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+--- Thread: 2012 JLPT Study Thread (/thread-8736.html)
2012 JLPT Study Thread - TheVinster - 2012-09-12
ta12121 Wrote:I ordered the N1 set (kanzen master) and just the grammar book for N2. I also picked up the grammar books (Japanese basic grammar,intermediate and advanced). Let the madness begin!Damn, where the hell do you get all this money from?
2012 JLPT Study Thread - kitakitsune - 2012-09-12
ta12121 Wrote:I ordered the N1 set (kanzen master) and just the grammar book for N2. I also picked up the grammar books (Japanese basic grammar,intermediate and advanced). Let the madness begin!For the December test?
I don't see how any reasonable person can possibly work through even half of the whole set in time for the test.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - prink - 2012-09-12
warakawa Wrote:I did mine online.Zgarbas Wrote:Sending in my papers for the N2 today. It's on!Ever heard of Adobe Acrobat X?
(Damn the application forms are idiotic; why do I have to write my address 6 times if the results are going directly to my Uni anyway?)
2012 JLPT Study Thread - ta12121 - 2012-09-12
kitakitsune Wrote:Well my main goal is to get through the kanzen books. That I'm sure I can get through in 2 months. The grammar books, would definitely take too much time. Then again, I'm going over it to understand it.ta12121 Wrote:I ordered the N1 set (kanzen master) and just the grammar book for N2. I also picked up the grammar books (Japanese basic grammar,intermediate and advanced). Let the madness begin!For the December test?
I don't see how any reasonable person can possibly work through even half of the whole set in time for the test.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - ta12121 - 2012-09-12
TheVinster Wrote:I work 2 jobs, so not so surprising. I'll eventually have a better paying job soon, so more flexibility pretty soon.ta12121 Wrote:I ordered the N1 set (kanzen master) and just the grammar book for N2. I also picked up the grammar books (Japanese basic grammar,intermediate and advanced). Let the madness begin!Damn, where the hell do you get all this money from?
2012 JLPT Study Thread - gaiaslastlaugh - 2012-09-17
TheVinster Wrote:You think I'll dust you but I'm honestly in the same boat. I studied on-and-off for a a bit more than 2 years and never really took it seriously. I have only been just seriously studying for the past month and even then I've been lazy. Guess we'll see what happens! School starts tomorrow though and I have a math class so I hope it doesn't interfere too much. I hate math...All right, Vinster - I just registered for N2 at University of Washington. Let the games begin.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - TheVinster - 2012-09-17
gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:Sure thing. I've already registered for N2 and yesterday I ordered the New Kanzen Master listening comprehension for N2 book. I'll beat you! Just need to keep reading and cover my weaker areas such as listening.TheVinster Wrote:You think I'll dust you but I'm honestly in the same boat. I studied on-and-off for a a bit more than 2 years and never really took it seriously. I have only been just seriously studying for the past month and even then I've been lazy. Guess we'll see what happens! School starts tomorrow though and I have a math class so I hope it doesn't interfere too much. I hate math...All right, Vinster - I just registered for N2 at University of Washington. Let the games begin.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - gaiaslastlaugh - 2012-09-17
TheVinster Wrote:Sure thing. I've already registered for N2 and yesterday I ordered the New Kanzen Master listening comprehension for N2 book. I'll beat you! Just need to keep reading and cover my weaker areas such as listening.Yeah, I might pick that up at 紀伊国屋 this week. Between that, conversing w/friends, podcasts and TV, I'm hoping to buttress my listening skills in time for the test.
I also have the Unicom book for vocab/kanji, which seems to have a lot of great sample sentences in it as well.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - TheVinster - 2012-09-17
gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:新完全マスター books are so expensive it drives me insane. I met a Japanese girl in one of my classes for this quarter so hopefully I'll try speaking more in Japanese. I still lack so much confidence in my speaking that I almost always refuse to speak Japanese no matter what. It's a huge barrier for me to overcome. Nevertheless I hope to work on my listening skills too.TheVinster Wrote:Sure thing. I've already registered for N2 and yesterday I ordered the New Kanzen Master listening comprehension for N2 book. I'll beat you! Just need to keep reading and cover my weaker areas such as listening.Yeah, I might pick that up at 紀伊国屋 this week. Between that, conversing w/friends, podcasts and TV, I'm hoping to buttress my listening skills in time for the test.
I also have the Unicom book for vocab/kanji, which seems to have a lot of great sample sentences in it as well.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - ta12121 - 2012-09-17
I finally got all the books in the mail today. Now begins the studying. Hope everyone succeeds with the JLPT test this winter.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - gaiaslastlaugh - 2012-09-17
TheVinster Wrote:新完全マスター books are so expensive it drives me insane. I met a Japanese girl in one of my classes for this quarter so hopefully I'll try speaking more in Japanese. I still lack so much confidence in my speaking that I almost always refuse to speak Japanese no matter what. It's a huge barrier for me to overcome. Nevertheless I hope to work on my listening skills too.It's hard as hell. I've been pushing through it lately, and forcing myself to speak in 30 minute sessions at least one or twice a week. It helps that I live in Seattle and can make real-life friends, but I also use SharedTalk.com to find new partners. I've been using JSPEC and the Collocations book a lot to drill myself on speech patterns, and uncover new collocations to use when thinking in Japanese. Both have helped a lot.
Once you get past the fear and the stress, it's actually pretty cool to realize that you're making friends at least partially using a second language. Unfortunately, I still have to confront fear or stress every time I go to speak.
But I guess the only way over that is through it.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - Rina - 2012-09-17
I arrived to Japan a few days ago. Besides my usual "study", classes on language and culture, I'm also going to have a special N1 preparation class!
2012 JLPT Study Thread - gaiaslastlaugh - 2012-09-17
CarolinaCG Wrote:I arrived to Japan a few days ago. Besides my usual "study", classes on language and culture, I'm also going to have a special N1 preparation class!羨ましい！！
2012 JLPT Study Thread - gaiaslastlaugh - 2012-09-18
Hyperborea Wrote:Collocations - using opportunistically. I frequently ask myself during the day what I'm doing during the day, and when I can't find the correct collocations ("ガソリンを。。。を。。。何とか。。。"), I go digging for them. Once I find the right collocation, I try and integrate it into my Japanese thoughts. ("何をしてるの？" "車にガソリンを入れている。")gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:I've been using JSPEC and the Collocations book a lot to drill myself on speech patterns, and uncover new collocations to use when thinking in Japanese. Both have helped a lot.How are you using them? Are you just reading or do you do some sort of drills?
JSPEC - I sit down with this a couple of times a week and drill myself on patterns that I'm not using routinely in my speech. (たとえば, today was 所だ and -てはいけない）. I do the drills in the book, and then I try and think of some way I can incorporate the pattern into my speech. I use icecream's exercise of telling stories about myself and my experiences in Japanese, so I can usually find some way to use it. I also leaf through JSPEC and my grammar books after I've had a conversation and found myself stumbling over how to express a pattern of thought.
I had contemplated loading the JSPEC Excel s/s into an Anki deck, but I already have two decks, and I'd rather shoot myself in the face than make a third.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - warakawa - 2012-09-18
I have done 500 of my core2k so far and all RTK1, no grammar, no listening. Do you think I will pass N3 which I already paid for.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - SammyB - 2012-09-18
Hyperborea Wrote:I was using JSPEC for a while and entering all the sentences as I went in a Google spreadsheet (example sentences and then doing the exercise answers too) for moving into Anki. I got kind of distracted for a while and it's fallen by the wayside while I work on some more grammar.By the way, I believe there already is a completed spreadsheet.. somewhere.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - EratiK - 2012-09-18
SammyB Wrote:Yeah, that made a cool deck.Hyperborea Wrote:I was using JSPEC for a while and entering all the sentences as I went in a Google spreadsheet (example sentences and then doing the exercise answers too) for moving into Anki. I got kind of distracted for a while and it's fallen by the wayside while I work on some more grammar.By the way, I believe there already is a completed spreadsheet.. somewhere.
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=48330#pid48330
warakawa Wrote:I have done 500 of my core2k so far and all RTK1, no grammar, no listening. Do you think I will pass N3 which I already paid for.Not as you are, but you still got time to study grammar and vocab, maybe you can save it if you study earnestly.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - deanmaka - 2012-09-18
So... I passed 2kyuu in 2008 in Japan while studying abroad and took a verrrrry long break without studying much japanese until a few months ago. Been spending the last few weeks getting back to where I was and here I am gearing up for N1 in NYC. Definitely worried about the reading comprehension the most and listening the least. I'm doing a combination of things for the test... My attention span is about <---> big, so I change it up a lot.
My absolute main focus is just learning more kanji. I have a bit of a way to go. I have nihongo soumatome. I hate learning from lists, but parts of it are organized pretty well. Favorite app is KanjiBox. I'm basically going through quizzing/learning until my stats for N5-N1 are all fully green (if you use it, you'll know what I mean). It has a quiz mode and a study mode that I do on my commute to work usually. Almost done with N2 and well on my way with N1.
As for reading, I did the majority of nihongo soumatome... I've been mainly doing short articles CNN/Bloomberg on general topics. It's finally starting to get to the point where I feel like Im seeing the same kanji come up pretty regularly. I want to get atleast a few books. Listening, I try to watch atleast an hour of TV Japan ($25 a month is a little excessive) and I just started getting SBS Japanese podcasts... Podcasts seem like they are going to be very helpful for me. Grammar, I haven't really put much of any focus so far. I was hoping it would sort of fall into place from all the reading/listening and I would try to fill in the gaps closer to the test... which is pretty much now. Think I will go with Kanzen master based on what people are saying.
Anki... I've always found it cumbersome and that it took me too long to input things, but once I learned how to use it with rikai, I found it awesome. So I try to put all the stuff I learn from reading/listening/etc into my deck.
Not sure, if I'm learning fast enough at the moment to be ready for the test, but this has definitely been the best quality of learning that I have done so far. I felt like I had plateau'd for a while until recently, so I'm glad to making progress again with my Japanese... If anyone that has taken the test has a few suggestions for the test, I'm all ears... Thanks
2012 JLPT Study Thread - Rina - 2012-09-26
does any one any a good place to buy N1 books in Kyoto cheaper?
2012 JLPT Study Thread - rich_f - 2012-09-26
@CarolinaCG: If you're in Kyoto, and you're living there, why not just use Amazon.co.jp? Delivery in Japan should be free, and you could probably find used copies.
I wouldn't bother with Book Off. I never could find any JLPT prep books or anything like that there. (But it's great for other books.)
2012 JLPT Study Thread - nescio - 2012-09-26
warakawa Wrote:I have done 500 of my core2k so far and all RTK1, no grammar, no listening. Do you think I will pass N3 which I already paid for.wait what?
I've done RTK1, 1000 words of the core2K and a whole bunch of grammar (basic+essential in Tae Kim) and I'm not sure I'll be able to pass N4 which I registered to (though there are still 3 months until the exam so it shouldn't be hard by then, but no way I'll get even close to N3).
2012 JLPT Study Thread - gaiaslastlaugh - 2012-09-26
I bought 新完全マスター２級N2 a week or so ago. Quaked a bit when I realized it was entirely in Japanese, but it's very comprehensible. I'm into the second set of explanations/drills now, and really like it.
It's pretty neat reading explanations of Japanese grammar *in Japanese*. Maybe I'm making progress with this nonsense after all.
N2 feels like less of a stretch than it did a few months ago, but I'll definitely have to keep studying, reading and listening my 尻 off between now and December 2nd.nescio Wrote:I've done RTK1, 1000 words of the core2K and a whole bunch of grammar (basic+essential in Tae Kim) and I'm not sure I'll be able to pass N4 which I registered to (though there are still 3 months until the exam so it shouldn't be hard by then, but no way I'll get even close to N3).The message you read was from our old troll. It was about this point that I realized he was just trying to get a rise out of folks.
(Well, that and the "seduction artist" thread. Blech.)Sounds like you're in pretty good shape for N4, actually. Keep at it!
2012 JLPT Study Thread - TheVinster - 2012-09-26
gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:I bought 新完全マスター２級N2 a week or so ago. Quaked a bit when I realized it was entirely in Japanese, but it's very comprehensible. I'm into the second set of explanations/drills now, and really like it.I got my 聴解 book a few days ago and just started yesterday. I figure if I can do 5-10 pages a day I'll be done with it very quickly. It really is quite interesting reading the instructions in Japanese because I often have the wrong idea of what a word's definition is but then I see it in an explanatory context and I imagine what it'd be in English and I understand that word better. Also helps to fill in all those vocabulary gaps. Helps me realize how crappy my Japanese listening is, too!
It's pretty neat reading explanations of Japanese grammar *in Japanese*. Maybe I'm making progress with this nonsense after all.
After this book I think I'll get a book on particles as I have a lot of trouble with them. And I just started Summer Wars. Finished The Girl who Leapt through Time today and was pretty happy with myself until I started Summer Wars and the first page took me 20 minutes. @.@
2012 JLPT Study Thread - gaiaslastlaugh - 2012-09-26
TheVinster Wrote:I got my 聴解 book a few days ago and just started yesterday. I figure if I can do 5-10 pages a day I'll be done with it very quickly.Do you feel the listening book is worth the investment? My plan had just been to practice listening using アニメ, podcasts, and the ton of texts I have (including both volumes of READ REAL JAPANESE). I'm wondering if buying a specific ２級 listening guide is worth it on top of the other ２級 books I have.
TheVinster Wrote:After this book I think I'll get a book on particles as I have a lot of trouble with them. And I just started Summer Wars. Finished The Girl who Leapt through Time today and was pretty happy with myself until I started Summer Wars and the first page took me 20 minutes. @.@Yeah, I encounter that a lot. You find one thing you can read easily, then you pick up something else and you feel like an illiterate potato farmer.
I tried to read the Wikipedia article on 貧乏神が！ a few weeks back, and it was a death march. But today, I pulled up the Wiki article on お箸, and found it a rather easy and pleasant read. Language is funny like that.
I'd love to tackle 時をかける少女. I'm currently juggling between 乙一 (君にしか聞こえない) and ハリーポッターと不死鳥の騎士団, using Rikaisama to build out my Anki deck. I add 30 words to Anki daily, and will run out of words in about three weeks if I don't keep feeding the beast. Back in May, Harry was way too daunting a read for me even to think of tackling, so I feel like I'm making progress.
I like picking up things that have been laying around, and realizing I can grok them way more easily than I could even a few months back. I took a "break" last night and went back to reading 謎の彼女X. I added about 35 terms to Anki, but then realized that was after reading about 90-some pages and not pausing over any of the grammar. I got a little excited, so I picked up 鋼の錬金術師 to see what I could make of it. Still some unknown words and conjunctions, but I was able to read through about 10 pages rather casually with only a few minor gaps. I realized that I was successfully reading a lot of the new vocab I'd been reviewing in my Anki deck - words and expressions that had totally mystified me when I first bought the book.
Anyway, it was one of those "Holy shit I'm reading Japanese!!!" moments that made all of this hard work seem worth it.
2012 JLPT Study Thread - TheVinster - 2012-09-26
I'm hoping Summer Wars will open into an easier path very soon. I was reading the prologue and since it's setting the stage I'm getting a bunch of strange words as it describes the present day world it takes place it. However, once people start talking and it isn't all just descriptors I find it more accessible.
As for the listening book I think it's quite useful. Obviously there are many ways you can work this skill and I think for listening more than anything else you might as well just make the effort to listen to natural speech. That being said I enjoy that this book has the scripts and such. It came with two CDs which I've burned. Maybe I could send you the files if you don't care for the scripts and could use it as some easy and clear listening on your MP3. All I'd ask in return is to borrow the 文法 book when you're done, haha. That was definitely the one I wanted to buy the most. I assume you're working on that one now? How is it?