|
 |
Learning Kanji for JLPT N4 | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4666 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 17 04 March 2013 at 5:29pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I want to use SRS to learn the kanji for JLPT N4.
I've already reached the end of RTK1, so I can write (and recognise) 2000+ kanji with maybe a 90% retention rate. (Actually it's probably better than that, there's just a core 50-100 or so that I occasionally confuse amongst themselves). However, that's not much use when faced with a kanji in a sentence and a requirement to select the correct reading for a word (or vice versa). I'm already working on the N4 course on memrise.com so I know most of the likely vocabulary. memrise also has all the kanji for those words, but learning all of those is overkill. For example, 頑張る (ganbaru, to persevere) includes two N1 kanji and yet is included in the memrise N4 course. So does anyone know of an Anki deck that has the N4 (and I guess N5) vocabulary using only the appropriate kanji? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Soggycakes Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4578 days ago 7 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, French | Message 2 of 17 06 March 2013 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
If I were to give any advice based on my own experiences, stop using Memrise or other
English based methods and dive into native content immediately. Learning all in Japanese with context is really the best way to go. Learning all those words or Kanji outside of context will get you nowhere, as you may know the word isolated, but you won't know how it's used or how the meaning changes in another context. Good luck with Kanji like 明昭昌朗 冏奐 where a dictionary is telling you they all mean bright. You may know a different 'keyword' for all of those from RTK (not sure myself, as I didn't use it), but which ones are common or not? How and when are they used? What is the actual word for bright? You can't possibly tell the difference. You could take all those and learn the compounds, but still.. same thing. This is why I take a word and grab a sentence for it, but you'll come to understand which is frequent or not by simply reading and immersing yourself. Studying lists doesn't do that, and the distinction between JLPT levels means nothing. You said 頑 張る is made of N1 Kanji, but this word is so incredibly common it should be one of the first words you even learn. If you immersed yourself you'd see it so much it'll drive itself into your head without trying, but limiting yourself to these JLPT lists will probably hinder you more than it'll do good. Using a premade deck provides no context, and if it does, you still won't understand it because it comes from someone else's studies. Just make the deck yourself. It'll create the habit and you'll spend more time learning them by simply adding them everyday. I hit 10,000 cards in Anki by a years time, all of which I entered myself and took the sentences from content I enjoyed (like Manga, TV, etc). That's basically like 25 a day, but the process speeds up once you get used to it. Also make the cards all in Japanese as soon as possible. It's difficult at first, but you'll improve out of necessity. Doing it in English will set you back more than just going all out from the beginning. You can also take the Japanese definitions and then take all of those words you don't know while making more cards with all the vocab in sentences for context and usage of course. This will give you a huge base quickly while understanding how things are described or defined. At that point you'll be able to pick up any word and learn it right then and there without confusing it with some other word. Immerse yourself in interesting content that you enjoy and everything you need to learn comes for free, while you can enjoy the language here and now. Edit: links http://kotobank.jp/ http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/ http://www.alc.co.jp/ http://ja.websaru.info/ http://www.excite.co.jp/dictionary/japanese/ Edited by Soggycakes on 06 March 2013 at 8:25pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4666 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 17 07 March 2013 at 12:39am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
This is undoubtedly good advice, but I currently have a vocabulary of somewhere between, say, 1000 and 1500 words. If I run into a new word, say くるま or even 車, how do I work out what that means using just Japanese? That's probably a bad example; if I had sufficient vocabulary then the definition would be quite simple. Nouns aren't generally too bad. 掛ける has a vast array of meanings, so, however I learn it, it's going to take some effort, and right now I'd struggle to understand an explanation in Japanese that boiled down to "apply insurance". I've tried reading native materials (such as FNN News or even the NHK easy news) and it's a struggle. More importantly, even when I *think* I've understood it, I don't really know that I'm right. So I think I am stuck with text books and similar teaching materials. That doesn't mean I can't also try native materials, but I can learn much more rapidly using graded materials. This will change as I progress: I can pick up a French novel or magazine or whatever, and I understand it reasonably well and when I hit a word or two that I don't know I can look it up and (almost certainly) pick the right meaning. I'm just nowhere near that stage in Japanese.
Well I found the JLPT N5 useful in that it gave me something to aim for and provided motivation to study most days. Without the JLPT I'd be drifting along. So, given that I'm planning to sit the N4 exam in the summer, the JLPT levels do mean something for me right now. At the end of the day, I need a working knowledge of say 5000-10000 words and how to read them. It doesn't really matter in which order I learn them: no- one's going to know 5 years from now that I learnt 掛 a few weeks after 僕 or whatever. Between now and being fluent, I somehow need to learn a bunch of sounds and their meanings and their written forms (assuming that reading materials are going to be more accessible to me than native speakers with time on their hands).
Oh. Maybe I didn't explain myself too well. I went through RTK so I'd learn to recognize 2000+ plus ways of scribbling characters. Each of them happens to have a unique "label" which is just there so I know which of the characters I'm learning or remembering at any one moment. Now I'm learning vocabulary. Initially I learn a word using kana, so that I know more or less how it should sound. So now I know じどうしゃ and I know it means automobile. Now I want to learn that, most of the time, I'm going to see it written as 自動車. That's not a problem: all those kanji happen to be ones that I might see (without furigana) on the N4 test. So now how about がんばる? Well it was one of the first words I learned. I just didn't know the kanji. Sooner or later I will learn the kanji. Actually I do recognise those kanji without difficulty, but five minutes after this post I probably won't remember which ones they were. That's fine, because for the N4 test, I don't need them. I may learn them anyway if I have time, but I may as well prioritise and learn the words that definitely might pop up as kanji first. I even agree that it's best to learn words in a sentence. When I make up my own decks, that's what I do, assuming I have a trustworthy source in front of me. I trust the grammar books and I trust the JPOD101 lessons and I trust the Japanese readers I have but I'm not at the stage where I can judge some random sentence from the internet. It also takes some time to find a sentence. For many words I find that that's overkill: I only need a sentence if I'm having trouble with remembering the word or if there are subtle nuances about using it. (There are lots of those in Japanese, and when I do find that I have an issue, I go off looking for a suitable sentence or sentences). But for the simple vocab, a simple ready-made deck will do. So that's why I'm learning a vocab list (which I've mostly done now) and why I want to learn the subset of that list which doesn't involve kanji that won't be on the exam. I'm not avoiding anything (or learning "just kanji"), I'm learning a bunch of words, some of which I may find written in kanji without furigana. Actually reading back, it sounds as though I'm going against all your points. I'm not really, I just think that I'll more quickly reach the point where I can use native materials if I go this route for now. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Soggycakes Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4578 days ago 7 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, French | Message 4 of 17 07 March 2013 at 3:38am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
It's kind of my point. You don't learn 掛ける by itself, you learn it in relation to other words it's used with. Like 時間を掛ける for instance, you'll come across this a bunch of times, and you simply get used to it. No need to study anything at all. Your not trying to create Japanese, you take what you hear or read and reapply it. So after a lot of input you naturally use it correctly and without much thought, because all your doing is repeating patterns. You don't need to learn all the ways 掛ける is used, just learn it case by case when you come across it.
The news is going to be hard in any language, I tend to think of it being a more advanced level, so I wouldn't worry about that at all.
Time will fix this. More exposure will let it sink it and you'll naturally come to understand it. Trying to be right all the time will end up holding you back. :P
If you want to be at that stage in Japanese, you have to do it. That simple. Working in textbooks won't get you any closer to understanding real Japanese, you have to dive into it. It's tough, just work through it and it'll pay off real quick. Though if it works for you, cool. Just mix it in with other stuff, as you just need a variety of exposure or else you'll end up leaning to one side over another. It's like how male and female speech works. I ended up sounding really feminine at first because I watched a lot of game shows with モー娘. So I later balanced it with ガキの使い. :P
It's a good start, but once your done with it then what? Where would you get your motivation from? You won't get out of the beginner or intermediate phase relying on the JLPT. It's merely a basic foundation (even N1), but that's the easiest part. You can hit a N5 level in one to three weeks no sweat.
That's a big problem, don't you think? Setting up a study method now will help you in the long run. Just figure out what your interested in and pursue it. It'll be much easier to learn this way, as you just have fun with it.
For reading you can try http://read2ch.com/ or http://chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/. Just a bunch of natural speech, and lot's of questions and answers so you can start to pick up some common patterns.
Doens't sound that way to me at all. lol Though I'd say pushing your goals would benefit you a lot more by putting things into perspective. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5983 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 5 of 17 07 March 2013 at 9:54am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
@soggycakes I'm curious, did you do any study of Japanese at all before jumping into native material only? I only ask because there is no way I would have succeeded taking the approach you suggested. Now native materials and conversations are the most important part of my study, but only because I've built some kind of foundation so I know roughly what's going on to start with. There is a big difference between a good textbook and a bad one in terms of relevance to 'real Japanese'.
@dampingwire I'd suggest investing in a more traditional kanji book and working with that. Basic Kanji Book did the job for me. It includes short vocab lists for each kanji, reading and writing quizzes, plus some longer reading passages. They are not designed with JLPT in mind, but both volumes would take you beyond what you need for N4 and most of the way to what you'd need for N3. There are other options out there too, depending how close you are to London it may be worth getting to a Japanese bookshop and having a browse if possible. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4666 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 6 of 17 07 March 2013 at 2:46pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
I think I've got enough books for now, but that one seems to be on scribd. I can't download it but I can seem to see all of it (both Vol 1 and Vol 2).
The next time I'm planning to be in London is 7th July :-) If I do happen to end up there some time, which bookshops would you recommend? Edited by dampingwire on 09 March 2013 at 10:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Soggycakes Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4578 days ago 7 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, French | Message 7 of 17 07 March 2013 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Well out of all the textbooks I've used they were all unhelpful. That's just my experience though. The first thing I did when I started Japanese was listening to Japanese content on Youtube. I never planned to pick up Japanese, I simply started out of interest and immersed myself without knowing what would happen. I never 'studied' Japanese and I still don't, I'm more of an intuitive learner and so what I do may not work for someone else but I can only recommend what worked for me. :P I bought a manga right at the beginning and simply started reading and got used to common patterns. (I had 0% comprehension at the time.)Here is what the first text I basically ever read was: ユーラシア大陸の西のはずれに発生した産業 文明は数百年のうちに全世界に広まり巨大産 業社会を形成するに至った 大地の富をうばいとり大気をけがし生命体を も意のままに造り変える巨大産業文明は１０ ００年後に絶頂期に達しやがて急激な衰退を む かえることになった 「火の７日間」と呼ばれる戦争によって都市 群は有毒物質をまき散らして崩壊し複雑高度 化した技術体系は 失われ地表のほとんどは不毛の地と化したの であるその後産業文明は再建されることなく 永いたそがれの時代を人類は生きることにな っ た 風の谷のナウシカ（プロローグ） Of course I can't read that in the beginning, but it doesn't matter. You start to get used to these weird particles and Kanji, where things are placed, etc. The more I glanced over it all the more I'd see repetitions and then I'd look it up later to see what it was. I have a few books, but I never used them unless I already knew some grammar pattern and wanted to see what it meant. I crammed vocab and Kanji in Anki at the same time, so it was merely a matter of time. Though I had the context built before hand and wasn't just learning from some textbook directly (the context in this case was the pictures, so I'd recommend a Manga from the start). The one thing that bothers me the most about textbooks is that it was all in English and romaji. It took me like 3 days to learn the Kana, and so I absolutely hated all the romaji. I ended up getting a Japanese grammar book and used that instead, which worked out really nice. I've been doing the same with my Korean and Mandarin studies, or at least, doing it all in Japanese. I add sentences everyday into those languages and simply expose myself to a lot of it. I've already got a hang of Korean conjugation yet I've never looked it up once, mostly because it's practically the same as Japanese, but I did the same with Japanese. Lots of input in the beginning just to get familiar with the sounds and structure, then off to comprehensive input when you got yourself a little foundation set up. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5983 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 8 of 17 07 March 2013 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
For textbooks go to JP Books. It's in the basement of Mitsukoshi department store on Regent Street, next to the Japan Centre. They have a whole wall full of materials for learning Japanese. They also have a good selection of general Japanese books, including some manga and children's books. Prices are not cheap, but then buying books from Japan never is. Japan Centre also has a small bookshop at the back with some textbooks, magazines and manga, but the selection in JP Books is much bigger. I'd also recommend paying a visit to Adanami Shobo on Brewer Street, it's a 5 minute walk or so from Mitsukoshi/Japan Centre. It's easy to miss because the shop sign is for a dry cleaners! But it's actually a secondhand Japanese bookstore packed full of books and manga. Most of the books come wrapped in cellophane so there's limited browsing potential here, however if you know what kind of thing you're looking for it's the nearest you can get to a bargain. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
