds of schools don't really exist in Canada or the U.S., if we feel our kids need to study more we hire a tutor to come to our homes and help them study. Usually, the teacher will contact the parents saying their kid needs help and will recommend a student of a higher grade to tutor them.

In English, we translate juku as cram school. This comes from the verb to cram which means to force something into a space which is too small for it. For example:

The pushers on the yamanote line crammed the people into the train.

Wow~! Did you see they crammed 15 clowns into that tiny car!

Be careful, in English pusher means (illegal) drug dealer but in Japanese it is someone who pushes people onto crowded trains during rush hour!!!

Now, from that meaning students started to use it to talk about last minute studying because they have a lot of information to cram into their brains in a short amount of time. For example:

Man, I'm not ready for tomorrow's final... I'm really gonna have to cram tonight!

I had to cram all weekend to pass my history midterm.

Often when students have to study hard they pull an all-nighter. This means that they study all night without sleeping!

My teacher is crazy~! I had to pull an all-nighter just to read this week's material!!!

Hmm, that's it for now, have a great weekend,

Phil

What grade are you in?

Hey everyone, this post is for people in high school, junior high school, college and university. Many students don't know how English speakers talk about school, so here is some useful vocabulary.

The simplest way is to ask someone:

"What grade are you in?"

This is a great question and can be used for anyone in elementary, junior high school or high school but NOT for university students.

Elementary school

1st grade
2nd grade
3rd grade
4th grade
5th grade
6th grade

Junior High School

7th grade
8th grade
(in the US sometimes also 9th)

High School

9th grade
10th grade
11th grade
12th grade

In University, people usually use year:

I'm a 1st year student.

So in University:

1st year
2nd year
3rd year
(sometimes also a 4th year)

In the US:

The US also has 4 words used by students and I would often see them in movies but never really understood them because we NEVER used them in Montreal~! hahaha But for my readers I did some research and now I understand.

freshman = in the first year of high school, college, university
sophomore = in the second year of high school, college, university
junior = the before last year of high school, college, university(3rd year of a 4 year program)
senior = the last year of high school, college, university

There you go! Now you can confidently talk about school and your studies in English. ^^

Phil