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.

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: Japanese iPhone App

It actually took me a while to decide which electronic dictionary app I wanted to buy, before I bought Midori. I think Midori won out first because…it was on sale and the Japanese dictionary app was not. After using Midori for awhile, I wondered if I made the right choice when I picked it as my English-Japanese electronic dictionary. Eventually, Japanese went on sale and I bought it too.

To tell the truth, either Midori or Japanese work well as Japanese-English dictionary apps. It is just a matter of preference.

Things I like about Japanese:

• Discover words (Random words run across the screen when you first open the app, just click and discover what they mean.)
• You can make your own flashcards…and study them!
• JLPT kanji and word flashcards by level, you can study either kanji or words by level or both at the same time by level
• Conjugation, examples sentences, common compounds listed under words
• Animated videos that show (draw) stroke order of kanji

Things I do not like about Japanese:

• The design…I prefer Midori’s design, but that is just my opinion
• Sometimes not all of the definitions are listed under each word. When I am in the process of making lists or flashcards from my vocabulary from Japanese class, some of the definitions I am given in class are not listed when I use Japanese as my dictionary, which is aggravating because I like the fact I can make my own flashcards with this dictionary. But, those flashcards are useless if they do not have the definitions I was given in my textbook , which I need to pass quizzes and test.
• Classifications. It is not that I do not like this feature, but I was expecting something more in-dept when I saw it.

My conclusion:

I like how you can make your own flashcard lists and study them, but I am more of a Midori type of person.

Resources:

iTunes/App Store: http://www.apple.com/itunes/

http://japaneseapp.com

JLR: Midori iPhone App

I used to have a paperback dictionary, then I got Midori. Midori is a Japanese-English (English-Japanese) electronic dictionary app. I have had this dictionary for a while, but I am still learning how to use it. Mostly because I usually only use it to look up words and there are occasionally updates to the application. Midori is a really cool dictionary app. It is not free, but you can wait for the price to be lowered usually during holidays on the App store/iTunes.

Some of the features that I like about the app:

• Search by radicals, handwriting, English or Japanese
• Look up/Search Japanese Names
• JLPT kanji and word lists with pre-made flashcards and the flash cards feature that creates flash cards for the items in your bookmarked folders
• Kana list
• Kanji by grade
• Kanji by frequency in newspapers
• bookmark/folders for Japanese words/kanji
• Stroke order shown on kanji pages
• Conjugation, compounds, technical information (grade, frequency, JLPT level, kanji radical components) and example sentences are listed under each word/kanji (usually)
• Videos that show kanji being draw (if you press the boxes that show stroke order, you can watch the kanji being drawn)

Things I dislike:

• To search by handwriting kanji, you must have correct stroke order. This is hard when you are a beginner at learning Japanese or when you are unsure of how to write the kanji. One way to get around this is to search using radicals.
• If a definition is long on a flashcard, there is no scrolling feature that will allow you to read all of the definition.

Conclusion:

I would recommend this app.

Resources:

iTunes/App Store: http://www.apple.com/itunes/

http://www.jitouch.com/midori/