Alyks, remember that fluency is not just being able to understand every single word in FF7. It's being able to talk fluently, like a native, to Japanese people. If you can do that in 18 months, you're probably the fastest learner of Japanese in the whole world. I suggest lowering your goals a bit. It isn't odd at all that the first month gave you lots of progress, the start is the easiest part. Effective learning will just get slower and slower as you get better.

I think people are putting WAY too much faith into AJATT. The sentence method is a great way of learning vocabulary and immersion is common sense, but AJATT won't make you fluent in Japanese in 18 months. Of course, that depends on what you mean by fluency though.

alyks Wrote:Dude, AJATT guy? Anybody? This isn't a new idea. Intensive programs, the hell? Formal instruction sucks. If I stuck to formal instruction I'd be getting nowhere fast. I take a Japanese class at college, and you know what? I'm constantly irritated because it takes time away from my normal Japanese self study.

An American college course in Japanese is NOT to be compared to a 2 year intensive course in Japanese in Japan, trust me on that. Colleges teach Japanese in an academic sense, in Japan the studies are focused 100% on usefulness.

Alyks, I say keep at it. Cause even if that cool ass goal is not met, you'll be closer than many who did not have that goal at all.

Let's see, you already have 2000+ kanji memorized not only in writing, but in On yomi. You did that with your own method utilizing variants on Heisig, De Roo, Kanji Town that you called the Movie Method (which I am flirting with using now). That right there helps turn Japanese into learning by reading. You utilize immersion, sentence method, mining, etc.

Even if you don't meet Tobberoth's definition of fluency in 18 months, I get the feeling many a Japanese will say otherwise (and in a sincere way) at that time. Have your big goals, have your smaller goals, keep track of your progress, update us on your method and results (hey, what may be obvious to you may be an eye opener to us).

Tobberoth Wrote:Alyks, remember that fluency is not just being able to understand every single word in FF7. It's being able to talk fluently, like a native, to Japanese people. If you can do that in 18 months, you're probably the fastest learner of Japanese in the whole world. I suggest lowering your goals a bit. It isn't odd at all that the first month gave you lots of progress, the start is the easiest part. Effective learning will just get slower and slower as you get better.

I think people are putting WAY too much faith into AJATT. The sentence method is a great way of learning vocabulary and immersion is common sense, but AJATT won't make you fluent in Japanese in 18 months. Of course, that depends on what you mean by fluency though.

I think you have WAY too little faith in me. Don't come on here and tell me it can't be done. Nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to here you say it can't be done, because it can be done. If you don't want to here it, why don't you go over to the TheJapanesepage where they like to tell people it's impossible. Too negative, too negative. Do NOT come up here and say things like that.

I am NOT lowering my goals because some negative guy comes up and tells me I can't do it when I clearly will be able to.

alyks Wrote:I think you have WAY too little faith in me. Don't come on here and tell me it can't be done. Nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to here you say it can't be done, because it can be done. If you don't want to here it, why don't you go over to the TheJapanesepage where they like to tell people it's impossible. Too negative, too negative. Do NOT come up here and say things like that.

I am NOT lowering my goals because some negative guy comes up and tells me I can't do it when I clearly will be able to.

Nobody here was saying that it's impossible to reach native level fluency. However, I don't think you should be surprised when saying that you "clearly will be able to" achieve this goal in 18 months arouses skepticism. Even the AJATT guy doesn't seem to have been able to accomplish this precise goal; rather, he got his Japanese good enough to secure a job. Furthermore, he seems to be the single example of someone who was able to pull that off. It may be that you will do the same, but the problem is that you are not currently in a position to evaluate whether your pace will allow you to accomplish this goal in 18 months. Either way, you will no doubt have learned a lot of Japanese and should 18 months prove too short you will be in a good position to use somewhat more time to achieve your goal efficiently. However, as long as you are determined to learn Japanese regardless of whether 18 months is sufficient, perhaps you should view your efforts more as an experiment. Many of us on this forum would be pleased to see you succeed, but even assuming the feasibility of your goal it seems more like an outcome that has some moderate probability rather than something that is 100% guaranteed to succeed.

alyks Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Alyks, remember that fluency is not just being able to understand every single word in FF7. It's being able to talk fluently, like a native, to Japanese people. If you can do that in 18 months, you're probably the fastest learner of Japanese in the whole world. I suggest lowering your goals a bit. It isn't odd at all that the first month gave you lots of progress, the start is the easiest part. Effective learning will just get slower and slower as you get better.

I think people are putting WAY too much faith into AJATT. The sentence method is a great way of learning vocabulary and immersion is common sense, but AJATT won't make you fluent in Japanese in 18 months. Of course, that depends on what you mean by fluency though.

I think you have WAY too little faith in me. Don't come on here and tell me it can't be done. Nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to here you say it can't be done, because it can be done. If you don't want to here it, why don't you go over to the TheJapanesepage where they like to tell people it's impossible. Too negative, too negative. Do NOT come up here and say things like that.

I am NOT lowering my goals because some negative guy comes up and tells me I can't do it when I clearly will be able to.

It isn't about me being negative, it's about a guy who has studied Japanese for 5 years saying one shouldn't expect to go from knowing nothing to knowing tons in a small period of time and you responding that you plan on going from slighty above beginner to NATIVE fluency in 18 months. Someone had to point out how you're allowed to think that, but it's hardly realistic. I never called you an idiot or anything, so I don't see what you have to be offended about. I just think your confidence in doing something no one else has done might not be so great to force on other beginners of Japanese.

"when I clearly will be able to." is not something you should be saying after studying Japanese for such a short time. Come back when you have reached native fluency in 18 months, THEN you can say how it's clearly possible and laugh at us "non believers". Right now, you have no proof except the fact that you have been making good progress in a month. I could learn to play a guitar 10 times as good as I do now in a month if I really tried, I still wouldn't claim to be able to become the best guitar player in existance in 3 months because of it, and I wouldn't tell other guitar beginners to do so either, because progress is always faster in the start. How much doubling ones ability is depends on how much ability the person had to start with.

All I did was recommend you lower your goals, because they simply aren't realistic. I didn't say you HAVE to lower them. I never even said you wouldn't be able to reach native fluency in 18 months, I just said it would be an amazing feat. I don't see what you're being defensive about.

Well, I'd had fingers pointed to me and theirs owners calling me a lier after I said I did 40% in a past paper of the jlpt 2 test after 6 months of study. (notice that you need 60% to actualy pass the exam)

The same bunch of people got angry at me because I said I was an "intermediate" student. For them I should be "advanced" or, at least, "upper intermediate".

What is my level?
I cant talk with japanese people and I can't understand well anime or music. But I can use a kokugojiten with noth much effort.

What is my goal?
2009 JLPT 1kyu JPLT.

Am I a genious? I like this train of thought, but my anki records do not agree. Comparing to other people here, I seem to forget a bit more.

But the constant belief that I will be able to do it drives me forward. And I wont stop until I get there.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Well, I'd had fingers pointed to me and theirs owners calling me a lier after I said I did 40% in a past paper of the jlpt 2 test after 6 months of study. (notice that you need 60% to actualy pass the exam)

The same bunch of people got angry at me because I said I was an "intermediate" student. For them I should be "advanced" or, at least, "upper intermediate".

What is my level?
I cant talk with japanese people and I can't understand well anime or music. But I can use a kokugojiten with noth much effort.

What is my goal?
2009 JLPT 1kyu JPLT.

Am I a genious? I like this train of thought, but my anki records do not agree. Comparing to other people here, I seem to forget a bit more.

But the constant belief that I will be able to do it drives me forward. And I wont stop until I get there.

40% after 6 months of study is very very impressive, and you should be very proud of that score. I would say you're intermediate level (but as I've said in other topics, it's really hard to put such labels on peoples skill because not only are we good at different things, we're also judged differently in different situations. According to the people who make JLPT, JLPT2 is intermediate. According to me, it's advanced. According to many people who aren't studying as effectivly as we do on this site, it's Upper advanced.)

I have the same goal as you (JLPT1 in 2009) and while I've studied more than you (already passed JLPT2) I wouldn't be suprised if you pass it and I don't. 40% in 6 months is testament that you have both the motivation and the ability to progress that fast.

I've read people talk about Khatzumoto (is this his real name?) and AJATT a lot on these forums. My views on the whole thing would probably be quite controversial on these boards, as many hold his method in such a high regard, so I'll bite my tongue. What I will say however, is that if he did accomplish what he said he did; almost fluency in 18 months was it? Then he is the exception and not the rule. Learning a language like Japanese to fluency is not something that can be done by learning methods/sentence methods/mnemonic methods/any "method". I'm not saying it can't be done and I agree that sentences can work great for people.

IMO the best way to achieve fluency in such a short time would be: To live in Japan - Be in quite a good, intensive Japanese course and constantly be USING Japanese and only Japanese. Talking only to Japanese people, and being disconnected from your first language completely. Even this way, I would be impressed if even a Korean/Chinese person achieves fluency in 18 months and if they do, again, they are the exception and not the rule.

Maybe my idea of fluency is different than others. I don't consider tests or exams to be measures of it either. It's highly subjective. For me, fluency would be to go a whole week, watching movies, talking to people, writing in the language and the whole time never making a mistake and never coming across a word/phrase you don't understand. I will flat out say, you can't do this in 18 months without living in Japan. There's a difference between being negative and being realistic. AJATT can't be done if you don't live in Japan and live with your family. You may tell yourself it's AJATT, but it's not.

I finished RTK in 21 days and was told I did it half assed if I did it so fast. Since then I reset every card and have most of my cards heading into box 4 with the most fails on a card being 2, and even then only 2 cards have that. Doing something quickly is not doing it half assed. It shows dedication and strong will and if you do achieve fluency in 18 months without living in Japan then I will take back every word I have said here. However, as it stands now I think what you are saying is belittling the intricacy of a beautiful language and language acquisition as a whole.

That's why I like to call it the "sentences method", not Ajatt. Because I end up "doing" japanese only in ~25% of my wake time.

As you go on with it, you'll notice it is not a magic formula. It it is a daily struggle to find what you are strong and what you need to work on. It is not something that you follow exacly and will work. You have to figure it out.

I've seen native spanish speakers that live here in brazil that speak horrible portuguese. I've seen japanese and chinese that speak perfect portuguese, but with a little enjoyable accent. For the last ones I have the impression that they dont want to lose their accent, because here it is considered something very charming.

It depends highly on the motivation of the individual.

Cadelee, I've kinda flamed you in the other thread, but actualy I'm very proud of what you did. I hope you'll be one of us, who'll prove that japanese fluency is achiavable in 2 years, without leaving your home.

Quote:Learning a language like Japanese to fluency is not something that can be done by learning methods/sentence methods/mnemonic methods/any "method". I'm not saying it can't be done and I agree that sentences can work great for people.

The only "method" to AJATT is the constant 24 hour exposure to Japanese. Sentences/SRS are for remembering and review. If that won't get you fluent, I don't know what will.

Quote:For me, fluency would be to go a whole week, watching movies, talking to people, writing in the language and the whole time never making a mistake and never coming across a word/phrase you don't understand. I will flat out say, you can't do this in 18 months without living in Japan.

Yes we can. Deal with it.

Quote:There's a difference between being negative and being realistic. AJATT can't be done if you don't live in Japan and live with your family. You may tell yourself it's AJATT, but it's not.

Yes it is. AJATT was originally done because he wasn't in Japan.

Quote:It shows dedication and strong will and if you do achieve fluency in 18 months without living in Japan then I will take back every word I have said here.

Be prepared!

Quote:However, as it stands now I think what you are saying is belittling the intricacy of a beautiful language and language acquisition as a whole.

I guess I'm just that good. Dedication and motivation does that to a person.


You guys want to know why I can say things like "when I clearly will be able to."? What evidence do I have? None. Just an absolute, unshakable confidence in myself. That's what a person needs. That's the difference between people who are awesome and people who are not.

CaLeDee Wrote:Maybe my idea of fluency is different than others. I don't consider tests or exams to be measures of it either. It's highly subjective. For me, fluency would be to go a whole week, watching movies, talking to people, writing in the language and the whole time never making a mistake and never coming across a word/phrase you don't understand.

By that measure, I'm not fluent in English anymore.

I remember talking at work with people (all British caucasians, no mixed backgrounds or anything) about the meaning of the word "conscientious". A co-worker, in her late teens/early twenties, used it in the sense of hard-working and assiduous. Two other people, in their late twenties and thirties, told her she was wrong for using it like that. They thought it was to do with your conscience.

Both meanings are right, but these people who have spoken English their whole lives, the only language they know, didn't know the first one.

I look up words sometimes (not even technical words). I make mistakes sometimes, can't think of the right word to say sometimes, don't always hear people correctly. But I'd still think I'm fluent in English.

"Know everything and make no mistakes" seems a bit steep. There are plenty of mistakes Japanese people make, where they use phrases wrong or misuse them, pronounce them wrong (ふいんき instead of ふんいき). It might not be not knowing how to say "I need to change trains" or "could I have a bag?", but fluency doesn't necessarily have to mean perfection. (But you did say it was subjective. That point just seems a little unreasonable to me.)

Khatzumoto is also overstating his ability. It is well past the 18 month timeframe in which he claims to have gained fluency but he still makes frequent mistakes in his blog posts and writes pretty unnaturally (overusing kanji, mixing politeness levels, using words oddly, etc).

Yeah he got good at Japanese in a relatively short timeframe and is functionally literate, but to have fluency is to approach native level ability and he's not there yet (nor am I of course).

CaLeDee Wrote:I've read people talk about Khatzumoto (is this his real name?) and AJATT a lot on these forums. My views on the whole thing would probably be quite controversial on these boards, as many hold his method in such a high regard, so I'll bite my tongue. What I will say however, is that if he did accomplish what he said he did; almost fluency in 18 months was it? Then he is the exception and not the rule. Learning a language like Japanese to fluency is not something that can be done by learning methods/sentence methods/mnemonic methods/any "method". I'm not saying it can't be done and I agree that sentences can work great for people.

I definately recommend not to hold your tongue if you have a viable retort to anything offered up on this forum. AJATT, SRS, Sentence Method, Heisig, Anki, etc all have flaws that should be examined and improved upon as we go along. Those flaws will not be found (or just ignored) if they're not discussed. Khatzumoto (no, not his real name) is an exception. However, he was open about his methods and of the mindset that what he did is reproducible in others. Even then, he has the good mind to change/refine his very own method as he goes along. What was available 2 years ago online for Japanese self study is NOTHING compared to today thanks in part to AJATT and forums like these.

CaLeDee Wrote:IMO the best way to achieve fluency in such a short time would be: To live in Japan - Be in quite a good, intensive Japanese course and constantly be USING Japanese and only Japanese. Talking only to Japanese people, and being disconnected from your first language completely. Even this way, I would be impressed if even a Korean/Chinese person achieves fluency in 18 months and if they do, again, they are the exception and not the rule.

Maybe my idea of fluency is different than others. I don't consider tests or exams to be measures of it either. It's highly subjective. For me, fluency would be to go a whole week, watching movies, talking to people, writing in the language and the whole time never making a mistake and never coming across a word/phrase you don't understand. I will flat out say, you can't do this in 18 months without living in Japan. There's a difference between being negative and being realistic. AJATT can't be done if you don't live in Japan and live with your family. You may tell yourself it's AJATT, but it's not.

Here's what I'm hearing: EVEN IF you did X (of which no one does X cause, well, it's hard to do X), you won't get Y in Z months. However, how many do you know that have actually done X to show that even with sincere effort you're not getting Y in Z months.

Ok, X is immersion with all the extra tricks (AJATT is a variant). Y is fluency, of which many have their own criteria (let's say able to read newspaper, 22 book manga series, watch 2 weeks of news and 2 drama series and able to write a 3 page report on each is one criteria). Finally, we have Z. Now, if you said 1 month for fluency I'd call you a moron. But here we have 18 months. What then, will Z be if not 18 months with X and Y being the same.

For immersion, AJATT says to do all that, minus the live in Japan part. I live in Japan, problem is I'm forced to be in an Americanized (US variant) area of Japan called a Navy base. I have to use methods from AJATT and I live in the freaking country.

As for the 18 months, well, people in this forum do in 3 to 6 months what people STILL say cannot be done at all - learned how to write and recognize from memory 2000+ kanji. 18 months is a LONG time. If you consider 3 hours of active study a day, that's 1500 hours of looking up words, reviewing sentences, controlled improvements (if you do college, that's equivalent of 30 credit hours). Add onto that another 12 hours a day of HEARING, READING, WATCHING, trying to THINK about something in Japanese. That's 6000 hours of immersion in 18 months. If after all that, you're not running circles around some ALT guy I'd be disappointed.

But people don't do the above. We're weak. We go to English websites (RTK forums for example), we watch our favorite TV shows (Dexter and Heroes for me), we see our favorite movies (Dark Knight for me) in English. We don't have the discipline to do AJATT. So, if having DISCIPLINE to get a goal that requires the above makes one the exception, I'd have to agree. I didn't have it. However, just haphazardly applying it still put me above the pack.

CaLeDee Wrote:I finished RTK in 21 days and was told I did it half assed if I did it so fast. Since then I reset every card and have most of my cards heading into box 4 with the most fails on a card being 2, and even then only 2 cards have that. Doing something quickly is not doing it half assed. It shows dedication and strong will and if you do achieve fluency in 18 months without living in Japan then I will take back every word I have said here. However, as it stands now I think what you are saying is belittling the intricacy of a beautiful language and language acquisition as a whole.

Only one person said you did it half assed. Coincidentally, it's the same guy that tells Alyks you can't get fluency in 18 months. What others were saying is that you by-passed the SRS portion and may want to reset your cards to get the benefit that SRS can give you.

Alyks took 50 days to do RTK, but he combined learning on yomi in addition to writing and recognition. He's three months into learning, 2 months of kanji with about 1 month of immersion and actual Japanese study (not sure if he was immersing himself during the kanji phase).

You both have shown drive and determination that exceed anything I've done. Both of you keep up the good work. Have extreme if not impossible goals and have fun achieving them. If it helps, google "The Last Lecture" and let it motivate you a little on what it means to combine hard work with something you love.

alyks Wrote:You guys want to know why I can say things like "when I clearly will be able to."? What evidence do I have? None. Just an absolute, unshakable confidence in myself. That's what a person needs. That's the difference between people who are awesome and people who are not.

It is also the difference between a modest person and an arrogant person. If my friend was really good at French, I wouldn't walk up to him and say "You must be dumb who studied French for 5 years and only got this good. I could study it for 2 days and get completely fluent like a native. You know the difference? I have amazing confidence" because that would not be me having good confidence, it would be me being mean to him because it's impossible to get nativly fluent in French in 2 days just because of confidence.

Stating you can do things just because you WANT to is just wrong. That's why there are expressions such as "I hope" and "I wish".

Nukemarine Wrote:Only one person said you did it half assed. Coincidentally, it's the same guy that tells Alyks you can't get fluency in 18 months. What others were saying is that you by-passed the SRS portion and may want to reset your cards to get the benefit that SRS can give you.

So wait, saying "he should redo it to get the full benefit" is not the same as calling it half-assed? Both imply incorrect usage of SRS so as to lower effectiveness of learning. One way of saying it is blunt, one way isn't. It's still the same thing.

alyks Wrote:You guys want to know why I can say things like "when I clearly will be able to."? What evidence do I have? None. Just an absolute, unshakable confidence in myself. That's what a person needs. That's the difference between people who are awesome and people who are not.

Well this is an interesting way of putting it. I guess talent, intelligence, resourcefulness and ability go out the window as long as you have confidence.. Hmm..

I can't comment on the other things you said as it's simply a difference in opinion. I also don't want you to think I am criticizing you, because I'm actually very impressed with how you manage your time. Your goal is an admirable one and despite how it sounds, I really do hope you can do it.

Albion of course there are always moments like that but I meant just an average week. Rarely a week goes by when a native speaker needs to learn something about their language that they didn't already know.

Nukemarine I envy that you are in Japan but at the same time wouldn't want to be there under the conditions you are in, as far as language learning goes I mean. I'm sure it does have it's benefits that you can take advantage of though.

When learning RTK I never had a goal, I just wanted to do it and actually enjoyed it. I don't really set myself goals which might be something I should change. I will have a look at the last lecture you suggested. Thanks for recommending it.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Well, I'd had fingers pointed to me and theirs owners calling me a lier after I said I did 40% in a past paper of the jlpt 2 test after 6 months of study. (notice that you need 60% to actualy pass the exam)

No intention to belittle your feat (I applaud your effort!), but with multiple choice of 4 items, I would expect a totally random pick of answers to yield a score of around 25%. This is why, personally, I'm still not satisfied with a result of 70% or so - I know how much I'm guessing on these tests and it's still way too much...

...that is NOT to say that you got 40% on guessing (only you know that, personally)! But I know, personally in my heart that a score of 90% on the JLPT2 (not possible for me at my current rate of study) is much more meaningful than a score of say, 70%. In fact, I could expect to achieve a score of 90% based on 87% knowledge and 13% guessing. (Solve x + (1-x)*0.25 = 0.90) To achieve a score of 40%, if I know 20% of the material, I can expect to get 40%. So how about the magic pass barrier of 60%? I can expect to get that if I know only 47% of the material!!!

For a quick reference, here is a table of Test Score vs Expect Knowledge Required:

Score Knowledge_Required
25% 0%
30% 7%
40% 20%
50% 33%
60% 47%
70% 60%
80% 73%
90% 87%
100% 100%

These results match the very sensible comments by Tobberoth and mystes. One of them made a comment that it gets harder as you go along; well, with achieving higher JLPT scores, this is definitely true.

All this got me thinking - I could probably pass the JLPT2 without knowing a great deal of Japanese (this is definitely true of JLPT4 and JLPT3), but I'd really prefer to really understand and learn the material, rather than just pass the test...

Just out of curiosity, has anyone on this board achieved a total score of 90% or higher on an actual JLPT2 or JLPT1? IMO, doing so would definitely require some degree of fluency. A score of 60%, OTOH, doesn't mean very much to me...

Tobberoth Wrote:

Nukemarine Wrote:Only one person said you did it half assed. Coincidentally, it's the same guy that tells Alyks you can't get fluency in 18 months. What others were saying is that you by-passed the SRS portion and may want to reset your cards to get the benefit that SRS can give you.

So wait, saying "he should redo it to get the full benefit" is not the same as calling it half-assed? Both imply incorrect usage of SRS so as to lower effectiveness of learning. One way of saying it is blunt, one way isn't. It's still the same thing.

Yeah, it's completely different. It's called tact and it alters the way one perceives your advice and how they'll deal with you. However, it was not the SRS use you called half-assed. You wrote on Sept 24 in the "Cong. Finished RTK" thread

Tobberoth Wrote:You can't have much experience with Japanese if you think all the joujyo kanji come up on a regular basis. You will save a lot of time and a lot of effort by learning them correctly using SRS during your studies, instead of learning them in an half-assed way over 21 days. Even if you try to incorporate all of them into your studies (which won't work anyway, some of the kanji in Heisig seriously have few uses outside of names and special situations) that won't save you any time or effort. It will just mean you have to spend more time studying stuff you could simply know from the start.

You called the way he learned the kanji half-assed. I told him that he'd have to restart the SRS to get the benefit of the SRS. He still learned the Kanji, in a great way, and I wanted him to remember what he learned. So yeah, two completely different points.

The second part of your advice is sound: Not every kanji you learned is going to come up frequently enough in to ensure retention, while an SRS will.

Nukemarine Wrote:Yeah, it's completely different. It's called tact and it alters the way one perceives your advice and how they'll deal with you. However, it was not the SRS use you called half-assed.

You called the way he learned the kanji half-assed. I told him that he'd have to restart the SRS to get the benefit of the SRS. He still learned the Kanji, in a great way, and I wanted him to remember what he learned. So yeah, two completely different points.

The whole point of Heisig and especially this SRS site is to remember the kanji. Not to learn them temporarily as the same thing could be done in an hour using a normal kanji poster (though you of course wouldn't remember the kanji for more than 10 minutes). I stand by my comment that his first attempt was half-assed because he used the SRS incorrectly. It's MUCH harder to use the SRS properly than simply revieweing the same kanji every day. If it was equally hard, I would not have used that word, but from my point of view, he took the easy way out and in turn did something less effective over time. I'm very well aware that was not his intention, which isn't what I ment with half-assed either. I personally find bluntness to be a quality in advice-givers. If I do something wrong, I don't want others to tell me my method is "interesting", I want them to tell me it's wrong so I can fix it. My hopes with that post was to challenge him into trying it the other way, and it turns out he will. He might have done it because of my comment, he might have done it because of your "tactfull" comments... regardless, I'm glad he did and I hope it does wonders for him.

kfmfe04 Wrote:Just out of curiosity, has anyone on this board achieved a total score of 90% or higher on an actual JLPT2 or JLPT1? IMO, doing so would definitely require some degree of fluency. A score of 60%, OTOH, doesn't mean very much to me...

I think that it's very uncommon overall that people get 90% or above on JLPT2 and JLPT1, but I have no statistics to back that up. I personally got ~95% correct on one of my JLPT3 tests, which pretty much meant knowing every single answer because you'll definetely get some errors even if you actually know the answers because of time contrains etc, you won't have time to recheck every answer.

I do agree on your main point though, you can pass JLPT2/1 with a lot of guessing involved. I passed JLPT2 with about ~65% or so and I'm not the least bit ashamed of saying I guessed a LOT and was unsure about a lot of things. (I had studied Japanese for about 11 months). If it weren't for the fact that there is a JLPT1, I would no doubt redo my JLPT2 test to get better scores. JLPT2 is JLPT2, japanese companies do not care about your actual % on the test... but for my own coincince, I would easily prefer to have above 70% correct on it. Alas, I'm currently aiming for JLPT1 instead.

Tobberoth Wrote:The whole point of Heisig and especially this SRS site is to remember the kanji. Not to learn them temporarily as the same thing could be done in an hour using a normal kanji poster (though you of course wouldn't remember the kanji for more than 10 minutes). I stand by my comment that his first attempt was half-assed because he used the SRS incorrectly. It's MUCH harder to use the SRS properly than simply revieweing the same kanji every day. If it was equally hard, I would not have used that word, but from my point of view, he took the easy way out and in turn did something less effective over time. I'm very well aware that was not his intention, which isn't what I ment with half-assed either. I personally find bluntness to be a quality in advice-givers. If I do something wrong, I don't want others to tell me my method is "interesting", I want them to tell me it's wrong so I can fix it. My hopes with that post was to challenge him into trying it the other way, and it turns out he will. He might have done it because of my comment, he might have done it because of your "tactfull" comments... regardless, I'm glad he did and I hope it does wonders for him.

When I finished and posted in that thread I honestly didn't know I had done it wrong. Then when I had suddenly been told that, after having spent a long time doing what I had done, that I did it all wrong, was kind of jarring. Looking back now, I can definitely see where you guys were coming from and I also see where I went wrong. It was a mixture of every ones input that made me reset, and I'm glad of it. The reason I thought it was wrong to call it half-assed is because when I was doing it, I never knew that reviewing before due times was the wrong thing to do. I did it because I wanted to go over what I had just learned. I know now I couldn't keep up the constant reviews and still be able to study the language properly. Just another reason why I love this site. We all have different views, but in the end I think we are all trying to help each other the best way we know how to.

CaLeDee Wrote:When I finished and posted in that thread I honestly didn't know I had done it wrong. Then when I had suddenly been told that, after having spent a long time doing what I had done, that I did it all wrong was kind of jarring. Looking back now, I can definitely see where you guys were coming from and I also see where I went wrong. It was a mixture of every ones input that made me reset, and I'm glad of it. The reason I thought it was wrong to call it half-assed is because when I was doing it, I never knew that reviewing before due times was the wrong thing to do. I did it because I wanted to go over what I had just learned. I know now I couldn't keep up the constant reviews and still be able to study the language properly. Just another reason why I love this site. We all have different views, but in the end I think we are all trying to help each other the best way we know how to.

I'm glad that you took our advice, and even more glad that you agree with it. I also hope my posts here have clarified that I meant no harm with my "half-assed" comment, I did not mean that you intentionally did it in a half-assed way because of lazyness or lack of motivation.

kfmfe04 Wrote:All this got me thinking - I could probably pass the JLPT2 without knowing a great deal of Japanese (this is definitely true of JLPT4 and JLPT3), but I'd really prefer to really understand and learn the material, rather than just pass the test...

Yup. You are completely right. 40% is not much. And it was not the real test. It was a past exam that I did myself in the confort of my home.
But I think the 40% is somehow honest. I left the ones I did not knew for sure as blank.

I'm not studying japanese to get a piece of paper to tell me I know japanese. JLPT1 level is just the passing line.

mentat_kgs Wrote:I'm not studying japanese to get a piece of paper to tell me I know japanese. JLPT1 level is just the passing line.

I totally agree with you - JLPT is just a concrete way of measuring progress and making sure we're on the right track. If some claims of fluency and fluency goals on various bulletin boards were attached to something concrete like a JLPT score, they may be more convincing...

Tobberoth's ~65% on JPLT2 in 11 months is very impressive and encouraging!