Hello, everybody. In December I took level N4 of the JLPT. It was my first time taking the exam. Unfortunately, I didn't pass. While I passed all sections of the exam (vocabulary -- A, reading comprehension -- B, listening -- B), my total score was not high enough to pass the exam. I found that I could have done better on the reading comprehension portion of the exam, and the listening section was really difficult for me.

I've realized through practicing for the exam and by taking the actual exam that my Japanese skills are currently uneven. I know about 800 kanji (including their readings), and I finished the Core 2000 deck and started the Core 6000 deck, so I had little difficulty with the vocabulary portion of the JLPT N4 exam (I knew almost every word and kanji in the vocabulary and reading comprehension sections). In fact, my vocabulary and kanji knowledge are at the JLPT N3 level; when I was taking practice exams for the JLPT N3 exam, I did very well on the vocabulary section of that level. However, my grammar skills and reading comprehension skills need improvement, and my listening comprehension needs a lot of improvement. I have a difficult time reading native Japanese materials due to the grammar, and I have a difficult time understanding spoken Japanese without subtitles.

I am considering purchasing a good upper-beginning/lower-intermediate textbook so that way I can fill in the gaps that I missed and have a stronger foundation before moving onto higher level material. I want to improve my Japanese such that I could pass Level N3 this December. What are some good textbooks given my level?

I'd do RTK for the kanji you don't know (maybe 2-4 weeks for you, refer to http://japaneselevelup.com/2012/11/09/it...the-kanji/), and then do Tae Kim or Japanese the Manga Way (these are both grammar books, 1-2 weeks), and then start reading a lot of easy native material. Alternatively you can not do RTK first, do Tae Kim or JtMW right away, and start reading right away; when you encounter an unknown kanji add it RTK style along with the vocab word in another deck — of course this is all assuming you're familiar with an SRS.

You have 2K+ vocab, but you're having trouble with basic reading comprehension because you likely never do it. You don't need a textbook or anything sanitized. You need to start reading. Your brain needs to get used to deconstructing real Japanese sentences.

linguae Wrote:I know about 800 kanji....I have a difficult time reading native Japanese materials due to the grammar

Are you sure it's grammar, and not too few Kanji and lack of practice? I understand that you know plenty of Kanji for the JLPT N3. But native material is not the JLPT N3.

Knowing a language is not the same as knowing every word and grammatical rule, you know. Knowledge of a language comes only with practice. You can only read if you practice reading for a long time, and you can only understand if you listen to the language for a long time. Much longer than it takes to learn the individual symbols, words, and grammatical structures.

No practice = no comprehension. Doesn't matter how many words and how much grammar you know, and it doesn't matter how perfectly you know them. You could know them both better than a Japanese college professor, and you still won't be able to read or understand the language. It's like sports. Take me, for instance. I know everything there is to know about professional baseball. I know the rules, I know the approach to hitting, I know the approach to pitching, I know, in great detail, how coaches teach kids to do both. I'm a massive fan. I can even pitch a little, simply because I'm athletic. But I couldn't hit a ball with a bat if my life depended on it. I know exactly how I'm supposed to do it, but I can't actually do it, because I haven't spent hundreds or thousands of hours doing it, growing up. (that's how many hours of practice is going to take to become fluent in Japanese, btw: thousands - not study time, mind you, but practice of the language; it's up to you whether it's gonna be mostly enjoyable time or not)

Also, there's one important difference between Japanese and the average European language: the Kanji. With Japanese, you need to learn the Kanji before being able to practice the language itself (except for listening, but listening without reading makes for much slower progress - in any language, but especially Japanese). With only 800 Kanji, I find it hard to believe that you could ever read native text, even if you knew everything there is to know about Japanese grammar. TLDR version: No 1500-2000 Kanji, no practice. No practice, no comprehension.

Stansfield123 Wrote:

linguae Wrote:I know about 800 kanji....I have a difficult time reading native Japanese materials due to the grammar

Are you sure it's grammar, and not too few Kanji and lack of practice? I understand that you know plenty of Kanji for the JLPT N3. But native material is not the JLPT N3.

Knowing a language is not the same as knowing every word and grammatical rule, you know. Knowledge of a language comes only with practice. You can only read if you practice reading for a long time, and you can only understand if you listen to the language for a long time. Much longer than it takes to learn the individual symbols, words, and grammatical structures.

No practice = no comprehension. Doesn't matter how many words and how much grammar you know, and it doesn't matter how perfectly you know them. You could know them both better than a Japanese college professor, and you still won't be able to read or understand the language. It's like sports. Take me, for instance. I know everything there is to know about professional baseball. I know the rules, I know the approach to hitting, I know the approach to pitching, I know, in great detail, how coaches teach kids to do both. I'm a massive fan. I can even pitch a little, simply because I'm athletic. But I couldn't hit a ball with a bat if my life depended on it. I know exactly how I'm supposed to do it, but I can't actually do it, because I haven't spent hundreds or thousands of hours doing it, growing up. (that's how many hours of practice is going to take to become fluent in Japanese, btw: thousands - not study time, mind you, but practice of the language; it's up to you whether it's gonna be mostly enjoyable time or not)

Also, there's one important difference between Japanese and the average European language: the Kanji. With Japanese, you need to learn the Kanji before being able to practice the language itself (except for listening, but listening without reading makes for much slower progress - in any language, but especially Japanese). With only 800 Kanji, I find it hard to believe that you could ever read native text, even if you knew everything there is to know about Japanese grammar. TLDR version: No 1500-2000 Kanji, no practice. No practice, no comprehension.

He actually doesn't need 1500-2000 kanji to start reading. If he does RTK while skipping non-2001KO kanji then the first 1100 kanji he covers will account for about 90% (more efficient way to do kanji) of what he encounters reading (at first) assuming he isn't reading specialist material; naturally he'll want to add more as he goes along, this is something I want to point out for the sake of his motivation in that he could be reading something like the よつば! manga very soon which I think would do wonders for his comprehension, but aside from this I agree.

If you're interested in an intermediate level textbook, I recommend "Tobira". I have gone through almost the whole book and it has a good number of interesting reading passages, unlike some other textbooks. I believe one would rank it about N3 level. After using it, I'm now going through the grammar points in Kanzen Master 2 kyuu.

ryuudou Wrote:He actually doesn't need 1500-2000 kanji to start reading. If he does RTK while skipping non-2001KO kanji then the first 1100 kanji he covers will account for about 90% (more efficient way to do kanji) of what he encounters reading (at first) assuming he isn't reading specialist material; naturally he'll want to add more as he goes along, this is something I want to point out for the sake of his motivation in that he could be reading something like the よつば! manga very soon which I think would do wonders for his comprehension, but aside from this I agree.

My thinking, for the 1500 minimum, was that maybe those 800 Kanji the OP knows aren't all 2001KO kanji. So, if he were to learn those 1100, it might go up to 1500.

But yeah, I'm not going to claim to know better than the people who made that list of 1100 Kanji, because I don't. If you say that they make up for 90% of Kanji in light texts, I accept that. I'm in no position to argue, and have no reason to doubt it.

I will say that I'm still happy that I did the full RtK1, and would still do it if I was starting anew. The fact that I know 95% of Kanji I encounter, instead of just 90%, is something I think helps me significantly. Having to spend twice as much time as I am now on looking up, learning, and adding new Kanji to Anki, while trying to read stuff, would be quite a problem for me. And then there's the obvious benefit, of knowing these extra 1000 Kanji (at the cost of about 75 hours of study time, I would estimate).

Stansfield123 Wrote:

ryuudou Wrote:He actually doesn't need 1500-2000 kanji to start reading. If he does RTK while skipping non-2001KO kanji then the first 1100 kanji he covers will account for about 90% (more efficient way to do kanji) of what he encounters reading (at first) assuming he isn't reading specialist material; naturally he'll want to add more as he goes along, this is something I want to point out for the sake of his motivation in that he could be reading something like the よつば! manga very soon which I think would do wonders for his comprehension, but aside from this I agree.

My thinking, for the 1500 minimum, was that maybe those 800 Kanji the OP knows aren't all 2001KO kanji. So, if he were to learn those 1100, it might go up to 1500.

But yeah, I'm not going to claim to know better than the people who made that list of 1100 Kanji, because I don't. If you say that they make up for 90% of Kanji in light texts, I accept that. I'm in no position to argue, and have no reason to doubt it.

I will say that I'm still happy that I did the full RtK1, and would still do it if I was starting anew. The fact that I know 95% of Kanji I encounter, instead of just 90%, is something I think helps me significantly. Having to spend twice as much time as I am now on looking up, learning, and adding new Kanji to Anki, while trying to read stuff, would be quite a problem for me. And then there's the obvious benefit, of knowing these extra 1000 Kanji (at the cost of about 75 hours of study time, I would estimate).

Of course. I wasn't suggesting that he stop at 1100, but I was just suggesting a slightly different route that could get him reading faster by prioritizing different things; as his level advances he would need to add the rest of the Joyo kanji and likely more. It's basically what Nukemarine outlines in his study thread.