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日本語 and me the next round TAC 2012 Team い | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6612 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes  Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 129 of 333 02 July 2012 at 9:44am | IP Logged | ||
I don't know if you are allowed to take food and drink with you, but here in Norway we often have very long exams so we are allowed to do that. I always take orange juice. All that vitamin C really perks a person up. I find I concentrate so much better and don't get so tired when I have it. I suppose you could take vitamin C tablets or something. I don't know if it would work as well though. It might be that the combination of sugar and C is better than just C. Another thing I do, is to practice a bit of self-hypnosis in the weeks before. If nothing else, it will help to calm your nerves, but I've also used it to change my perception of time. If I can make time slower, so that one real hour feels like an hour and a quarter for me, I can get so much more done without stressing about time. I know it sounds weird, but it works. And I'm not even very good at this hypnosis thing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LangWanderer Diglot Pro Member Australia digintoenglish.com Joined 4530 days ago 74 posts - 97 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, French, Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 130 of 333 02 July 2012 at 10:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations on sitting N3! Remember that whatever the results of the exam, you probably studied much more than you would have otherwise.
If you continue on to N2, I'd be happy to share some of my views on the various study books available, although it seems like what you're doing is working well. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye on your TAC log! 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 131 of 333 02 July 2012 at 10:45am | IP Logged | ||
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The only thing you are supposed to have on your desk is pencils, rubber, sharpener, test voucher and ID, otherwise I would have had some orange juice and maybe some sweets. For N3 you do a 30 minute vocabulary paper followed by a break followed by a 70 minute grammar and reading paper. I had sandwiches before starting then in the break I had a bit of orange juice but that was it. The thing is that although the break was 15 minutes, we had to wait for the invigilators to collect the exam papers after the first exam and the second exam started later because of time spent setting up. So getting from lunch to the reading section was longer than I expected. I think it might be easier for N2 in a way because the vocabulary, grammar and reading are all on the same paper, with no breaks. But I expect it would be quite intense. I finished both papers with less than 5 minutes on the clock even though when I did practice tests at home I always got through with plenty of time. I'm really glad I tried N3 before N2. At least at this level my only real weakness is exam technique.
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| 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 132 of 333 02 July 2012 at 10:51am | IP Logged | ||
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LangWanderer thanks for the support. I would be very interested on your views on N2 materials. I've developed some views of my own on the N3 ones available especially since sitting the exam! I intend to be a bit more choosy about which N2 ones I buy. Although I already have the old and new editions of kanzen master grammar, the new kanzen master vocabulary book and the old Unicom 2kyuu books for reading and listening...
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| 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 133 of 333 04 July 2012 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Now I have (just about) recovered from the JLPT I am thinking once again about what to focus my studies on. I would really like to take a stab at N2 in December (assuming I haven't failed N3, in which case I'll reconsider) but I think it is far too soon to get back in the grind of exam preparation and drills. In fact, I think I hit the drill books a bit too soon for N3 so I will learn from that next time.
Anyway, I really want to get my reading ability up to a better level, partly because I'll need to be a better reader for future JLPT exams but mainly because reading is fun and I want to be able to access more interesting things than childrens books. Trying to keep things as simple as possible, I have decided to set myself a little challenge over the summer. My Summer Challenge For the two months of July and August (and I will back date to the 1st July!) I will spend: - 60 hours studying kanji I kind of settled on doing this the week before the JLPT. Basically I will spend 1 hour a day studying kanji using Kanji in Context. Time spent reviewing previous lessons with Anki is included in that hour. As well as putting things in Anki I am also doing a kind of scriptorium exercise with the sentences and expressions in the workbook. I didn't do anything apart from Anki reviews on 1st July (exam day) so I won't count that, but I dutifully got my hour of study in on both the 2nd and the 3rd. - 60 hours reading The Super Challenge is simple enough for me to keep chipping away at it although I am finding it more motivating to sit in front of the TV than pick up a book (because TV is getting so much more accessible while my reading lags behind). Anything I read for my summer challenge will most definitely get counted towards the Super Challenge too, however I think comparing my experiences with both 6WC and Tadoku challenges it seems I generally find it far more motivating to count time on task rather than numbers of pages. I have read a little bit over the last couple of days, but I wasn't counting the minutes and considering it was just a bit of bed time reading, it was probably less than an hour anyway, so I shall start the clock with 0 for the challenge. This means I'll have to read a little bit more than an hour a day. I'll log my hours when I post here periodically to show progress: My Summer Challenge Hours of kanji: 2 of 60 Hours of reading: 0 of 60 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 134 of 333 05 July 2012 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well after yesterday's grand announcements about summer challenges and all that, today I felt the force of my old enemy the migraine. Aside from the pain and general inconvenience of it all, it has the rather unpleasant effect of making me temporarily stupid. I managed about 10 minutes of kanji study before having to admit defeat. Even if I forced myself to plough on, I doubt I'd remember any of it by tomorrow. I know the right thing to do is to accept this physical weakness, put Japanese down for the day and chill out and get an early night but it is so frustrating!
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| 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 135 of 333 05 July 2012 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know that feeling. For me its lack of sleep. Until I get my japanese to a b2 I'm going to feel behind no
matter what so I get frustrated when I can't study properly. 2 hours sleep.. last night... I'm ok atm but after work I doubt ill be able to study much :-[ 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 136 of 333 07 July 2012 at 12:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah lack of sleep is pretty frustrating too. You just reach a point where it becomes pointless studying because your brain is too fuddled to remember anything anyway. But I agree, when there's so much to be learned it's frustrating to have to put it away for a night, even though sometimes it is the best course of action.
At least I spring back to normal within 24 hours when I have a migraine. I did a catch-up hour on my kanji today (so 2 hours instead of 1, go me) and also got in an hour of reading (I'll do a catch-up hour on that over the weekend I think). So one day missed doesn't have to be a big deal I guess. I can't wait to reach the mythical B2 level either. At present it seems just that little bit out of reach. I'm starting to wonder if I can get my reading up to scratch, assuming I don't do it at the expense of any listening/speaking skills, whether I will make some kind of breakthrough. I'm beginning to hanker after something with an alphabet though :) Edited by g-bod on 07 July 2012 at 12:15am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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