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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1025 of 1702 07 August 2013 at 1:56am | IP Logged | ||
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Summer hasn't ended but I need to make up my mind soon for my language plans for the fall. I'm thinking of
going for N3 in December and if I do the. I want to leave enough time open on my schedule for studying. I'd really like to get a pass this time and erase the N4 close but not enough from last year. I'm looking at what I'd need to do to pass. 1st up is having a strong enough vocabulary. I think the estimate is about 3500 words. I'm planning on using the core 6000 word list and going up as far as I can with it. I was making SRS cards for my deck using the lt but I am now using the website and app for new cards instead. I think it's a bit better. And I don't have to make the cards which I hate doing. Brain speed is a legitimately fun way to study vocab too. It's a game they have to supplement the iknow program. Anyway, the goal is to get up through 4k on their list if I can and definitely 3500. I'm still reviewing the grammar from my last course and probably watching too much anime. I really don't know yet what grammar ill need for n3 that's new yet. So if I'm serious about n3 I probably shouldn't take a Spanish or German course in the fall. I'd like to just for he social aspect though. I'll have to figure out how much work my Japanese needs for n3 and decide. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 1026 of 1702 07 August 2013 at 9:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Do you have the official N3 practice test? It's the best way of checking if you're ready. I
would also advise caution over any estimates of what you might need for vocabulary for N3. A lot of JLPT vocab books will teach you lots of useful words that won't appear on the test. Now you're in intermediate territory I would advise you to start with reading and listening and use this to uncover gaps in your vocab rather than hitting the vocab first. The grammar classes at Japonin were also pretty useful for JLPT prep. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1027 of 1702 07 August 2013 at 11:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the tips. I do have a practice test I bought a year ago when I was
thinking about the jlpt and went for the N4. I might as well sit down and do it and get a taste for it. The problem with the practice tests is that they're so scarce :-( . But I think I need to know where I stand now. I signed up for the 3 trial lessons at nihonin. It looks really good. The group lessons are cheaper and probably more fun. And cheaper hehe. I'm very curious to see how it goes. They have courses specifically for N3 and in fact it seems that a lot of the people doing their courses are about N3 level. I'll hit the books and I assume you mean reading and listening to N3 practice material? I watch loads of anime and it never fails to surprise me how quickly I recognize new words I've just studied in the Core 6K. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 1028 of 1702 07 August 2013 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah I hate the lack of official test papers. It made preparing for N3 and absolute nightmare, although it turned out I didn't have much to worry about. Just set aside a couple of hours and sit the paper under timed test conditions. If you get around 50% or more correct, you'll be good to go for the real thing in December.
As far as reading and listening goes, I would say do both. Use the Unicom books for N3 practice, but keep watching TV and reading what you can as well. Anyway, if you can already follow a lot of anime, you shouldn't have too much trouble with the listening test, as the language is a lot slower and clearer for the test! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4657 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1029 of 1702 07 August 2013 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | ||
Agreed. They've always had "sample questions" for each level on the official website and they now have a mock paper for most levels. The latter is quite good in that it includes all of the surrounding verbiage (which is identical on the actual test) and also has the audio + transcript + answers for everything. But it's only one paper, so if you want more you have to either cough up for some 3rd party test books or go hunting on the web for past JLPT papers. For N3, there are no past papers, so you probably need to find the N2 ones and scale accordingly or something. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1030 of 1702 08 August 2013 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Still wonder what I'll do for the fall. Part depends I thought on how much I like the
online classes. Tonight I made a sentence deck from magi (Ali baba) anime. I have side 1 with a sentence and the target word in bigger font just below it. Side two is the same but my deck reads the sentence using TTS. Then side three has the word with furigana and Heisig meanings and the English translation. My other sentence deck in started with Harry Potter basically tested me on all the vocabulary instead of just one word. So this is easier. Some sentences can have several words that are new to me or use kanji I don't know so well yet. So this way a sentence could be on several vocabulary cards. And I read the sentence but only give a right or wrong response based on the 1 word. It's kind of neat. I still like my deck with pictures though too. But I'm lacking sentences. And some words that doesn't matter but for some the context helps tons. Looking forward to my first class tomorrow. The grammar looks easy... I think. It's just らしい. I did some vocabulary quizzes on their website and the intermediate ones were really hard. I knew about half of the words. Which could be worse but definitely could be better. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1031 of 1702 09 August 2013 at 9:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Well I can't make up my mind. If I go for the N3.. I probably shouldn't take any non Japanese classes (with full time job it's really a lot). But I really want to do something so... I'll do the practice N3 this weekend and if I think I'm pretty close then I'll sign up and if not I'll probably.. wait till next time.
BTW. If you get a sim card converter for your cell phone - DO NOT PUT THE EMPTY TRAY IN YOUR PHONE. I thought it would be a good way to not lose it while I had the sim card in the other phone. But it needs the sim card in it or it gets stuck. Now I am in a pickle. I might just throw in the towel and use the Nexus 4 as a tablet. I love it for iKnow while in bed and so this isn't the end of the world. I hate iKnow on the iphone because they don't support landscape mode on it and it's just a pain to type in portrait mode.. stupid really. And for whatever reason I like typing on a phone more than a tablet. So I'll update if I get this converter out of the phone sucessfully.. or if I break the phone.. or who knows. I did the first lesson on Japanese Online Institute. It was a ton of fun. The tutor or teacher was really charming, fun, and never stopped smiling. I have done lessons on Rosetta Stone and the tutors there smile a lot and sometimes you can tell it's a bit practiced (I personally enjoy language lessons even if the other person isn't super charming) but she really came off as authentic. The grammar wasn't very challenging at all. It was the lower intermediate course and I was expecting more. We had the minimum amount of students for the class (I think).. 2. So I had a lot of speaking practice. I haven't had much speaking practice at all to date. In class we had to say sentences in Japanese but they were more answers to problems and not really speaking. This is a totally different experience. I am probably going to get addicted. I might even try a more advanced course although I'm signed up for the beginner II course which is probably even easier tomorrow. Either way I think it'll be all Japanese and should be really good. I'll be doing this course a lot going forward. I love speaking in a foreign language and this is great. I think it won't be too long before I'll be able to express quite a lot. If I had full access to the passive vocabulary in my head I'd be really set but that's not the case - but if it's passive it should become active reasonably fast I think. A few months of this could do a lot. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1032 of 1702 10 August 2013 at 4:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Did my beginner level 2 group session. It had just 2 students again so I had a lot of speaking practice. The material was stuff I'd learned over a year ago in my first semester of Japenese (2nd semester for people who did the 1st semester). We didn't do as much free speaking as in my low intermediate session which makes sense - it's hard to do when you've studied less. But I think the other student was also a bit beyond the material in terms of skill so we could have done more just talking.
I'm getting more comfortable speaking pretty quickly. I'm tempted to try a one on one session. These tutors are really friendly people and they really encourage you to talk whereas a regular person might lose interest a lot sooner and want to go do something else. Frankly the lessons are cheap enough that I almost feel bad. I think they do it more as a hobby than anything else. Edited by kraemder on 10 August 2013 at 4:08am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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