Jackdaw Wrote:I think you can get to N3 in a year if you study for several hours a day every single day. I could potentially pass the N3 after 15 months of study, the first six I maybe could have spent more effectivelly, and I know others on this forum who made about the same amount of progress in the same timespan as I. Furthermore for reference, I've spent on average about 4 hours a day studying including reading. The trick is consistency and a lot of reading.

Jackdaw Wrote:Looking at your study plan, I don't think you've put enough stock into reading and listening. Kanji is important, but you only need to familiarise yourself with them to start seeing the benefit of reading. Actually, I think past N5 the brunt of your study should be put on mostly reading and interacting with Japanese, but the sooner the better.

Jackdaw Wrote:P.S. Your topic header is a bit misleading, btw. I thought going in you were at N2 already and going to ask how to better proceed.

MelonBerry Wrote:I saw you posted this on reddit too, hmmm.

MelonBerry Wrote:I don't think it's possible to get to N2 in a year. ( Especially if you aren't in japan ) While we all may feel confident planning out how to study, it's sometimes difficult to put that plan to work.

A lot of people come up with studying plans, discuss it here, they start, and suddenly they disappear / stop. You're going to need to spend a lot of time actively and passively learning and honestly, you'll probably just burn out.

MelonBerry Wrote:I'd lower the goal if I were you. I don't understand the reason to rush through a language, you might miss out on a lot of things. N3 might be more doable.

PotbellyPig Wrote:Just start studying. You are just starting out. Don't be concerned with the time it will take and just do it. It is impossible to tell how long it will take because each person is different.

Aikynaro Wrote:I think vocabulary is much more important than the weight you've given it in your schedule. No matter how good your kanji-writing is (irrelevant for JLPT, incidentally) or how good your grammar is - if you don't know the words you're not going to understand anything. 2000 words is obviously not enough.

tameshi Wrote:Would you recommend any specific resources for practicing reading? I was thinking to read the "easy" version of news sites and some random webpages with Hiragana-megane to improve my reading speed.

anotherjohn Wrote:Combined listening and reading time of 125 hours is nowhere near enough.

It suggests that you intend to do ~2% of your reading/listening practice *in the actual exam*

Jackdaw Wrote:For the most part I'd just say read what you feel like reading and if it's too much above your level, read it for what little bit you can muster, then go find something easier to focus on and come back to it later. Basically, it's good to have something on your level you can read in bulk for practice and something a bit above your level you can work on in small chunks to challenge yourself with.

Jackdaw Wrote:Generally, what you read is what you get good at reading, so if you keep working on the things you like to read, whether's it's sci-fi, comedies, fantasy RPG games or what not, it'll only get easier over time. I like to read from a lot of different genres and types of materials to cover a lot of different grounds.

Aikynaro Wrote:If you don't actually care about the exam, maybe you should pick a different measuring stick. 'I want to be able to read this book/understand this show after one year of study' is just as meaningful and much cheaper to test.

Aikynaro Wrote:I think your change to using a JLPT word list over Core is a step backwards. Core has audio, example sentences, and nice card formatting ready for you. Ankiing sentences to learn vocabulary also lets you memorise grammar for free, so you can cut down on step 1.

buonaparte Wrote:Good luck.

Quote:Could you recommend any basic books that I might be able to read a few months down the line?

Quote:I guess I'll revert back to the core6k and turn off words or maybe find a JLPT-oriented deck with the audio and sentence examples. Any suggestions? I was planning to use the tanos.co.uk site lists, but they don't have sentence examples & usages. They do have anki decks too, not sure how good they are.

Aikynaro Wrote:I have a thread for that

Aikynaro Wrote:Wouldn't know. I made my own deck using subs2srs and anime. I doubt a JLPT deck would be much different from Core though. They're all words that you'll encounter soon enough whichever way you go.

Aikynaro Wrote:Also, once this thread has run its course, you should leave this forum for the next few months and touch no other Japanese-learning related websites. Once you've worked out your strategy, just follow it without looking for endless optimisation. We're all just wasting time here really.

tameshi Wrote:

Aikynaro Wrote:Also, once this thread has run its course, you should leave this forum for the next few months and touch no other Japanese-learning related websites. Once you've worked out your strategy, just follow it without looking for endless optimisation. We're all just wasting time here really.

Thanks for the tip, I'll keep that in mind. But I'm not sure I can totally study in isolation, I guess I'll be around asking specific advice rather than writing out study plans. Thanks again for all the help.

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:On a slightly different note, I'd say it's ambitious, at the least, to lay out a 750-hour plan for something you've little experience with. Better to try out 20 hours or so, see how it fits your lifestyle and temperament, then try another 40 hours.

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:I think there's a tendency to think of learning as a math problem. You simply do that many hours, and boom, you'll have that skill. But I don't think it works like that. It might take you 200 hours to reach N3, or it might take you 2000. Your background, age, motivation, recall ability, and astrological sign will all play a part.

So while it's good to have a road map, I wouldn't focus on the hours too much until you get a bit further along. There's no telling how long it's going to take.

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:Please understand, I'm not trying to discourage you in any way. Rather, I think that people starting out would be well served by understanding the enormity of the task, and being prepared for it.

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:Learning a foreign language is a great use of your spare time, and something that will enrich your life. But if it's Japanese you've chosen, well, gird your loins.