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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4663 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1545 of 1702 08 December 2014 at 10:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
I thought I'd read somewhere that N2 is the minimum for working in a Japanese office and N1 for teaching Japanese. That said, my colleague is working in Japan right now, and set off with almost no Japanese under his belt (so if a company wants you, JLPT doesn't matter - they all speak English in the office it seems).
I've done that before, but almost always if I hit the "back" button, my text is still there, unmolested (using Chrome). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4630 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 1546 of 1702 09 December 2014 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
Actually since I'm looking for a job over there nowadays I've seen quite different situations. Most of the time a foreign company will not require any JLPT except for high positions (in which case N2 is "enough") and Japanese companies mostly require a N1 level or even scarier... a "native level" ! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5980 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 1547 of 1702 10 December 2014 at 10:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
Surely, as long as you followed the rules and answered all the questions, there is still a chance you passed? In any case, there's nothing more to do now until February, apart from maybe enjoying the Japanese you have learned so far while you wait for the results. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1548 of 1702 14 December 2014 at 6:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well I suppose there's a chance that I passed but I will say it's undeserved if I do. I'm typing this on my
iPhone six plus. I decided to get one after all. But I'm also keeping the iPhone 5S too because sometimes this thing is just too big (as is the regular six). This wasn't a huge surprise for me but when I was taking the JLPT I saw words I'd studied but couldn't remember and I know that's because I didn't stick to one method for studying vocabulary. I would switch between apps and flashcard programs on my phone and it wasn't good. And I had Korean homework distracting me from reviewing Japanese. Well I'm going to use ankinby the book I think. I've been doing so for a couple of weeks and most people on the Internet will tell you anki anki anki when it comes to vocabulary so it's probably good right. I think when it comes to languages with alphabets people will say read read read. Japanese you kind of need both. Anki is going ok. I had a lot of reviews since I'd ignored anki for a while. I set it to 15 cards a day and then zero cards briefly even but the reviews came down and recently I cranked it up to 40 new cards. But I'm changing it to sentences instead of vocabulary cards. You can more or less figure every word's definition anyway from the English translation. But since sentences may include more vocabulary Ty I don't know I may need to reduce the amount of new words again.. And they may take more time just to do each card. I was thinking I'd finish the core 6k in 3 months. The core 6k seems to include lots of vocabulary that isn't on the JLPT. Of course you never know. But I think you could focus on the core 4K really well and do ok on the JLPT. If I can get into the core deck and his works well I'll also do the 10k deck. I lioe that they have English translations so you definitely get the context right no matter what. And the native audio kind of reverberates in your head after you've finished studying which is probably also good. As for books, I think I'd like to read 坊ちゃん next. I also have this book I found on my shelf called read real Japanese. It includes an audio CD too. I've thought a lot about studying both ways, production and recognition, but I'm convinced that production is a waste of time when it comes to spaced repetition. Unless it's a common word that you'll see often, if it's on the tip of your tongue but you can't remember it, then so what. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4663 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1549 of 1702 15 December 2014 at 12:28am | IP Logged | |||||
I've though that way too in the past: "Hey, I'm sure I was guessing quite a lot, how come I passed after all?" In the end I've come to the conclusion that at the point that I was sitting N5, N4 and N3 (and in the future, N2) I wasn't a native-level speaker and so there was a vast amount that I wouldn't be expected to know. What they've (probably) done is set an exam at what they consider the appropriate level and then stretch it in various directions so that they can distinguish between different candidates' abilities. So there's necessarily going to be a good deal that you won't know or need to work around (as well as the things you do know but sadly forgot and the things you should know but sadly never learned). So overall I've decided that the examiners probably have a slightly better handle on the language than I do, so if they think I've passed I'm in no position to argue. So when in February you learn that you passed, you deserve it. Especially as you had an impressively short gap between N3 and N2. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1550 of 1702 21 December 2014 at 5:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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I got my final and my grade back for Korean. I got A's on both. I told you I was studying Korean =p. It
wasn't just an excuse for not cramming enough for the N2. I'm trying to catch up on my sentence Core deck. I got a bit behind with the finals and presentation for Korean and what not. I think I'm going to keep it a sentence deck although I'm still considering going back to a vocabulary deck instead. Right now I give myself a wrong response if I can't read and understand the whole sentence so the cards got a bit harder. (Edit) I switched it back to a vocabulary deck and blew through the reviews very quickly. Edited by kraemder on 21 December 2014 at 8:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1551 of 1702 25 December 2014 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I suppose this is my year review post:
A year ago I used the subs2srs program to make some flashcards for a couple of anime shows, full metal alchemist and another one.. I forget the name. I didn't end up using those decks too much. I think the informal speech mixed with a lot of non standard vocabulary made it difficult. I also think I was a little bored of Full Metal Alchemist having watched MANY episodes already. So in short, I wasn't very happy with my use of SRS this year to increase my vocabulary. I retook the 4th semester Japanese course at my school and that was a good brush up on grammar I don't use hardly ever like the passive and honorifics, but the stuff that gets covered at the end of the semester, probably just like when I took the course the first time, wasn't as good of a review because we only did it for one class and then didn't look at it again and I don't know if he even put it on the final (I didn't sit the final). My only criticism of the class is that he doesn't use or make us use Japanese as much as he could. He's a native speaker so it's not like it's a big effort for him. I suspect it was because the class size was so small we're lucky the school didn't cancel it and if he used more Japanese in his classes then he'd lose students and the class altogether. He was a great teacher in that like SRS he would review grammar every class to make sure we didn't forget it. Over the summer I would make vocab flashcards from anime or NHK news articles. In July I was pretty good about doing reviews sorta.. I was doing a production deck. However, I also burned out on Japanese. I posted about maybe stopping my study of Japanese except for watching anime even. I then got interested in Korean and got into that quite a bit for August and September. I all but neglected Japanese in that time. I still watched anime but I think probably with subs. I really enjoy anime, so I think that it's impossible for me to completely neglect Japanese. I watch anime every day. Even though I was ignoring Japanese, I still posted here and I am subscribed to this girl's youtube channel who blogs a little about studying Japanese. She posted how she was going to be doing the JLPT this year and she even went on to challenge her viewers (her channel has more than mine! lol) to do the same and outlined some goals as part of the challenge. This got me interested in the JLPT again and I decided to sign up. But, at the time, I was still more into Korean than Japanese and was enrolled in a Korean course at school. I think I was happier when I was dedicating my study time towards Korean and just watching anime for keeping my Japanese current. The JLPT N2 test approached and I quickly saw that I had to do a lot of work if I were going to have a chance at passing. I got a bit frantic because I felt guilty about signing up for a test and not doing a diligent job of preparing for it. So I made myself study Japanese again and set out a bunch of goals to make sure I would do everything needed to pass the test. I didn't stick to those goals unfortunately. The homework for Korean was already a -lot- on top of a full time job and I had a teacher and fellow students I was seeing twice a week so they could tell if I were neglecting Korean but there wasn't anyone but me to get on my case for Japanese. So I did both as best I could and I don't think I did enough Japanese to make enough improvement to pass. I think that is in part because I changed my plan of attack too often. I didn't stick to one grammar book or one vocabulary list or app and just switched things up too much. But I simply could not make Japanese a priority over Korean and that hurt the most. Yes, there's still a chance I passed the test. I did take and fill in answers on the answer sheet after all. But I have taken the N4 and the N3 in the past and I have an idea of how well I did on those and then the results that came back and I don't think this will be a pass. So with this experience in mind, I want to be consistent in my studying for 2015. I don't want to change up my list of vocabulary, and I don't want to start a study routine for learning new grammar and then just quit and try something totally different again every few weeks. I am a big fan of SRS for Japanese since it's a lot harder to get a lot of reading in the way you can for other languages. I think that lets you be a lot sloppier in your plan of study for a different language once you are able to read stuff but in Japanese you need to stay with a good study routine in order to make the best progress. I've been doing Anki regularly for several weeks now. I switched to the Core deck about a week before the test and have been sticking to it since. I've experimented with the amount of new cards to be added but I am really trying to do it just like Anki wants you to - every day and don't add too much at once. It started with a lot of cards since I was picking Anki up after not using it for a couple months but I got caught up and have been consistent. I'm still experiment - for a little while I made it a sentence deck and today I un- suspended the production cards. But I'm doing the same vocabulary - I'm not switching to another app or vocab list. My goal is to make sure the reviews do not get so high that I can't finish them in a day. I'd prefer the review time to be about 30 to 45 minutes but up to or even a little over an hour is ok. More than that is a problem. Lately the review time has been between 27 minutes and 40 minutes so I think that adding production is ok but I can disable it if it slows me down too much. I'm also doing RTK again. I am very comfortable with a lot of kanji already so it's not very often that I'll see a kanji in the Core deck and have it be a problem. But the better I know a kanji, the easier it is for sure. I'm working through an Anki deck that includes both RTK 1 and 3. It adds 20 kanji per day. I'm not doing recognition, I'm drawing it just like Heisig wants you to do in his book, so it's a good review regardless. It's been a whopping 7 minutes per day for this so it's very easy. I don't want to push it, I'm just gonna be patient. Lastly, for grammar, I'm making a new deck, not in Anki, but in Flashcards Deluxe, because it's so much easier to do. I'm using these Japanese "Cheat Sheets" I ordered maybe 6 months ago or so. They're a very nice condensed review of Japanese covering all the way up to JLPT 1. Very condensed. But they include English and often an example sentence (but not always). I'm making it a production deck. I think for grammar there's really no other way. If you can't produce it then you'll be slow to recognize it and maybe for reading that's ok but for conversation like watching anime it's just not ok. And, thankfully, I think a production deck is 100% doable when it comes to grammar. Even when I finish these sheets, I shouldn't have more than a few hundred cards total. As for other languages, I am on the fence. I would really like to just focus on Japanese to make it as good as I want it to be. I'm not burned out on Japanese right now, quite the opposite, I'm more interested in studying Japanese than any other language currently. However, I don't have much of a social life outside of work and the internet (sad but true) so going to a class is a great way for me to keep sane. The 4th semester Japanese class barely fits my work schedule as in I'd miss half the class. There's a 2nd semester Japanese class that would fit my schedule. Either way, I'd feel like a tutor in the class more than a student, but it could be fun and keep me focused on Japanese rather than getting distracted from Japanese.. Or I could take the 2nd semester Korean class or a Spanish class. Or none. So 2014 was an OK year. I did make progress with Japanese, and taking the N2 test, pass or fail, will help me going forward I think. I definitely made the most progress with Korean which wasn't even a TAC challenge for me. I learned the hangul alphabet and some basic grammar and several hundred vocabulary words. I got interested in Korean pop music but still haven't gotten hooked on drama. I am glad for studying Korean as I have been very curious about it for a while. For 2015 however, I do not think Korean is a priority - I would rather do Japanese and possibly Spanish (for work). 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1552 of 1702 31 December 2014 at 1:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm looking forward to the TAC 2015. I think last year we had a lot more people interested in participating (or
so it seemed) than we do now. But I like that we're on an East Asian team because even though I don't have time to study all of these languages I really do have an interest in all Asian languages. The cultures are similar and related to each other after all. That said, I think my wanderlust could be Chinese this year instead of Korean. I don't expect to take a course in it. I'm actually signed up for Japanese 202 (again) at Pima Community College. Yeah, it'll be review. Yeah, I already redid the course for review. But I think it'll be fun. It would probably be more fun to be a tutor or something for the class (and cheaper) but a lot of students don't go to tutoring and there's really no way for me to be available before class starts anyway. The grammar they do in 202 isn't going to be all that hard but it's also stuff I could use practice with. I never use honorifics. I never use the passive. There's a few more structures that they do that I passively understand but don't use. When I redid the course last year for a while my active skills were pretty good for honorifics and using the passive. But that wore off. I suppose the best thing is making SRS flashcards to force myself to review before I forget. I'm working on that sort of with my current grammar deck although it's focusing on stuff I don't know rather than reviewing stuff I'm rusty on. One of my Japanese teachers keeps telling me that I should do Chinese because I would enjoy the fact that there's just one sound for each kanji. I don't even know if that's true. It seems too good to be true. Edited by kraemder on 31 December 2014 at 1:52am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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