vosmiura Wrote:I was wondering, leosmith, how do you feel about your Japanese progress a year after studying JFE?I finished in April (7 months ago), but that's splitting hairs. I'm very satisfied with JFE, and feel it teaches all the basic grammar very well. That being said, I have to admit that my own ability isn't where I'd like it to be. But it's not the fault of JFE.
After finishing JFE, I put my Japanese studies on hold. The only thing I did was supermemo flashcards. The reason for that was to study Mandarin full time, which prepared me for my trip to China in August. To make a really really long story short, without picking up Japanese again, I studied Thai full time in Thailand from mid September to late October. Finally, I've made it back to Japan, and I'm trying to revive my Japanese.
Grammar is very hard for me. If I'm not immersed, and don't use it after learning it, I forget it. Doing flashcards is better than nothing, listening and watching video helps, and doing audio drills like I made for JFE is even better. But I still need to be actually speaking the grammar regularly before I own it.
My big improvement over the last time I was in Japan: provided I know the vocabulary, I can read and understand newspaper articles (the grammar is usually pretty basic). The same goes with a lot of TV, and normal conversation. Unfortunately, I'm still lacking lots of basic vocabulary, so TV and Newspapers are still a pain.
The grammar in novels, at least the ones I've been checking out, is much more complicated, and will require additional study. It's mostly a question of recognizing clauses in extremely long sentences.
So I'm not where I wanted to be, but under the circumstances, it's understandable.