liosama Wrote:Every god damn thread I see here is about "finishing JLPT2 in 2 months" or some absurd nonsense.

rich_f Wrote:Gah, and here I was, hoping maybe someone had found an answer key for the books. >_<

Here's my trick to learning Japanese: Hard Work, followed by more Hard Work. The trick is to cover it in Fun Sauce. The more Fun Sauce you use, the faster it'll seem that time goes by, to the point that it'll *appear* that you hit JLPT 1 in 3 months... but the reality will be that it's more like 3-5 years. Because only an idiot would think they could pass JLPT 1 in 3 months.

So sick of those threads. -_-

thecite Wrote:3-5 years?
Two years is a reasonable time frame to reach JLPT1 level if you follow a method like AJATT or similar.

MeNoSavvy Wrote:ha ha ha. Every thread on this damn forum seems to end up in an argument about how long it takes to reach JLPT1 !! I think hours is a more appropriate measure than years. But I second the 3-5 years as being a reasonable estimate.

MeNoSavvy Wrote:It is interesting that of all the people who say they can pass JLPT in only 3 months, 6 months, or some other short study time, none of them has actually passed the test. And none of them are fluent either. Mostly they appear to be people who have only just started studying, or have been studying a few months. Moreover they "expect to be fluent", not that they actually are fluent.

Maybe come back when you've passed the test. In any event most people have other stuff to do, they can't sit around in their room or their parent's basement all day mining sentences and watching anime.

thecite Wrote:

MeNoSavvy Wrote:ha ha ha. Every thread on this damn forum seems to end up in an argument about how long it takes to reach JLPT1 !! I think hours is a more appropriate measure than years. But I second the 3-5 years as being a reasonable estimate.

Wrong. I've been doing AJATT for 2 months; I put this text book on the shelf in favour of taking natural sentences using AJATT, and I pulled this out earlier tonight, and found that I'd covered 90% of the grammar from my 3,000 sentences I've collected in two months.
I expect to be fluent within less than a year.
Now I'm gonna go and burn this book. Useless piece of junk. If I was gonna sentence mine grammar textbooks, I'd only use the dictionary of intermediate/advanced grammar or どんな時、どう使う. Any other structured grammar books are a waste of time.

Tzadeck Wrote:

thecite Wrote:

MeNoSavvy Wrote:ha ha ha. Every thread on this damn forum seems to end up in an argument about how long it takes to reach JLPT1 !! I think hours is a more appropriate measure than years. But I second the 3-5 years as being a reasonable estimate.

Wrong. I've been doing AJATT for 2 months; I put this text book on the shelf in favour of taking natural sentences using AJATT, and I pulled this out earlier tonight, and found that I'd covered 90% of the grammar from my 3,000 sentences I've collected in two months.
I expect to be fluent within less than a year.
Now I'm gonna go and burn this book. Useless piece of junk. If I was gonna sentence mine grammar textbooks, I'd only use the dictionary of intermediate/advanced grammar or どんな時、どう使う. Any other structured grammar books are a waste of time.

Wait, what do you mean? First of all, for the book do you mean An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese? Do you mean you started studying Japanese 2 months ago, or that you were studying Japanese for a while, then you switched to AJATT?

Raschaverak Wrote:It doesn't matter really. Can't you see? The guy implies that he's a language genius, and we're not *Raschaverak bows head*

Raschaverak Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:

thecite Wrote:Wrong. I've been doing AJATT for 2 months; I put this text book on the shelf in favour of taking natural sentences using AJATT, and I pulled this out earlier tonight, and found that I'd covered 90% of the grammar from my 3,000 sentences I've collected in two months.
I expect to be fluent within less than a year.
Now I'm gonna go and burn this book. Useless piece of junk. If I was gonna sentence mine grammar textbooks, I'd only use the dictionary of intermediate/advanced grammar or どんな時、どう使う. Any other structured grammar books are a waste of time.

Wait, what do you mean? First of all, for the book do you mean An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese? Do you mean you started studying Japanese 2 months ago, or that you were studying Japanese for a while, then you switched to AJATT?

It doesn't matter really. Can't you see? The guy implies that he's a language genius, and we're not *Raschaverak bows head*

Raschaverak Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:

thecite Wrote:Wrong. I've been doing AJATT for 2 months; I put this text book on the shelf in favour of taking natural sentences using AJATT, and I pulled this out earlier tonight, and found that I'd covered 90% of the grammar from my 3,000 sentences I've collected in two months.
I expect to be fluent within less than a year.
Now I'm gonna go and burn this book. Useless piece of junk. If I was gonna sentence mine grammar textbooks, I'd only use the dictionary of intermediate/advanced grammar or どんな時、どう使う. Any other structured grammar books are a waste of time.

Wait, what do you mean? First of all, for the book do you mean An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese? Do you mean you started studying Japanese 2 months ago, or that you were studying Japanese for a while, then you switched to AJATT?

It doesn't matter really. Can't you see? The guy implies that he's a language genius, and we're not *Raschaverak bows head*

Aijin Wrote:And as much I think JLPT 1 is a great goal, it is no where even close to fluency in the language in my humble opinion. It covers a huge amount of grammar, certainly, but the amount of vocabulary (around 10,000 I believe) is only a drop in the bucket, and the sheer amount of words itself takes quite a lot of years. 10,000 might seem like a lot, but when you realize the sheer amount of vocabulary that exists for all the different fields and realms you encounter in a language, you'd be practically illiterate only knowing that many.
I think a few years is fine for basic conversational fluency, but if dropped off in a university course in Japan with only a few years of the language under their belt, the person would be quite screwed.

Raschaverak Wrote:So logically thinking If I do the highest level of a language exam, there's no way, that it can be considered "far away" from fluency. There's just no way. The requirement for any language exam is, that at the highest levels of the exam you have to be somehwat / if not fully fluent....that's it.

Aijin Wrote:There was a discouragement thread 1?

I really, really don't mean to be discouraging! JLPT 1 is a great accomplishment for a foreigner, taking an insane amount of time, hard work, and sheer dedication. I think anyone who devotes themselves so intensely to something that they can achieve a goal like that is very remarkable! And I don't mean to say that the JLPT 1 is a joke or anything by any means, the kanji and grammar it covers is the most significant part of it I think.

But at the same time I think it's good to understand that the test is designed for foreigners, and to meet specific needs. I was just trying to express that in terms of vocabulary, it's a far way from fluency. I only meant to say that because I often see people reachings things like JLPT 1, and being frustrated with themselves that they still have so much difficulty in the language, have to use dictionaries constantly, etc. But at the same time I didn't mean to cause despair or anything!

In my opinion vocabulary is the hardest beast to tackle in learning Japanese as a second language. Ignoring the amount of immersion required to learn the feeling of different words and which situations each is used in to portray what image/tone/feeling, etc. the overwhelming quantity is what is akin to standing on the bottom of Mt. Everest and looking up for some people, I think.

The reason a lot of people become discouraged, I believe, is that it's simply so easy for people to not realize the overwhelming amount of words they know in their own native language.

I suppose the reason I even brought it up is because I have a tuttee who for memorizing words simply did every single page of a dictionary until he memorized them all. Over 50,000 words, and he still has to consult a dictionary often, and his vocabulary I would say is still maybe half that of a fairly intelligent native speaker Lately he's been really frustrated with that fact, and has been trying to come up with any way possible to push through that barrier as quickly as possible, but the thing is it just takes so, so much time.

At a university pace, within the first two years generally between 1,000-2,000 words are taught (I place emphasis on taught because only the students who are very serious about learning Japanese will study enough to keep all of those in memory). Within the next two years the pace usually doubles, with an additional 4,000-5000 words being taught. So that after four years, 6,000-7,000 words are generally taught.

I suppose the despair comes in when you realize that if 6,000-7,000 words takes on average four years of study, then around 8 years of constant study would be required for a vocabulary of 50,000, and nearly two decades of study for a vocabulary closer to that of a fairly intelligent native speaker.

I know this all sounds like doom and gloom, but of course it's not. The majority of people learning Japanese don't need to have a vocabulary on par with intelligent native speakers. Understanding the majority of mainstream media, having friendships, conversations, etc. in the language won't require such an obscene amount of words, many of which you may only encounter a single time within a year! (trying to purge the pessimism in the earlier paragraphs with some optimism )

Since I plan on becoming a Japanese teacher, this vocabulary barrier is something I really want to find a way to destroy, and maybe that's why I am posting my thoughts. I respect this community, and have gotten a lot of ideas for teaching from stalking the threads here *mwahaha*

Aijin Wrote:I suppose the reason I even brought it up is because I have a tuttee who for memorizing words simply did every single page of a dictionary until he memorized them all. Over 50,000 words, and he still has to consult a dictionary often, and his vocabulary I would say is still maybe half that of a fairly intelligent native speaker Lately he's been really frustrated with that fact, and has been trying to come up with any way possible to push through that barrier as quickly as possible, but the thing is it just takes so, so much time.