stillstudying
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I'm opening to practicing Japanese with anyone!
Posts: 18
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Post by stillstudying on Apr 21, 2016 19:36:44 GMT
Before I leave for school in Japan in September, I'd like to have completed studying materials for the JLPT N3 and below, and in particular be able to pass practice tests for it. If I finish this goal early then I'd like to start looking into N2 materials more.
This is a part of my larger goal of being able to pass N2 after I finish my year in Japan (I'll probably take it in July in Japan, and possibly sign up for the December one back at home in case I don't pass).
I'm currently using a couple of different programs to help me to study (Anki, Sticky Study and Skritter mainly) as well as reading books in Japanese weekly. I am currently in Japanese class well at school. I'd like to start watching more dramas as well to start getting used to listening again as well as start noticing more speech and cultural patterns.
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Post by Jembru on Apr 22, 2016 0:27:14 GMT
Wow, N3 to N2 in a year! That's intense, but you're in a good position to be able to achieve it. I'm rooting for you!
I've been questioning my ability to achieve my current goals lately but I think that's largely down to my mood. I think I've just been over-tired, which affects my mood but also my ability to concentrate. I end up in a bit of a vicious cycle where I can't study so I feel depressed but then feel too depressed to study.
For the time being, I seem to have snapped out of it though, and I have just 2 weeks left of this horrible rota. After that I should be able to manage my sleep pattern a bit better and avoid such extreme highs and lows!
At least I've kept my goals vague. Unless I don't improve at all, I technically can't fail! ^^
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stillstudying
New Member
I'm opening to practicing Japanese with anyone!
Posts: 18
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Post by stillstudying on Apr 22, 2016 5:00:38 GMT
Thanks! Thinking about taking the N2 test in a little over the year seems unbelievable to me, but at the same time I had a friend who went to the same Japanese school as me (and when he went he just just finished Genki II, I think) and afterwards was able to pass N2. He spent a lot of time outside of class with his nose in various textbooks, which is what I'm planning on doing too.
And yeah i get stuck in ruts too, especially when I'm already behind since then it feels so difficult to pass up/I'm afraid of how much catching up I need to do :/
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Post by Jembru on Apr 22, 2016 8:35:29 GMT
Yeah, I think how long it takes to progress in a language is determined by the hours spent with the language rather than how many months or years you study. Being in Japan, especially with your motivation, will be a huge boost. I'm pretty sure you could already pass N3 too, so you're only aiming to move up one level, which doesn't seem unrealistic at all.
I've seen a few students here come back very able in Japanese after their year in Japan. The two girls you've met from our Line group who are there now, are great examples. I can tell from their writing that they're progressing well and can't wait to hear them speak in September!
Actually, another former student (mind you, his Japanese was decent even before his year in Japan), literally just flew out there to start his new life teaching in Japan 2 days ago. Ah, they grow up so fast.. *sniff*
This all makes me think, I've GOT to start putting in more hours with the language myself. I think my study pace is just about right for me now, but my time using the language with other human beings is shamefully low.
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stillstudying
New Member
I'm opening to practicing Japanese with anyone!
Posts: 18
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Post by stillstudying on Apr 23, 2016 18:16:49 GMT
Ahh it's nice hearing all these success stories. makes me feel like maybe my goals aren't so crazy. @__@
And I'm definitely planning on putting in a lot of outside study time like my friend did, and too for him and probably me too being in a class with basically all Chinese students for my main Japanese course should be a motivator.
For me though, right now, it's difficult because I have other classes that I need to focus on besides Japanese, so I can only spare so much extra studying time, but once that's over in a month I'll have to start working really hard at my goals.
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Post by Bokusenou on Apr 30, 2016 4:48:31 GMT
stillstudying Don't worry, the big, crazy-seeming goals are often the ones most worth doing.^-^ That's how you know you're getting out of your comfort zone. Good luck with N2! As for me, my goal is to finish going through the classical Japanese tutorial site I've been using in the next six months. Considering work is keeping me busy lately I don't want to have too tight a deadline with this.
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Post by Jembru on Apr 30, 2016 13:15:52 GMT
Yeah, I don't do deadlines any more! It just leads to me cramming aimlessly but not actually retaining very much!
On the subject of cramming though, I've decided to take a little break from my main study schedule and do one of my famous boot-camps. As I've said, I have 3 main goals for this year that roughly translate into 'improve conversation skills', 'improve reading ability' and 'improve handwriting'. I decided then, that every now and then I'd spend 2 weeks focusing on just one goal.
I've decided to start on conversation skills. It was a pretty arbitrary choice really but the fact that I've been discussing conversation skills with Demonhead, coupled with having one of my dips lately where my brain refuses to process spoken Japanese for some reason, I thought why not start with that!
Tomorrow is kind of a religious holiday for me, so I won't start until Monday, but I'm going to focus all my attention on speaking and listening for a full two weeks. I might not be on Gaiwa much as a result, but I'll be logging into Skype whenever I'm at my desk, so please feel free to message me if you see me and fancy practicing Japanese with me!
I must admit that I'm a bit sad to be putting my kokugo textbooks away for a while, but bootcamps work pretty well for me, so it's a necessary sacrifice!
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Post by Jembru on May 14, 2016 3:23:27 GMT
Well.. I guess I don't have the stamina I once had. I designed a great little a schedule; daily audio journals, shadowing, skype calls and grammar drills, with a few lingq sessions. It seemed pretty achievable.
The reality is that I've spent the last 2 weeks doing very little of anything besides a few skype calls (thank you Bokusenou for your part in that ^^). I'm behind on anki again, I've made just 3 audio journals over the entire 2 weeks and I have learnt only 3 new words (one of which was a bloomin' N3 word again 答案.. gah). Unknown words have come up in conversations, but I've only retained those words for the duration of the segment of conversation they appeared in.
So erm.. I guess I've just had myself a fortnight's holiday from studying. >.<
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Post by Bokusenou on May 15, 2016 18:03:29 GMT
Yeah, I was feeling sick most of this week, so I didn't end up doing much Japanese besides Anki reviews (which were, oddly enough, a great distraction from how awful I felt), so I totally understand that feeling...
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stillstudying
New Member
I'm opening to practicing Japanese with anyone!
Posts: 18
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Post by stillstudying on Sept 25, 2017 21:34:17 GMT
An update: I didn't finish studying N3 material until halfway through my stay in Japan... but I was able to pass N2!
I do want to go for N1 at some point, but I think that I'm going to take my time and study for a few years at least.
Right now, I think that my goals are working on Anki and continuing to practice conversational skills. I am able to practice speaking Japanese a bit each day (either over Skype or with Japanese students at my school) but I'd like to continue to push myself. As well, I've made it a habit when I look up a word in my dictionary app to add it to my favorites, and then I'm going to start going through that list and adding the words to Anki.
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Post by Jembru on Apr 10, 2019 12:13:40 GMT
An update: I didn't finish studying N3 material until halfway through my stay in Japan... but I was able to pass N2! I do want to go for N1 at some point, but I think that I'm going to take my time and study for a few years at least. Right now, I think that my goals are working on Anki and continuing to practice conversational skills. I am able to practice speaking Japanese a bit each day (either over Skype or with Japanese students at my school) but I'd like to continue to push myself. As well, I've made it a habit when I look up a word in my dictionary app to add it to my favorites, and then I'm going to start going through that list and adding the words to Anki. Two years on, and at this point I don't even know if you'll read this, but I really wish I'd seen this sooner. I'm so glad that you were able to pass N2. I know you worked very hard to achieve that so you should be really proud of that. It's such a shame that this forum kinda died. I don't have Line anymore either, so I might never find out where your studies ended up taking you, but I hope you're continuing your adventures with the Japanese language! As I'm here, I guess I'll share my goals for old times sake. Actually, it's not as adventurous as my goals were 4 years ago. I'm hanging out with Japanese speakers more often again after being a bit of a recluse last year. It's made me realise that I stumble a lot when trying to recall really basic Japanese. Words like 古い or 閉める for example, don't always come to mind when I need them. Or if I do recall them, I say them wrong, like saying 積もらない instead of つまらない. I think it's because I took an extended break in which I hardly ever spoke or wrote Japanese, while my mum was sick. When I finally got to study a little more consistently again, I just picked up where I'd left off, studying N2 and N1 material. Because I could easily recognise basic words when I saw or heard them, it didn't occur to me that I'd lost the ability to actively recall these words. To try and fix this, I'm going through my beginners textbooks and testing myself using the vocabulary lists in the back. Any words that take me more than a second to recall, or that I get wrong, I'm adding to anki. I'm actually finding that this has made anki a bit more fun. Catching up on my backlog has been a chore, and the words I find easy are buried deep in the decks, not to appear again for months and months, so only harder words appear most days. The sudden appearance of friendly words like 年齢 and 工事 have brought some much needed satisfaction back to anki. I think when I'm done, I might come back and look at my old gaiwa posts. I bet I've forgotten loads of the Japanese I used back then too! Other than that, I guess I'd like to beat my J-Cat score when I resit it in September. Even a single point would do, but I'd love to jump up to a high N2! Although vocabulary was my lowest score, I'm pretty sure that's because of my reading ability (especially Kanji), as I often struggled with the sentences rather than the actual word being tested. I'm pretty confident that if I can brush up on my kanji and reading comprehension, I can bump my score up quite a lot. Who knows, if I surprise myself and manage to bump myself into N1, I MIGHT even consider finally sitting N2. I wouldn't hold your breath though. I've managed to avoid the JLPT this long after all! ^^'
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Post by Bokusenou on Nov 18, 2019 22:38:04 GMT
An update: I didn't finish studying N3 material until halfway through my stay in Japan... but I was able to pass N2! I do want to go for N1 at some point, but I think that I'm going to take my time and study for a few years at least. Right now, I think that my goals are working on Anki and continuing to practice conversational skills. I am able to practice speaking Japanese a bit each day (either over Skype or with Japanese students at my school) but I'd like to continue to push myself. As well, I've made it a habit when I look up a word in my dictionary app to add it to my favorites, and then I'm going to start going through that list and adding the words to Anki. Two years on, and at this point I don't even know if you'll read this, but I really wish I'd seen this sooner. I'm so glad that you were able to pass N2. I know you worked very hard to achieve that so you should be really proud of that. It's such a shame that this forum kinda died. I don't have Line anymore either, so I might never find out where your studies ended up taking you, but I hope you're continuing your adventures with the Japanese language! As I'm here, I guess I'll share my goals for old times sake. Actually, it's not as adventurous as my goals were 4 years ago. I'm hanging out with Japanese speakers more often again after being a bit of a recluse last year. It's made me realise that I stumble a lot when trying to recall really basic Japanese. Words like 古い or 閉める for example, don't always come to mind when I need them. Or if I do recall them, I say them wrong, like saying 積もらない instead of つまらない. I think it's because I took an extended break in which I hardly ever spoke or wrote Japanese, while my mum was sick. When I finally got to study a little more consistently again, I just picked up where I'd left off, studying N2 and N1 material. Because I could easily recognise basic words when I saw or heard them, it didn't occur to me that I'd lost the ability to actively recall these words. To try and fix this, I'm going through my beginners textbooks and testing myself using the vocabulary lists in the back. Any words that take me more than a second to recall, or that I get wrong, I'm adding to anki. I'm actually finding that this has made anki a bit more fun. Catching up on my backlog has been a chore, and the words I find easy are buried deep in the decks, not to appear again for months and months, so only harder words appear most days. The sudden appearance of friendly words like 年齢 and 工事 have brought some much needed satisfaction back to anki. I think when I'm done, I might come back and look at my old gaiwa posts. I bet I've forgotten loads of the Japanese I used back then too! Other than that, I guess I'd like to beat my J-Cat score when I resit it in September. Even a single point would do, but I'd love to jump up to a high N2! Although vocabulary was my lowest score, I'm pretty sure that's because of my reading ability (especially Kanji), as I often struggled with the sentences rather than the actual word being tested. I'm pretty confident that if I can brush up on my kanji and reading comprehension, I can bump my score up quite a lot. Who knows, if I surprise myself and manage to bump myself into N1, I MIGHT even consider finally sitting N2. I wouldn't hold your breath though. I've managed to avoid the JLPT this long after all! ^^' Ooh, maybe I should do something like that! I'm sure my Japanese has degraded a lot ever since my mom died suddenly and I stopped studying for a long while. I'm trying to get back into it, and I can still read novels, although I need to look up more words than before, but I really need to get back into Anki reviewing more. Maybe kanji study too. I might do a speed run through Remembering the Kanji with Japanese keywords this time. I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do to get to where I was...
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