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.

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.