N2 Studying Update and Life

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned I’m going to take the JLPT N2 this December. I’ve got a better study plan then I did last year when I was studying for the N3, but I’ve also started studying for it later, so I’m not sure if I’ll cover enough material to pass it. I’ve been a little slack with my studying, except listening practice, because I received great news last month. I’ve been accepted to graduate school in Japan! I’ll be writing about that experience on my other blog: Spring in Tokyo. Since I will be in Japan for at least 2 years, I plan to write more about learning Japanese in Japan on this blog.

In terms of studying, I’m doing a lot of listening practice from podcasts, YouTube and JLPT books. I am still doing kanji studying. I’ve finished studying kanji from 1st grade to 6th grade on StickyStudy and am working on the JLPT N2 kanji lists and 7th grade and 8th grade kanji simultaneously. On the other hand, I’ve hardly studied vocabulary. My plan is to finish studying kanji soon and then just study vocabulary up until the test. When I first decided to take the JLPT N2, I tried to study really hard by trying to do a little bit of everything at once. I was going really strong too, but then I received that acceptance letter and fell off the bandwagon.

Now, I have been trying to be consistent by doing small things like studying with StickyStudy. I like studying kanji on the app and it tells me how much to study every day. By not trying to do too much at one time, I’ve given myself flexibility with my study plan and have allowed myself time to do other things besides studying Japanese. Not to say that the work I did at the beginning was necessarily bad, it gave me a good method for studying grammar and I went through a lot of N2 material. I developed a good resource lists for JLPT grammar and a nice, albeit not completed study guide. However, I think that learning a language should be a lifestyle change, not a cramming session.

Studying for the JLPT N2

Recently, I have started studying for the JLPT N2. I am using a combination of two JLPT book series: 総まとめ日本語 and 完全マスター. From scouring the internet, I heard that these two series are good to use to study for the JLPT N2. Unlike last time when I was studying for the JLPT N2, I did not order all the books in the 総まとめ日本語 series to study for the test. I have been using StickyStudy to study kanji and vocabulary (instead of buying those JLPT N2 books).  Lately, I am mostly studying grammar and kanji. I have a daily study plan, which I have mostly been sticking to. I think my biggest challenge will be reading and vocabulary. There is a huge difference in terms of the number of vocabulary words and the length of the readings in the JLPT from the N3 to the N2.

In terms of my kanji studies, I have been studying elementary school kanji. I finished playing the 漢字とオバケたちの館 series on Nintendo 3DS, so I am familiar with writing most of the 1,006 kanji that appears in those games. To further learn those kanji, I am going through them on StickyStudy by grade level and I have started studying middle school/junior high school kanji. I hope that sometime in December I can start learning 9th grade kanji. In addition to going through kanji by grade level, I have been studying StickyStudy’s JLPT N2 list.

Regardless of whether or not I pass the JLPT N2, having the goal to pass it has helped me become more serious about my studies since for the last few months I have become a little slack with my Japanese language studies. Planning to take JLPT N2, has encouraged me to play Pokemon in Japanese again, which I attempted a few years ago when my Japanese language skills were not so good. Recently, I started playing Pokemon Diamond and soon realized that it only has kana. I have to admit reading all kana makes the game less intimidating, but it’s also frustrating. When I look up new words, there are multiple kanji that the word could be written with. I have noticed that a lot of the kanji I am studying for the JLPT have appeared in the game, which helps reinforce what I am studying. I think I will continue to play Pokemon Diamond and if that goes well (I finish the game), I’ll move on to Pokemon Black and switch that to kanji mode.

Japanese 3DS: 妖怪ウァッチ2(本家)

You may have heard of the Youkai Watch series. It’s an anime and video game series that is popular with children in Japan right now. I’ve been playing Youkai Watch 2 Honke off and on. When I first started playing the game, it was a bit of a struggle, just due to the amount of vocabulary I did not know. But the game is fun and immersive. I like the fact that as the player, you have a lot of freedom in terms of subquest and how you want to customize the youkai in your party. Playing Youkai Watch 2 Honke has greatly improved my vocabulary and it has continually confused me with terms that do not appear in my electronic dictionary. The confusing terms are usually onomatopoeia or specialized terms I’ve never learned. Sometimes the dialogue in the game is easy for me to follow and I can honestly laugh at the funny parts in the characters’ conversations. The more I play the game, the better my vocabulary and reading comprehension gets. The game has a wide range of kanji and vocabulary from all of the JLPT levels, so I can say I’m studying for the JLPT when I play it!

Update and Reading

I recently received my JLPT certificate in the mail! Many of my friends also took the JLPT and passed their exams as well. This year I would like to take the JLPT N2. I heard it’s more difficult to pass than the N3, so even if I do not pass this year, I will not be discouraged.

Lately, I have been thinking about language learning a lot. I finished reading a book called ‘Fluent Forever,’ which is about concrete steps a language learner can take to learn a language. I really enjoyed reading the book and its appendixes. It helped motivate me to use Anki again. I like using Anki, but the deck building process can be a little convoluted at times.

‘Fluent Forever’ introduced and reminded me of many aspects of the language learning process. Specifically, it mentioned the developmental stages of a L2 (foreign language) learner, pronunciation, frequency lists and Anki. I want to explore the concept of developmental stages of language more. Basically, the developmental stages of language refers to the process of learning a language. For example, we learn present tense before past tense etc. Of course, this is not the best explanation of this concept, but I think if I understand these stages for L2 learners it will make me a better L2 learner and a better English teacher.

Pronunciation is something I struggle with, not so much with Japanese, but there are some sounds that I need more training in. The book talks about how to tackle pronunciation, so I am going to try to incorporate that advice into my studies.

Frequency list are something I keep hearing about in passing, but I have not used them very much. For Japanese, I mostly use JLPT vocabulary list or vocabulary list provided by my textbooks. I would like to try out learning vocabulary through frequency lists, because I have heard a lot of good things about it.

Anki is a free online SRS (spaced repetition system) flash card website and app (the iTunes app is not free and cost about $25, while the Android app is free). You can build your own flash cards with whatever features you want (audio, text, pictures etc.) or download and use flash card decks shared by other people. I do not use Anki regularly so, I had to look a lot of things up to figure out how to build a custom deck. Also, Anki uses HTML when you create fields or question cards, so that can be confusing. It helps to know HTML, but you can use Anki without knowing it. Anki is a great free resource that is customizable, so I am going to try using it again.

JLPT results

Last month I wrote about my experience taking the JLPT for the first time. I took the JLPT N3 and was unsure of how well I did on the test. Earlier today, the results of the JLPT became available online. I passed the JLPT N3! My results were not particularly spectacular, but I did fairly well. My results were about the same for each section, so I think I did a good job last year of working on each of the different components of the test equally for the most part. I did mention in my first post about my JLPT experience that I did not study vocabulary very much and that was the section I had the lowest grade in. I was surprised to see that my highest section was the reading section, even though I did not even finish it!

This year, I would like to take the JLPT again and aim for the JLPT N2. As opposed to the first time I took the test, I have more time to study. I still plan to finish my JLPT N3 books first. N2 is a more difficult level than N3, so I plan to change my studying approach when I start studying for it.

2015 goals

It’s a new year! I haven’t made a New Year’s resolution in years, but I decided to make a list of goals for 2015, mostly foreign language related. Since I’m done with my Japanese major, I’m not taking any Japanese classes right now. This has given me the chance to reevaluate how I study Japanese and to commit to using some of the Japanese learning material I’ve gathered over the years.

Lately, I’ve shifted my Japanese learning focus to kanji. I would like to learn all the Joyo kanji by the end of this year and study for the JLPT N2. In order to reach my goal, I’ve been using flash card apps with SRS and playing video games in Japanese. I’m almost finish with the 漢字の館とお化け達 games (I only have to do 6th grade kanji)! By the middle of this year, I want to learn middle school kanji and since I don’t have a high school kanji list, I’ll just study the rest of the kanji from my new and old joyo kanji flash card list.

I’ve also been doing a lot of listening practice via YouTube and Bilingual News. I enjoy using video games as a study tool. Many words appear repeatedly throughout different games and a lot of the vocabulary and kanji correspond with either Joyo kanji or the JLPT. I don’t force myself to study and I enjoy how relaxing ‘studying’ is. I made a few specific deadlines for knowing the meanings of kanji and how to write to write kanji, to keep my kanji studies on track though.

漢字の館とお化け達：小学生1-6

If you have a Japanese 3DS, you may have heard of the 漢字の館とお化け達 (Kanji no yakata to obake-tachi: shougakusei) series. Or if you are considering investing in a Japanese 3DS, this is a game you can buy for it to help in your Japanese language studies. 漢字の館とお化け達 is a Kanji learning game series for Elementary school students. Each game gives you writing practice for the kanji that Elementary school students learn for each grade level, for example, the first grade game has all the kanji that first graders learn. If you play the entire series, first grade through six grade, it is possible to learn or rather practice 1006 kanji. The series focuses on writing kanji, recognizing kanji and kana reading skills. 漢字の館とお化け達 is broken down into three gates or types of kanji drills: 書き書きお化け, かくれんぼお化け and 書き取りお化け.

The first gate, 書き書きお化け, introduces 5 kanji by displaying each kanji on a big ghost (or obake), giving you one or two of the readings for the character in a small green box on the top left 3DS screen in kana. On the bottom 3DS screen, you have to write the kanji. There are options to end your study session, change your writing speed (the options are fast, normal and slow) or to erase the last thing you wrote on the bottom screen. After the game recognizes what you wrote in the bottom 3DS screen, whether you finished or not, the character the game recognizes your writing as will appear in a small box on the top 3DS screen below the ghost (オバケ).

The second gate, かくれんぼお化け, has multiple picture frames of various sizes on the top 3DS screen, which a kanji will move behind, so only parts of the character will be displayed through the frames. Again in the bottom 3DS screen, your goal is to draw the kanji based off the parts of it you can recognize on the top screen.

The third gate, 書き取りお化け, is a timed activity unlike the other two gates. A small オバケ slowly blows out a row of candles as you attempt to read a group of hiragana on the top 3DS screen and write the accompanying kanji for it on the bottom 3DS screen. This activity has the potential to give you a lot of points or rather, kanji written if you have a wide vocabulary and can remember and write the kanji for hiragana words quickly.

After you finish each quick activity, one of the gate activities, your written kanji will be added to a list of (whatever grade level you are playing) kanji for the game that will list how many times you have written each kanji. After you write a certain amount of kanji so many times, pieces of a hidden puzzle on the top 3DS screen disappear and your rank for the game goes up. The rank starts out low at E and rises until rank S, where the all the panels are uncovered in the puzzle panel.

Japanese with Video Games (part 4)

Recently, I mentioned using non-traditional study methods for my Japanese studies. While it may be a no-brainer to many people to do things in the foreign language they are studying or rather look to material, that native speakers of the foreign language use, for foreign language study material, it is still a fairly new concept for me. Lately, I have decided to use my love of video games as study material for Japanese, since I really like Japanese video games. In this post, I talk about playing video games in Japanese.

What if you just want to play video games in Japanese? Then start! Actually, playing games in another language can be intimidating, especially when after you get the game you realize how much vocabulary you have never seen before or if you have a limited knowledge of the language. I remember when I first played Gailardia, I was so confused at the beginning and even attempted playing the English and Japanese versions side by side. I began playing the Japanese version with a dictionary in hand and I constantly would attempt to write down new terms and play the game (both English and Japanese versions) at the same time. (The text was really small on my phone and my kanji knowledge was lacking when it came to playing video games.) Needless to say, playing both versions of the game got old really fast. After playing for a while, I had built up my video game vocabulary enough to know how to fight monsters, buy potions and other basic equipment, stay at an inn and save the game. I stopped playing the English version of the game and started playing the Japanese version only. I started to recognize more and more kanji and while I did not remember every term I came across, looking up the same terms over and over pushed those terms into my long term memory and allowed me to recognize the characters and their meanings, which has helped me in playing other games of similar genres in Japanese and remembering the kanji later when I came across them in a different context.

Also, I attempted to play Pokemon awhile ago and I did not get very far, because I attempted to look every new term up in the dictionary. I had looked up more than 200 terms (vocabulary and kanji) by the time I got to route 2 or so. It was a bit discouraging and I stopped playing that particular Pokemon game (it was not Pokemon X or Y), but it was a good experience. I did start playing Pokemon X in Spanish, which I have studied longer and found that to be a fun experience, since I rarely pick up a dictionary to play the game and I can guess the English equivalents of Pokemon attacks through the animation. So learning vocabulary through contexts is more enjoyable for me if the medium is a video game.

Using video games as a learning resource can be an enjoyable experience or a painful one. It just depends on how you interact with the game and utilize it as a learning resource. As for me, I found that using the dictionary an excessive amount destroys the enjoyment I get out of playing a video game, but it can be a necessary evil to just begin playing the game. The good thing about video games is that many of the ‘characters’ on some games only say one thing or the same type of expressions and if you speak to them enough, you will start to remember and understand what they are saying. As long as you are enjoying yourself, video games can be a great way to get repetitive practice without feeling as though you are doing the same exercise over and over.

Have you played any video games in Japanese? How was your experience?

 

Japanese with Video Games (part 3)

Recently, I mentioned using non-traditional study methods for my Japanese studies. While it may be a no-brainer to many people to do things in the foreign language they are studying or rather look to material, that native speakers of the foreign language use, for foreign language study material, it is still a fairly new concept for me. Lately, I have decided to use my love of video games as study material for Japanese, since I really like Japanese video games. In this post, I will discuss how to get Japanese video games to play.

How do I get a Japanese video game to play? If you are able to, I definitely suggest going to Japan and buying a game system and games while you are there. Stores such as Book OFF sell used game systems and games for reasonable prices and you can find a better selection of Japanese games in Japan. If going to Japan is not an option, you can buy a game system and/or games online. There are also multiple websites that import Japanese goods and sell them overseas. You can even make a Japanese Amazon account fairly easily (there is an option to view their website in English), but you just have to make sure that whatever you are buying can be shipped overseas. Some game systems are not region locked, so you can just buy a Japanese game and play it on a console/device you already own.

One alternative to figuring out how to purchase Japanese video games is to play mobile games. It may take a little searching, but video games can be found in various languages at app stores for smart phones or other smart devices (ipods, tablets etc.). For example, Gailardia, a Japanese RPG similar to Dragon Quest, is available for free in both English and Japanese (on iTunes). And some games you may have already purchased have the option to change the language of the game from within the game app itself (I have seen this feature mostly with Square Enix games). You may have to do the search in Japanese to find a game or even just search through a long list of apps for a particular genre of game, but there are definitely Japanese games available on app stores for free or for a few dollars.

If you are a fan of Pokemon and have a Nintendo 3DS, you can simply buy Pokemon X or Y. Both Pokemon X and Y have 7 different language options available at the beginning of the game, including Japanese. Playing Pokemon X/Y is one of the most hassle-free ways I know of to play a game in Japanese. Both Pokemon X and Y, as do all of the newer Pokemon games, have the option to choose between kana and kanji mode, since it is marketed towards children and the adults who grew up with the series. Although the game is for children, it uses a lot of big words and can be used a vocabulary builder and reading practice.

How do you get your Japanese video games?

Japanese with Video Games (part 2)

Recently, I mentioned using non-traditional study methods for my Japanese studies. While it may be a no-brainer to many people to do things in the foreign language they are studying or rather look to material, that native speakers of the foreign language use, for foreign language study material, it is still a fairly new concept for me. Lately, I have decided to use my love of video games as study material for Japanese, since I really like Japanese video games. In this post, I am going to discuss watching other people play video games and how you can learn from that.

What do you do if you do not have time to play video games or you enjoy watching others play games more than playing them yourself? There’s the internet. There are people playing Japanese video games online on websites such as YouTube and recording themselves doing it. Some of them talk while they play the games, so although the video games themselves may not have audio for their characters’ conversations, you can just listen to the person playing the video game talk about it or sometimes even read the text on the game aloud as they play. Another option is NicoNico, a video streaming website and app (available on Japanese Nintendo 3DS and PSVita) similar to YouTube which has plenty of videos of people playing video games, sometimes in groups, and you can get the bonus benefit of listening to speech from the video game and the person(s) playing the game.

Another way to watch people play video games is the video game streaming website and app, Twitch. Twitch is worldwide, so you can find channels from countries other than your own that play video games you are interested in watching and there is the added plus of the chat feature. You do not have to participate in the chat, although it would be good written practice, but you can look to it as a form of reading practice and the chats usually revolve around the video game being played, so you have some context to go off of no matter when you begin watching the channel. I actually have not used Twitch a lot in terms of Japanese practice, but I have watched games played in other languages. There are plenty of gamers on Twitch playing video games in Japanese. Many of them are using the Japanese versions for speed runs of the game, but it still is good reading/listening practice, even if the pace seems a bit fast, but even in speed runs, there are some portions of the game (i.e. movie scenes) that cannot be skipped through.

Can you think of any other websites where you can watch others play video games in Japanese?