I thought it would be nice to create a thread for the 2015 JLPT N3. I'm not sure whether I'll take it in December, but I'm certainly working towards it now. I thought it would be nice to create a thread just for this, so that people who are considering taking the exam can get motivation and share what is and is not working for them in terms of exam prep.

Why bother with the JLPT at all?
Well, having a goal helps to focus your studying, and you'll learn lots of useful vocab and grammar along the way. In terms of how JLPT certification correlates with real-world language skills, you can check out the Official JLPT Can-do List. The Summary of Linguistic Competence Required for Each Level is also a good read.

In more personal terms, I've found that 3 months after passing the N4 I can finally read some NHK Easy News articles for the first time. I'm also hoping to read my first manga and watch my first anime this year - we'll see how that goes.

Why create a thread?
Well, as with most JLPT exams, most people fail. You can visit this page and click "details" to see the pass rate for each exam each year. For example, only 37% of the people who took N3 the last time it was offered passed.

Also, I barely passed the N4 last year (like the N3, only 37% of the people who took it passed). I think that if I had started my exam prep earlier on, I would have had a much easier time with it. I'm hoping that by starting this thread now, and taking the journey with others, I can be more prepared for the JLPT this time around.

Do you have any advice to offer?
Well, so far I've found a few resources to help pass the exam. The ones most mentioned here are using Anki for reinforcing vocab and grammar and RtK (Lite) for learning Kanji. I've also recently started taking online lessons at JOI and italki.

I also have some great books. For vocab I liked Nihongo N3 Sou matome so far. And for kanji I like Shin Kanzen Master.

[RawToast]

I'll take part in your next challenge ariariari

There are a few days left for summer registration, but I am thinking of saving my money for the winter exam instead. I can then invest the £70 for more time on iTalki, since I am enjoying the experience. Plus my active skills are miles behind my passive skills.

You should check out Sou Matome's N3 grammar workbook/guide. It only uses vocabulary from the N4 books, so you can pick up the grammar without your vocabulary holding you back.

Oh, that "Can-do list" was interesting to look at. I found it strange that in most criteria there was little difference between the N3 and N4 students.

ガンバレ！

Glad to have you aboard! I suspect it will just be you and me for now, but come december this thread will be pretty active.

I actually have that grammar book, but just haven't used it yet. It was part of my big buying binge in December when I was in Tokyo.

For me the biggest shock with the "can do" list is how far N1 is from truly being bilingual.

Here's what I'm working on now.

*Today I finished the first day's exercise for the Sou Matome vocab book. I had added in the vocab thruought the week. But today I finished adding in those cards, and so I finished the exercises too. I also created cards for the day 2 vocab, but left those 50+ cards as "unseen". I'll probably add them in the coming week.

*I signed up for another 5 JOI sessions, so I get to add my grammar chops. After I signed up they sent me an email saying "Let us know if you have any suggestions, no matter how small." So I replied and said "It would be great if we could get graded homework."

*During the week I'll have another meeting with my conversation group. I'll probably bring this article about US-America natural gas exports. It should be a fun discussion - I like the foreign policy stuff.

Hi, thanks for making this thread. I'm also aiming for the N3 this year. I actually did the N5 in December (didn't want to risk N4), but ended up with a near perfect score, so I'm regretting it a little...

Anyways, よろしくお願いします！

[RawToast]

Quote:I actually did the N5 in December (didn't want to risk N4), but ended up with a near perfect score, so I'm regretting it a little...

I was the same when I took N5. It was a choice between passing N5 or a 50/50 chance at passing the N4.

Quote:*I signed up for another 5 JOI sessions, so I get to add my grammar chops. After I signed up they sent me an email saying "Let us know if you have any suggestions, no matter how small." So I replied and said "It would be great if we could get graded homework."

Personally I wish the package discounts weren't so heavily weighted to buying 30+ lessons. I would like to try JOI again, but I feel I must pay for 20 or 30 lessons at a time -- which I am not sure I want to commit to!

I guess you could use their correction service for homework. Lang-8 does a good job at that though...

Your plans sound sensible. Anki for vocab and JOI for grammar and some speaking practice.

I might as well put down what I am doing:

* Using Anki for vocab using sentences with native audio. I am using Morphman across Nayr's decks, Core, and a Minna No Nihongo deck I found. I am also adding sentences I struggled with in my iTalki lessons (using TTS for the audio). I don't bother with any cards tagged by Morphman as "", unless they're in the Core 5k deck.

I'll probably end up with ~4000 sentences in Anki by the test. I imagine nearer the test I'll have to find a decent N3 vocab deck to focus on.

* I am practice reading above my level on iTalki, this is more enjoyable than struggling with a dictionary. My teacher is very strict on pitch accent, which is great I am now taking a mid-week lesson, thanks to daylight saving time!

* I mess around on Lang-8. I try to ensure I write something everyweek (I did manage 15 days in a row!) I tend to correct more than write, but that provides more reading practice. I seem to be the strictest person on Lang-8, hopefully people will be strict back >

* Zooming through the Sou Matoume N4 grammar book that I bought and never opened. I try to complete 4 'lessons' a week, as it is pretty easy. Hopefully I will finish in 8-10 weeks! After that I guess it's Kanzen Master or the N3 Sou Matoume grammar book.

Welcome Kenji!

ariari - any objections if we make this a general "JLPT 2015 Prep" thread? I feel we all might benefit from one another's plans and advice, regardless of level.

RawToast Wrote:* Zooming through the Sou Matoume N4 grammar book that I bought and never opened. I try to complete 4 'lessons' a week, as it is pretty easy. Hopefully I will finish in 8-10 weeks! After that I guess it's Kanzen Master or the N3 Sou Matoume grammar book.

I love the Kanzen Master N3 grammar book. I also have the Sou Matome reading book, but overall it felt average in comparison.

EratiK Wrote:

RawToast Wrote:* Zooming through the Sou Matoume N4 grammar book that I bought and never opened. I try to complete 4 'lessons' a week, as it is pretty easy. Hopefully I will finish in 8-10 weeks! After that I guess it's Kanzen Master or the N3 Sou Matoume grammar book.

I love the Kanzen Master N3 grammar book. I also have the Sou Matome reading book, but overall it felt average in comparison.

The Kanzen Master book's questions are really challenging and make you think about the differences between the grammatical constructs being used. It's good practice. The questions in Sou Matome, even in the N1 book, are pretty basic.

[RawToast]

Sounds like I will dust off my Kanzen Master N3 grammar workbook after all I seem to have a wealth of textbooks that are gathering dust. Personally, I struggle to get myself to do the exercises -- this is independent of the difficulty. I've found asking a teacher on iTalki to set homework based on a workbook does the trick. This also worked for writing, I barely ever wrote anything on Lang-8 before being set writing homework on iTalki.

I guess I feel I can let myself down, but never others.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:ariari - any objections if we make this a general "JLPT 2015 Prep" thread? I feel we all might benefit from one another's plans and advice, regardless of level.

That's a good question. My gut tells me that if we open up the thread to all JLPT prep then a lot of the lower-level students will be shy to post. When I was prepping for N4 I found it super hard to find other similarly-levelled people to chat with. Maybe we should aim for one thread per test?

ariariari Wrote:

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:ariari - any objections if we make this a general "JLPT 2015 Prep" thread? I feel we all might benefit from one another's plans and advice, regardless of level.

That's a good question. My gut tells me that if we open up the thread to all JLPT prep then a lot of the lower-level students will be shy to post. When I was prepping for N4 I found it super hard to find other similarly-levelled people to chat with. Maybe we should aim for one thread per test?

Mmm, that's a good point. On the other hand, I don't know that I'd want five separate threads, and I don't think five separate threads will be very highly utilized.

Maybe this thread for N5-N3, and another thread for N2-N1?

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

ariariari Wrote:

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:ariari - any objections if we make this a general "JLPT 2015 Prep" thread? I feel we all might benefit from one another's plans and advice, regardless of level.

That's a good question. My gut tells me that if we open up the thread to all JLPT prep then a lot of the lower-level students will be shy to post. When I was prepping for N4 I found it super hard to find other similarly-levelled people to chat with. Maybe we should aim for one thread per test?

Mmm, that's a good point. On the other hand, I don't know that I'd want five separate threads, and I don't think five separate threads will be very highly utilized.

Maybe this thread for N5-N3, and another thread for N2-N1?

My gut tells me that even if it were just me and rawtoast chatting for the rest of the year, we'd be able to fill this thread to overflowing with milestones and tips and tricks and disappointments on the road to the December N3 test. So far it's been a very different experience for me than prepping for the N4, so I think it's worth breaking it out.

You're going to N1 this December, right? Why not try to create an N1 thread (or N1-N2 thread if you like, or even a general JLPT thread) and see how it goes? Personally, I kinda like the camaraderie of having a thread with people who are in the same boat as me.

Tonight I have my conversation group. Luckily enough, I can actually read today's NHK Easy News, which makes things easier:

ドイツの飛行機ひこうきの事故じこ　副操縦士ふくそうじゅうしは目めの病気びょうきだった

No surprise that I didn't know 副操縦士. But with rikaichan the whole article wasn't a problem at all. Looking forward to reading it outloud and discussing it with some native speakers tonight!

ariariari Wrote:You're going to N1 this December, right? Why not try to create an N1 thread (or N1-N2 thread if you like, or even a general JLPT thread) and see how it goes? Personally, I kinda like the camaraderie of having a thread with people who are in the same boat as me.

Done.

[RawToast]

ariariari Wrote:Tonight I have my conversation group. Luckily enough, I can actually read today's NHK Easy News, which makes things easier:

ドイツの飛行機ひこうきの事故じこ　副操縦士ふくそうじゅうしは目めの病気びょうきだった

No surprise that I didn't know 副操縦士. But with rikaichan the whole article wasn't a problem at all. Looking forward to reading it outloud and discussing it with some native speakers tonight!

Urgh, I hate reading out loud; but it must be done! Once you've read a few NHK Easy News articles you'll notice they use a very restricted subset of grammar. Still they have plenty of long sentences and useful words to learn.

I might try a reading a NHK News as part of a lesson on iTalki. I usually read it at "work"

You can also try http://www.coscom.co.jp/newsweather/news/index.html for an alternative news source. You can only see one article without paying, but that should be enough. Outside of 'Level 3' I don't think the materials are worth buying for the news access (for an N3 student).

I like the "post your stats" thing at the Does anyone wanna have a race? thread, so I'll do that here too. Once a month seems like a good cadence.

mature vocab cards: 3,597 (today) - 3,466 (end of February) = +131
mature grammar cards: 299 - 270 = +29

So my vocab and grammar both increased quite a bit this month. Though I'm still not sure if they increased at a fast enough pace for the exam.

Do I have any goals for April that I want to publish? Hmm.

Vocab:
*Add 1 lesson a week of vocab from my N3 Vocab book.
*Stretch goal: Finish the first "week" (7 lessons).

Grammar:
*Finish my remaining 4 JOI lessons. Create flashcards for the grammar points in those lessons and add them to Anki.
*Stretch goal: Go thru my Genki 2 textbook and create flashcards for the points that I have forgotten or am rusty on.

Reading comprehension and conversation:
*Continue going to my language group and bringing NHK Easy News articles to discuss.

[RawToast]

Yesterday, I tried some of the listening exercises from the Genki workbook -- I couldn't believe I actually understood them completely. My listening has always been weak, so I was very happy I have the 毎日の聞き取り50日 books and I have been told that if you complete them you should be ready for N3. I'll go over them at some point (my bookshelf is a wealth of unread books!)

I had a lesson at 6pm here in the UK, which has 2am in Japan. I couldn't believe my tutor normally wakes up at 2am top get ready for work by 4am! I

My stats for the month (2nd) are below. Note that I only use sentence cards, but I need to find out how to extract the vocabulary count. I figure I need to get to around 3000 cards before the exam.

Vocab:
Mature: 1062 (92.22% correct)
Young+Learn: 308 (87.16%)
Total: 1370
Unseen: 140

Kanji:
472 total unique kanji.
Grade 1: 58 of 80 (72.5%).
Grade 2: 99 of 160 (61.9%).
Grade 3: 85 of 200 (42.5%).
Grade 4: 67 of 200 (33.5%).
Grade 5: 41 of 185 (22.2%).
Grade 6: 35 of 181 (19.3%).
JuniorHS: 69 of 934 (7.4%).

I need to get round to modifying the plugin to use JLPT levels, it should be pretty easy.


Plans for April:

iTalki:
* I found a cheap teacher who used to work at a cram school. She is available in the evening (in Europe), so if my lesson on Friday goes well I might book 3 lessons a week to 'cram' my way through Genki. I can read all the passages within Genki 1/2, but I struggle to produce them. I struggle with the exercises within chapter 5; despite all the reading sections and questions being below my reading level (I could probably make a start reading Tobira). My usual teacher believes I just need to get used to making the sounds.
* I need to stop taking lessons with the non-native teacher I was using. I was using her to get lessons during the week (timezones suck). I think it's time to stop as even I can hear problems with her pronunciation.

Reading:
* My usual 厳しい先生 wants to practice reading (out loud) with me. I have suggested we try NHK Easy News in our next lesson, since I can read the articles with Rikaisama.

Vocab/Grammar:
* Complete the 140 cards I have outstanding from Core5k/6k.
* I am going to plow through the Genki Annihilation decks (thanks Nayr!) I need to get these out of the way as the cards are not tagged, but are ordered by due date. Once the deck is done I'll can let Morphman parse the cards. I'll probably add ~200 cards to complete Genki 1 and change the Note Type for the Genki 2 cards.
* That totals ~350 cards, which if I keep that up each month I think I will be fine (~2450 additional cards by December. So that will put my total at ~3800)

Conversation:
* I am going to have a my first exchange this weekend (it's a bank holiday in England, so I can stay up). Needless to say I am dreading this!

Writing:
* Try to post ~5 things to Lang8 (one a week). This should be easy enough!

[RawToast]

Since my last post was ginormous, I'll double-post to comment on your goals ariariari

ariariari Wrote:mature vocab cards: 3,597 (today) - 3,466 (end of February) = +131
mature grammar cards: 299 - 270 = +29

So my vocab and grammar both increased quite a bit this month. Though I'm still not sure if they increased at a fast enough pace for the exam.

~3500 vocab items sounds like you already have the vocabulary for the test. I guess you have a lot of words that are not liekly to be in the test?

ariariari Wrote:*Stretch goal: Go thru my Genki 2 textbook and create flashcards for the points that I have forgotten or am rusty on.

Try using Nayr's Genki Annihilation deck for this. If it's no longer on AnkiWeb, he's active on here. Like his Core5k deck it has native audio. The deck is not tagged, but the cards are typically in chapter order.

[RawToast]

I went a bit crazy on iTalki today, but it can't hurt!

http://img42.com/5UZoE

I found a nice teacher for only £4/$6 an hour, that's less than minimum wage here! She actually offers lessons I can take during the week, which has been hard... So I've booked 2 hours a week with her to get some more practice, and for the next few weeks I will be doing 4.5 hours on iTalki xD

My birthday is coming up this month, I think I'll be leaving 'gift card' hints...

RawToast Wrote:Since my last post was ginormous, I'll double-post to comment on your goals ariariari

ariariari Wrote:mature vocab cards: 3,597 (today) - 3,466 (end of February) = +131
mature grammar cards: 299 - 270 = +29

So my vocab and grammar both increased quite a bit this month. Though I'm still not sure if they increased at a fast enough pace for the exam.

~3500 vocab items sounds like you already have the vocabulary for the test. I guess you have a lot of words that are not liekly to be in the test?

ariariari Wrote:*Stretch goal: Go thru my Genki 2 textbook and create flashcards for the points that I have forgotten or am rusty on.

Try using Nayr's Genki Annihilation deck for this. If it's no longer on AnkiWeb, he's active on here. Like his Core5k deck it has native audio. The deck is not tagged, but the cards are typically in chapter order.

I don't know. Don't forget that each "note" generates 2 "cards". Here are my two biggest decks:

Minna No Nihongo I: 1,960 cards
Genki 2: 1,115 cards

So if I knew them both completely, I'd be up to 3,075 cards. That probably covers most of N4. And my N3 book says that there's another 1,200 words (2,400 cards) for N3.

I will look into Nayr's Genki Annihilation deck. So far I'm getting a lot of value by creating my own sentences for grammar, and I think that a pre-made deck might help me to speed it up.

RawToast Wrote:I went a bit crazy on iTalki today, but it can't hurt!

http://img42.com/5UZoE

I found a nice teacher for only £4/$6 an hour, that's less than minimum wage here! She actually offers lessons I can take during the week, which has been hard until now. So I've booked 2 hours a week with her to get some more practice, so for the next few weeks I will be doing 4.5 hours on iTalki xD

My birthday is coming up this month, I think I'll be leaving 'gift card' hints when I speak to my family

Hello. If it's not too much trouble would you mind reporting back to let us know how you find her lessons? £4ph is an absolute steal for even a half-decent language teacher, she might be just what I'm after.

Thought I'd post to let people know that I just bought my first Japanese manga. I asked the clerk for the easiest Japanese language one she had, and she gave me ドラエモン #1.

Man, there are a lot of words I don't know!

So I just finished the first story in Doraemon #1 and I thought the list of new vocab I encountered might be of interest to people on this thread:

未来
はるばる
運命
孫
首つり
予言

It's also always funny to learn new vocab that's just loan words:
ロボット
タイムマシン

Oh, Doraemon has kanji?

Btw, I'm also will be taking N3 this July. This is my first time taking JLPT test, I hope I'll be able to do it just fine.

One thing I'm really worried about is my listening. I tend to lose focus easily. Even in my native language too sometimes.