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rewire’s 日本語 (& miscellany) adventures | ||
Tags: Intermediate | Japanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4336 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 49 of 81 17 October 2012 at 7:24am | IP Logged |
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Tonight I completed Step 8 in iKnow, and at first I was happy, because that's one more down, and two to go (with one at 90% and the other at 50% so shouldn't be too much longer now) to actually complete the Core 1000 officially. But then I went to get an idea of what that was in terms of JLPT and realized that if I want to try to attempt the N2 next year, I need to 5 more sets of 1000, and there's pretty much no mathematical way that's going to work out unless I magically gain more hours in the day to study, and spend all of my free time doing so. Which kind of was depressing.
Pretty sure the N3 is still reasonable, so I guess if by next year I'm still feeling like N2 is a bit too much of a stretch for me, I'll at least try the N3, and just aim for the N2 in 2014 instead. But ugh. I'm so frustrated with myself for not having focused more on learning vocabulary when I was in classes, so that it's now taken me so long to get to this point. I feel like I'm never going to really get anywhere, because all my goals seem so far away, and like I never really make any progress toward them (even though I know I do, actually, but right now I'm just not feeling it). I think not doing more output/voice practice was showing in my tutor session yesterday, too. I really ought to start doing Pimsleur regularly again at least, for now, since I still haven't finished the third level. And probably going back to reading and more importantly, reading out loud to practice sound and rhythm. I do have Harry Potter now, but I'm not sure if I can read it. Probably going to take a look this weekend to see if I can manage it at all or if it still needs to wait, but it is kind of an incentive, seeing it on my shelf, to keep pressing on and trying to study harder so I can get there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5771 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 50 of 81 17 October 2012 at 9:22am | IP Logged |
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It can be too tempting to try and reduce ones knowledge to easily countable numbers, particularly when thinking about vocab and particularly when comparing oneself to the old JLPT syllabus. Having felt the same sense of despondency as yourself in the past my advice would be to stop it now!
iKnow is just a tool to help you learn some words. It's not a measure of everything you know. If you're getting tutoring and doing other activities you'll be picking up vocab in other places too. Anyway, I think for JLPT, once you get to the higher levels, how well you can read and listen is far more important than how many word lists you've crammed. If JLPT is an important goal and you haven't done so already, I really recommend trying out the sample questions for each level on the JLPT website. This will help you see where your strengths and weaknesses lie and what level you could realistically aim for. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4336 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 51 of 81 17 October 2012 at 5:14pm | IP Logged |
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Well yes, but right now vocabulary is what's holding me back, so it actually kind of is a measure of where I'm at. Though I was thinking the same, that probably it's not going to be as crucial that I know all of the words on the test going into N2 as it would be for lower levels.
I do have a tutor, but it's just one hour once a week, so I'm not really picking up much vocab from there since I don't study the lists I get from there outside of lessons either. It's more for speaking practice and grammar reviews. 90% of my vocabulary is coming from iKnow right now, since I'm actually not doing all that much outside of it. And I did actually try out the questions, and as I thought, I'm sort of between N4 and N3 at the moment, where N4 is pretty easy, and N3 is challenging mostly because I don't know the vocabulary they use. Which is why I think it's probably a pretty good indicator of where I am at the moment. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5771 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 52 of 81 17 October 2012 at 7:21pm | IP Logged |
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It sounds like you are were I was around a year ago. So if you wanted to go for N3 in July 2013, I think you'd stand a good chance! I also felt I had quite a vocabulary hurdle to jump and spent (or you could say wasted) a lot of time trying to manage a love-hate relationship with Anki. But the thing is you don't have to acquire vocabulary in isolation from doing other things in the language. The weirdest thing about sitting N3 for me was the number of vocabulary questions I was able to answer not because of something I'd learned off of a list, but because it was a word that had popped up in conversation or class or reading a manga or something similar.
Anyway, if you do want to go for N3, I'd really recommend you get hold of the Unicom N3 Yomu book and start working through it, but start on section 3 (the short reading passages or 短文). This is because section 1 is a bit overkill on conjunctions and section 2 is about solving grammar problems, which you can focus more on closer to the test. The format of the book is great because it seems to do well at balancing the amount of Japanese and amount of English in the explanations. For each practice passage you get an explanation of a number of vocabulary words, expressions and grammar points so it's a great way to brush up on your language knowledge at the same time as working on the reading. You might find it a bit challenging to start with (I know I did) but it's really worth the effort. The other surprisingly valuable source of useful vocab for the N3 was Japanese for Busy People, especially vol.III. I think this is because it does a reasonably good job of covering common vocabulary and expressions used in every day situations. The only downside is that for a lot of the words you'll have to look up the kanji yourself, although you could treat that as a learning exercise too! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4336 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 53 of 81 17 October 2012 at 11:21pm | IP Logged |
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I'm not sure it's really learning in isolation, actually? I mean, I can't stand just memorizing word lists, which is partly why I'm in this spot in the first place, but what works about iKnow for me is that it actually does include sentences that I can read and start getting familiarized with other vocab in them that they won't introduce until later. And it's satisfying having smaller little goals I can work toward and actually "finish."
Did you use the 文のルール book at all? I keep trying to figure out how it's different from the 読む book, and if it'd be useful to use in conjunction or not. But my track record for actually working through textbooks on my own is pretty low, so I've been trying to avoid spending more money on getting more books yet, though I do keep eying those. If I can figure out how to stay consistent with a textbook, they might be worth looking at. I have the older Unicom 3 kyuu grammar book (so really the now N4 stuff) that I've worked a little with and I do like the exercises they have (mine is entirely in Japanese, so I actually don't have any English explanations). My parents have older copies of at least one of the volumes of Japanese for Busy People, so I might try to borrow that to look at also. Unfortunately, one problem is that I have ADD, and a lot of tedious things like having to look up words and make vocab lists myself bore and frustrate me really quickly, and it's basically impossible to make myself do something if I find it boring. I keep trying to figure out ways to trick myself into finding them interesting, but this seems to have limited success. (Hence the sporadic fits of doing textbook exercises for a week or two and then stopping.) Up until this year, I couldn't even get myself to regularly do iKnow or anything similar either, heh, so I'm actually doing pretty well in comparison to my previous attempts. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5771 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 54 of 81 18 October 2012 at 12:24am | IP Logged |
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I had the 文のルール book and it is very different in format to the 読む book. The starting point for the 読む book is actual reading passages whereas with the 文のルール book you're only working with example sentences and grammar test questions. I would consider the 読む book to be almost an essential purchase for N3, but the 文のルール book is not necessary. If you want a reference book I would just pick a good grammar dictionary and go with that (my favourites are this if I want a quick answer and one of these if I need details - but I usually prefer quick answers).
Actually for grammar, your best starting point might be to ask your tutor to focus on N3 level stuff and once you've covered quite a bit, just use a drill book to get used to the test question format. I'm pretty rubbish at finishing textbooks too. I didn't get through a single N3 book from start to finish, but I dipped into a few and still managed to pass the exam somehow! I think it's maybe more important to work in a consistent way when you are still learning the basics of a language, where big gaps in basic knowledge can cause you some big problems. But when you are starting to hit intermediate and need to broaden, rather than deepen, your knowledge, so long as you are doing something with the language regularly, it doesn't matter so much if you chop and change types of texts and activities. I also agree on how boring making lists and looking up words is. For that kind of intensive activity I prefer to stick to very short passages where I'm not going to end up with a massive list of things to look up. That way the pain of look-ups can be balanced against the joy of working out what the passage actually means, which I find motivating enough. And at least with the 読む book it already has explanations of the most important words and expressions needed to understand each passage anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5170 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 55 of 81 18 October 2012 at 12:32am | IP Logged |
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Sometimes, hanging on to a number as a mesure of success can give you a false sense of purpose.
In post 51, you say vocabulary is holding you back, but in post 49, you rather seem to be hinting at problems speaking. There is no reason a person who is at JLPT3 level (old or new system) shouldn't be able to reach a certain level of comfort in their speech with the material they already have. What I'm saying is that by clutching onto numbers, you risk burning out because it's like chasing the dragon, it never ends. I think working on speaking can give you a lot more satisfaction at this point. Frankly, JLPT is ultimately useless. Yes, it's a goal to work towards, but how about real communication with real people? Now there's a useful goal. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5771 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 56 of 81 18 October 2012 at 9:12am | IP Logged |
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I would disagree. From a careers perspective level 2 and 1 of JLPT is actually quite useful, although you won't be able to do much with it without speaking skills too. And even preparing for level 3 (new, not old) saw my general skills, including speaking, take quite a jump somehow. So it can't be all useless.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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