I thought the 2015 N1-N2 thread was helpful in seeing what other people were studying & finding useful resources, so I thought it would be nice to have a 2016 version of the thread for those who hopefully will, or already have passed N1.

I just wanted to see what kind of things advanced learners are going through, what they're trying to learn, and links to helpful resources and the like.

Here's my tentative plan for 2016.  I'd really like to build up my vocabulary more, work on my business keigo, and get listening comprehension up to college lecture level.

Anki decks to go through (already made):
Collection of gitaigo
Subset of most commonly used yojijukugo
Japanese names of kanji bushu

Books:
How to Sound Intelligent in Japanese by Charles De Wolf - A collection of vocabulary words divided into chapters like politics, arts, science, economics, law, etc.  I have gone through a little bit of it and I think it does help in building vocabulary so you can have more in depth and interesting conversations with people.

Read Practical Japanese by John Braden - Useful Japanese words and phrases, especially for signs and notices.  Useful for me since I don't live in Japan and won't run across these naturally.

Common Japanese Collocations by Kakuko Shoji - A collection of 3200 word combinations so that your Japanese sounds more natural.  I certainly won't anki all of it, but hopefully will have a chance to go through and pick out the ones that I would find useful.

Shin Kanzen Master N1 Goi - I didn't have a chance to go through this before I took the N1 in December, but I still think it'd be useful for me to go through and anki any interesting phrases / vocabulary.

Japanese for Professionals by AJALT - This was recommended a few times on this board for business keigo so I got this.  I'd really like to get my business keigo to a better & more consistent level.  I'm open to suggestions if anyone has other recommendations.

Multimedia:
I'd like to try and go through a lecture series from Gacco

Maybe go through some NHK Koukou Kouza videos


Other things:
I have found a few online sources for Japanese names, so I may make an anki deck for the most common surnames and the most popular boys and girls names for the last few decades.  I feel like not being able to read men's first names is kind of a big hole in my reading ability.  There seemed to be a few Anki shared decks but I wasn't sure if any of them were any good.

This thread is a great idea. Language learning is such a journey, one that can barely be quantified by something as presumptuous as JLPT.

Though I'm not even dreaming of passing N1 in 2016, I want to say Kanzen Master Goi is great and Common Japanese Collocations is also a nice, different piece of material. I got it even before I took N3, because I wanted to sound as natural as possible right off the bat. The book definitely helps with learning correct/natural word combinations.

There's plenty of books in Japanese, aimed at Japanese people who want to improve their Japanese (just as there are loads books aimed at native English speakers who want to improve their writing, or their business communication, etc in English). レポートの書き方 kinda books aimed at college students, or anything about keigo or business emails aimed at 就活生/新入社員. That kinda thing might be worth looking into if you can get them shipped or have a Japanese bookstore nearby.

If you're looking for college lectures and you're into linguistics, this channel is pretty good.

The history videos linked in this post by yukamina are cool if you didn't catch them. Probably similar level to the Koko Koza 日本史 vids. There's also lots of history documentaries on YouTube if you search. Here's one to start us off.

You should be able to find plenty of academic papers in Japanese freely available online through Google. Maybe it depends on what field you're interested in, but I've found loads for linguistics, history, Japanese literature. Not always the greatest stuff but it must be good for building a college level specialized vocab (and writing style) for whatever you're interested in.

nhkスペシャル documentaries can be pretty great, if you like documentaries.
Also, it's a little old, but I found this AJATT article great for giving me ideas on what shows to search for: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...c-19912011

I read that watching stand up comedy is a great way to I guess go beyond N1. and seems fun too! During google search, I found this article. Though it's meant for ESL learners, the principles still apply imo

http://www.fluentu.com/english/blog/lear...n-english/

Haven't passed N1 and likely not pursuing it at this point. I'll be focusing on continuing to build my conversational and writing skills in preparation for meeting with Japanese colleagues. I've been invited to do some technical presentations at some point in Tokyo, so I'm reading as much of my company's technical docs and training in Japanese as I can.

Outside of that, I'm trying to enjoy the language - reading books, watching shows, listening to podcasts. I've been reading a few interesting books on Japanese history and Buddhism to help improve my reading ability, and also out of sheer interest.

(2015-12-24, 12:11 am)RawrPk Wrote: I read that watching stand up comedy is a great way to I guess go beyond N1. and seems fun too! During google search, I found this article. Though it's meant for ESL learners, the principles still apply imo

http://www.fluentu.com/english/blog/lear...n-english/

gosh i hope i don't run into anyone who learned a new language from sitcoms - they're so corny   And that articles pretty much stating the obvious "want to learn a language? Expose yourself to it in various forms of media!" 

Anyway i have question. Where do people go for specialized vocab? Im looking for science/medical stuff.

edit: found this 多言語医療問診票 (multilingual medical questionnaire) http://www.kifjp.org/medical/english/index.html

(2015-12-22, 5:01 pm)harahachibu Wrote: Here's my tentative plan for 2016.  I'd really like to build up my vocabulary more, work on my business keigo, and get listening comprehension up to college lecture level.

<snip>

I thought I would post an update since we're a few months into the year.

I've managed to go through my Anki decks for the gitaigo and the Japanese names for kanji bushu.  I haven't gone through the yojijikugo deck however, for a few reasons.  I'm not sure how accurate the frequency grade in that deck is, and I’m not a big fan of how the cards are formatted.  It’s not really much work, to be honest, but I have just been lazy about it.  Maybe I’ll fiddle with the format this weekend and get started on the deck.  The entire yojijukugo deck is 3000+ cards, but I will probably only focus on maybe the top 10-20% by frequency.

As far as my books go, I have not really touched them.  I generally dislike the time consuming process of adding things wholesale into Anki and have been putting it off.  Maybe I’ll try to get the Read Practical Japanese and How to Sound Intelligent in Japanese books into Anki by the end of June as a goal.  Those two books are probably the ones I want to mine for vocab the most.

I have not gone through a Gacco lecture series or any of the NHK Koukou Kouza videos.

I'd still be interested in going through a deck of common names & kanji, especially readings for male first names, which I still find to be difficult.  Unfortunately, I haven't found a pre-made Anki deck for that, and currently I don't have a ton of motivation to make it myself right now.


Things that I have been doing:

I try to read at least a little bit of a Japanese novel almost every day.  I’ve finished three this year so far.  My other goal is to basically read from a different author each time so that I am exposed to different writing styles, vocabulary, kanji usage, etc.  This has been a good experience for me so far.

I’ve been watching the NHK documentary series 「ドキュメント７２時間」 which is pretty interesting.  They set up a camera crew at a certain location for 72 hours and then interview the people who visit there, work there, etc.

I’ve been adding unknown words that I come across in the wild to my Anki deck.  It’s definitely not all the words, but it’s not a trivial amount either.  So far in 2016 I’ve added about 500 cards.  In comparison, in 2015 I added about 2300 vocab cards.

Not having the JLPT looming over you is interesting.  You feel more free to delve into the parts of the language that you find more interesting, but on the other hand without a time limit you can find yourself being lazy without any real penalty for it.  It’s also harder to find a way to mark progress.  I did take the JCAT at the beginning of the year, so I can use that for now.