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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| stifa Triglot Senior Member Norway lang-8.com/448715 Joined 4871 days ago 629 posts - 813 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Japanese, Spanish | Message 777 of 1702 23 February 2013 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You expect to learn Japanese without reading at all? And watching anime with subs is
essentially the same as reading in English with background noise... You are ahead of me in terms of level, but I never watched subbed anime and I read quite a lot every day... 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 778 of 1702 23 February 2013 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks. I think I did as well as my ability allowed for the reading - I ran out of time. Better guessing skills maybe heh. If given all the time I wanted it'd have been a better reading score. But I should have done better on the listening. I knew that when I walked out. And with a close score like that I think I'd have passed. Frustrating! 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 779 of 1702 23 February 2013 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks. I'll check out that link and see about the kids shows.
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| 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 780 of 1702 23 February 2013 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm looking for sympathy and I get this XD. The feedback is good though. But to answer your question I expected to pass the N4 test which is an upper beginner test.. not learn the language. Between work and the Japanese course I do it's a challenge working even more material in. One thing I will do going forward is to turn off the subs. I started last night. It's frustrating because I am missing out on some punchlines and a bit of the plot but I'm gonna suck that up. Regarding reading.. I'll try to work it in as much I can but real progress may have to wait until after this course finishes. The course is helping my grammar a lot and that's very important to me.
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| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4663 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 781 of 1702 23 February 2013 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm sorry to hear that you came so close but didn't quite make it. Please try not to make N4 sound too easy: I'm probably headed for that particular banana skin this summer :-) It's a little hard to judge too much from the A/A/B that they've given you for the non- listening parts. IIRC, for N5, A was ~65%+ and B was ~34%-64%. So that B for Reading could have been in quite a wide range. I found that if I sat down and read passages (mostly from test papers) once a week before the exam I became much faster at getting through the text (which meant my guesses were sometimes better :-)). The JLPT boot camp website has pointers to the N5, N4 and N3 official test papers (plus audio and - I think - answers too). I don't know how far beyond N4 N3 will be, but in terms of reading practice it's all good I think.
I don't know which texts you are using for you class, but most of them have some reading material. Actually Minna No Nihongo doesn't have much, but it makes up for it by having lots of drills you could read through. Japanese for Busy People has an appropriately sized reading chunk at the end of most chapters (well, Book 2 does: I've not seen Book 1). You're only 2 marks off, it sounds like if you can up your reading speed through a bit of practice each week, you'd be able to get through the test in time. 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 782 of 1702 23 February 2013 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
I started out that way. It didn't last long because I couldn't retain information without being able to write it out and read it back: I guess I'm just not an aural learner. Some people do manage to do just that though, apparently. Obviously for the JLPT that's just not going to fly, but then the JLPT seemingly isn't geared towards oral communication.
I've watched very little Japanese drama but I do find the subs useful. Once I know what they're supposed to be saying it's often helpful in being able to "hear" it when I go back (or rewind) and listen again. It might be even more helpful with bilingual subs, but I've never seen any such thing ... 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 783 of 1702 23 February 2013 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I definitely agree that the best way of getting better at listening is by listening, and the best way of getting better at readng is reading, however I also have come to believe very strongly in the importance of comprehensible input. Watching TV you don't understand is just a waste of time. The problem is that at N4 level, finding level-appropriate listening and reading material is actually quite tricky as some of the main textbooks, in my opinion, are actually far too light on dialogues and reading passages and too heavy on grammar drills.
I would totally second dampingwire's recommendation on Japanese for Busy People. If you don't have it already, you would do well to invest in volumes 2 & 3 (don't bother with volume 1, it's not as good as the other two, and by now it's too basic for you anyway). They're not too expensive and seem to be almost always on offer from Amazon. Combined with the workbooks, they offer loads of level-appropriate dialogues and reading passages which will really help with the exam. They also come with complete transcripts of the audio and English translations of all dialogues and reading passages, so you can really make sure you've understood all the details correctly. Start listening to more JapanesePod101 too. Maybe you could listen to it on your way to work or something. And finally, since your class is already really grammar heavy, and since you have already proved yourself in terms of grammar and vocab through your A/A scores on these sections, I would totally recommend not spending much of your personal study time on these things. Focus much more on listening and reading and trust your class to take care of the grammar. 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 784 of 1702 23 February 2013 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the additional feedback. I'm currently focusing on Episode 301 of Naruto Shippuuden. I actually haven't rewatched shows over again so this is going to be a new thing for me. I have the Japanese script and have made vocab for the first 75 lines of it. Yes vocab. My vocab was good enough to pass the N4 but in order to better understand anime I have to improve my vocab. I'm rather shocked at the amount of new words I found in this dialogue. But at the same time I can totally see how they'll get repeated.. at least going by the English translations it's stuff that I've been seeing in the sub titles many a time on Naruto already. It shouldn't be long before I notice a big improvement in understanding Naruto shows at least I think.
I can also read the scripts w/o rikisama to help my reading. Again, I'm focusing totally on episode 301 for now. I'll have to branch out later of course but I think this'll be good for now because I find the material entertaining. I'd really rather avoid another textbook. I'll probably look at N3 reading material soon though. Yeah, the N4 did get the better of me, so I might start with a few N4 readings, but I think N3 shouldn't be much different. If I have the grammar and vocabulary why would it? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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