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.

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?

Study Update

Recently, I’ve been a little slack with studying. I just received my packet of information from the university I’ll be studying at in Japan, so I’ve been working on all the things I have to do before my program begins. I spend a lot of time on YouTube watching videos about learning languages, language learning resources and, of course, entertaining videos related to languages. I’ve been using an app called Minna no Nihongo, which I’m surprised I haven’t written a JLR post about, to study Japanese. So, I’ll rectify that soon.

Status Update and Going to the Bookstore

As my first month of studying draws to a close, I’ve started to reflect on how my studying has gone so far. Although I had wished to be more productive and studious, it didn’t happen. I realize that I should have stuck with my original plan and tried to accomplish a ridiculous amount of studying and stayed optimistic, because that mindset and attitude gave me better results. With the second month of studying, I plan to crack down and study harder by going back to my initial study plan.

In order to promote this renewal of the old study plan, I went to the bookstore and bought some new material…actually, that’s a lie. I went to the bookstore on a whim, to look for and possibly buy some travel books for Japan and wound up buying more than I had planned to. So, I’ll be writing about the new books I bought some time in the near future or in the new blog I plan on writing when I’m in Japan.

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”.

Day 22

It’s been a while since I wrote a post about my progress. I’ve definitely have not been as productive as I wanted to be, but I am still studying and I think that is great that I have not stopped studying and being productive completely. I’m continually trying out new programs for studying, which I think is evident by all of the JLR posts I’ve been writing.  I’ve had a lot of realizations recently. For one, I realized that there is only so much I can do in one day and it’s not realistic to think I can study all day, every day. I am constantly changing my schedule and being flexible about my study habits, because not every day can be the same and I have other things to do with my time.

Another realization that I have come to is that I have been studying passively, not always, but there are some aspects of my studying that I need to be more engaged in. For example, I have been experimenting with using non-Japanese learning material to learn Japanese such as reading books and playing video games. I can remember the meanings of some of the new words and phrases that I encounter, but I cannot tell you how to pronounce them. I have an iKnow account, which I primarily use for their Japanese Core study lists to build my Japanese vocabulary, but I can make custom lists as well. So, I have started using the custom list feature in order to actively study the new words and phrases I encounter.

I’m glad that I created this blog. Why? Because it forces me to constantly reflect and think about how I am studying and encourages me to become better at studying Japanese. I realized that while having a blog is great, I need to see what other people are doing in order to study Japanese. For me, that means reading other language blogs, watching YouTube videos and discovering other language websites etc. Learning a language is not just a thing you do, it’s a lifelong commitment. While I may have three months until I study abroad, my language studies will continue after I come back, just as they began before I knew I was accepted to study abroad in Japan.

Day 17

I’ve decided that I like not having a set plan for how I am going to study Japanese. Learning a language is a life-long endeavor and there is no set way to go about it. Although I am majoring in Japanese at college, that will not make me instantly fluent after four years. I think something I’ve taken for granted was studying by myself outside of the work I did in the classroom and the homework I was given. Recently, I’ve been reading other language blogs and watching YouTube videos about hyperpolyglots etc. so, the opinions and advice of other language learners, especially those that have been studying longer than me and have a higher level of proficiency, matter to me. I think anyone who truly wants to learn a language needs to look beyond the act of learning another language and take note of the other issues surrounding learning that language at the very least.

That’s not to say I’m going to take a laissez-faire approach to studying Japanese; I’m just going to be more flexible in how I approach studying Japanese so that I can tailor my study methods to how I want to learn. I’ve decided to at least make it through the material (textbooks) that make Japanese language classes covered and anything beyond that will be icing on the cake. I’ve already started this change in studying and it delivers results. I think my ‘plan’ is to focus on one or two things (Japanese learning material) each day, until I get bored. I’ll be writing about some of the new learning materials I’ve discovered soon.

Day 9 Update

I have not been feeling well, so I took a break for a few days. With the break, my organized and ambitious schedule fell apart. But, the good news is that since I have been trying to do a lesson a day in the Genki I textbook, I am not that far behind with those studies. Since there is only twelve lessons in the first Genki textbook, I am actually not doing so bad in that aspect of my studies. I also found another Japanese learning resource today, so I will be posting about that in the near future.

A plan

I have been set on become a teacher for a while now. The next three months is giving me the opportunity to practice being a teacher on myself. In preparation, I looked at how my previous language teachers organized their syllabi. What I took from that was making a table with an outline of what I would be doing every day.

While that may not sound impressive, it is significant to me. I need organization. I need to have some kind of plan and a goal in mind. When I began studying Japanese, I started using various websites on the Internet and some Kanji de Manga books I had found at a bookstore. I did not have any plan and only focused on trying to memorize what was in the books. I did not retain anything no matter how much I studied, or rather no matter how much I thought I was studying. Therefore, I could not produce anything I “learned”.

I am not saying it was a total failure, because I learned a lot of important lessons from those experiences, which I am only now appreciating. All of that work helped me when I took Japanese 101 in college, because I could already (pretty much) read kana, which consist of two phonetic alphabets (there are other ways to describe this) and it made my first Japanese class that much easier.

I think two of the most important things any foreign language student should have is enthusiasm and consistency. I was very enthusiastic about learning Japanese during my first Japanese course and I was constantly looking for more ways to improve and resources to supplement my Japanese class. Thus, I did well in the class.

In order to make the next three months productive, I am currently devising an action plan.

My hope for the next three months

After college, I plan to become a foreign language teacher. I just started seriously thinking about what I am going to do with these three months. The whole three months thing is ironic since it is the concept of one of the language learning websites I follow (http://www.fluentin3months.com/).

I recently became really motivated to begin my studies and I have written out a lot of my intended study plan. It feels a little weird to me, but I used my Japanese professors’ syllabus layout as a model for my intended study plan. Of course most of the table is blank, but I had a good idea, more or  less, what I will be doing everyday.

Unfortunately, I have a lot of information to get through, approximately two and a half textbooks, but I am feeling optimistic and ambitious right now. So, I plan to see how things go and readjust my syllabus as needed. My hope for this blog is that it will be a place for me to track my progress and record what worked and what did not for me in terms of studying Japanese.