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 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 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?

JLPT N3

Yesterday, I took the JLPT for the first time. I have not mentioned the JLPT before, but I feel it is appropriate to write about it, since I just took the test. I decided to take the N3 earlier this year after completing my Japanese major. At first, I wanted to aim for the N2, but I quickly realized that would not be a realistic goal; thus, I decided to take the N3 instead.

I remembered hearing about the sou-matome (日本語総まとめ) JLPT (日本語能力試験) prep series from somewhere and purchased all of the N3 books (kanji, vocabulary, reading comprehension, grammar and listening comprehension). I used that series in addition various other non-traditional study habits and apps on my phone such as sticky study to prepare for the exam. To make a long story short, I did not finish any of the books I purchased, although I did put a huge dent in many of them. I also was not as diligent in my studies as I originally planned to be, hence not finishing any of the textbooks I purchased for the test.

Luckily, I was able to do a day before the exam cram session with a friend, which was fairly productive. Walking into the exam, I did not know what to expect besides the general three tests (vocabulary/language knowledge, reading comprehension and listening) we were going to take.

As I did not study vocabulary as much as I originally planned to, that section was fairly hard for me. It started out deceptively easy and then I saw kanji I knew individually, but I did not know them in the compounds they appeared in the test. It was not super hard; it was doable and if I had studied more, it would have been easy since the JLPT books and material I used sufficiently prepared me for the exam.

Reading comprehension also started out easy and I quickly became overconfident believing I had plenty of time (70 mins) and soon the proctor called out 5 more minutes and I had not even read the last reading!

I was a little nervous about the listening comprehension, because the JLPT book I used had some quickly spoken dialogues and business dialogues that I had to refer to the transcripts to understand. But it was not really bad and some of the dialogues were actually funny! The only problem I had was that we only were able to listen to each dialogue once and then the test was over.

I am not sure if I passed the exam or not, but I think I did well considering it was my first time taking the exam. We were told our results will be available in February. Even if I did not pass, I plan to complete the N3 books I purchased and begin studying for the N2 so I can take it next December. Have any of you taken the JLPT? What was your impression of the test?

JLR: The Japanese Page

I haven’t written about a website JLR in a while, so here’s another one: The Japanese Page. I haven’t used this website, but I discovered it in the past and wanted to write about a JLR website instead of an app for a change.

What I like:

• It’s free.
• Beginner lessons
• Intermediate and some Advance lessons
• Free ebooks
• Free downloads
• Kanji practice (stroke order, multiple kanji lists such as JLPT N4 [I think the website goes by the old JLPT levels])
• Listening practice and audio for ebooks
• Seems like there are ways to connect with native speakers for language exchanges (you teach English and they teach you Japanese according to the Japanese advertisement on the right side of their website)
• Teaches kana (hiragana and katakana)

What I don’t like:

• I don’t actually use this website so I can’t really say I dislike anything, but I would like for them to update their JLPT level lists in accordance with the new levels (N5-N1)

Conclusion:

This seems like a good, free resource. If you have used this website, please comment below and tell me about your experience with it.

JLR: Minna no Nihongo

This is one of my favorite apps to use. Minna no Nihongo is an iPod/iPhone application that is basically a textbook in an app.

What I like:

• Flashcards. Most of these have audio and some have kanji. They’re primarily written in kana with English translations. Some flashcards only have kanji and some of those have comments with show the reading in hiragana.
• 50 Lessons. I don’t have a physical copy of the Minna no Nihongo textbook, so I can’t compare the app with the physical textbook series. But that’s a lot of lessons.
• Really inexpensive. I don’t remember what I paid for this app, but I’m sure it was cheaper than the current price ($5.99), which isn’t very expensive.
• Dialogues. The dialogue tab has so many features/ways you can interact with the dialogue. There’s a picture with each dialogue, English translation, audio, text (which you can make disappear depending on which role/person speaking you want to listen to, manual mode to listen to each sentence at your leisure and my favorite: a video of the conversation.
• Grammar lessons. These are pretty brief, so it’s best to have another grammar source to use alongside this app for better explanations.
• Covers some things that I didn’t see in the Genki textbook, such as some vocabulary. Or maybe the way/order it teaches grammar and vocabulary is different.

What I dislike:

• I wish there were kanji for all the vocabulary words that kanji exists for. 
• Some English mistakes, I noticed “postcard” was spelled “poat card” and some other things. Overall, the English is really good. The application maker seems to primarily make apps in Chinese.
• A learning tool for kanji would be cool.

Conclusion:

I really like this app. It’s more of a review for what I learned with the Genki textbook series for me. I think the dialogue features are what makes it the best…and the low price. It covers what my college considers elementary and intermediate Japanese, so two years of college Japanese (minus the reading and writing practice).

Resources:

Minna no Nihongo by iLoveStudy

JLR: Kanji Wordsearch App

A while ago, I received a comment about an  iPod/iPhone app called Kanji Wordsearch, so I tried out the free version of the app.

What I liked:

• You can do the hiragana word search using Kanji as the prompts
• Or you can do the  kanji word search using hiragana as prompts
• The app really tests you on your ability to read/recognize/match kanji and hiragana, because it only gives you one prompt at a time instead of a word bank where you can choose whichever words you can immediately find.
• There’s a time limit. This can be frustrating, but it does motivate you to find the answers quicker…or show that you don’t actually know the material as well as you think you do.
• Definition hints after your first attempt to highlight the answer to the prompt is wrong. This is really helpful, when you can guess/remember the characters based of the definition of the prompt.
• You can reset the rating of each word/compound. So if you make a mistake or there is a glitch in the app, you can easily change the rating of how well you know the word.

What I disliked:

• The app description states that there are flashcards for the kanji, so I expected flashcards that you could digitally flip. The flashcards are actually all on one page with example compounds that you will find on the  word searches.
• Random words picked for each word search. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but you have to go through the flashcards for all of the possible words/compounds before beginning the word search if you do not know some of the terms. There’s not a feature that introduces or teaches new words/compounds to you, you just have to look at the list for the level, study them on your own and/or do the word searches repeatedly.
• The word search is not like normal word searches where items can only be connected in straight lines, sometimes you have to connect items on the word search by using angles. This sort of threw me when I tried the app out; I guess that’s why there’s a 5 x 5 grid option.

Conclusion:

At first this app was a little frustrating for me, because I was not used to doing word searches using Japanese characters and the fact that not all of the answers were in straight lines on the 4 x 4 grid version. After using  the app more, the word searches were easier for me to complete. This app is a good way to test how well you know to read kanji.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

A lot of my friends and classmates have been telling me that I need to start watching Japanese dramas, saying it was a good way to get better at Japanese. Since I’m off from school for about three months and I’ll be going to study in Japan, I’ve decided to take some of their advice.

I grew up watching anime, so it’s a habit that’s followed me into adulthood; although, I watch anime less since I’m more focused on school. But, when I do watch anime, I try to see if I can catch any words I know in Japanese. Of course, that only works when I watch subbed anime, which is what I primarily watch now.

Recently, I’ve been watching a series called “Mainichi Kaasan,” which I’ve probably mentioned before in another post. Since I’ve been studying Japanese more seriously recently, I’ve noticed I understand a lot more. That and the series doesn’t use a lot of complicated grammar or advance vocabulary. As for Japanese drama, I’m slowly starting to watch it. I’ve started out with the series “Nihonjin no Shiranai Nihongo” or “The Japanese the Japanese (people) don’t know”.

JLR: Dr. Moku

Dr. Moku is a smartphone (Android and iPhone) and Desktop application for learning how to read kana through picture associations. You can try the app for free and if you like it, you can get the paid (full) version. The Android application is cheaper than the iPhone application.

Resources:

http://drmoku.com/

JLR: iStart Japanese

If you are new to learning Japanese, then iStart Japanese may be for you. It is an iPod/iPhone application that teaches basic Japanese.

What I like:

• 51 lessons
• Culture lessons/information
• Learn 250 Japanese words
• Learn hiragana and katakana
• Flashcards
• Quizzes
• App dictionary English>Japanese/Japanese>English
• You can get it on sale for half off throughout the year.

What I dislike:

• Slow pace
• Only teaches Beginner/Elementary Japanese
• Kind of dry, but pretty thorough (but not as thorough as Genki I textbook)

Conclusion:

It’s a good application for beginners.

Resources:

App Store

http://www.miraijapanese.com