Just a note on the difficulty of getting 40% (for example) on the JLPT...
For the kanji/vocabulary section, kfmefe04's table is probably pretty close to the mark; you could probably get 40% knowing just 20% of the actual content because most of that section of the test just requires you to match readings with kanji.
But for the listening and reading sections, where you actually need to understand language, there's a certain minimum critical mass of knowledge you need to have, below which, whatever you know is close to worthless. Ever try reading a paragraph with 80% of the words blanked out? If you only understand 20% of the vocabulary & grammar in a reading or listening passage, it's quite likely you won't understand any of the meaning. I think knowing about 60% of the material is about the minimum you can scrape out a pass with.

I'm pretty aware of that snallygaster. You are totaly right.
When watching unsubbed anime, I choke with first unknown word of a sentence. But I'm noticing my listening comprehension is not that bad. Somehow I know a bit more of japanese than what is in my anki deck.

Thank you all very much for your helpful motivational answers. I finally completed RTK LITE and additional kanjis needed for genki course (100).

My race to JLPT 2 continues and I need your opinions about how to continue:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=2538

So lets see, alyks had studied for 3 months when he told everyone how he would 100% be fluent in 18 months - and that was 3 months ago.

So alyks, that gives you about one year to reach native fluency from this point. Still on track?

(Sorry for throwing this off topic, I re-read this thread and remembered his comments and thinking how ridiculous they were. Only because it was a huge display of arrogance if nothing else)

He's noted in his blog that he's at JLPT2 level now. Considering that should be 600 hours of study (hmm, 3 hours a day, 180 days, sounds about right) compounded with thousands of hours of listening and dozens of manga, he's probably right.

I wonder if he took one of the older tests just for "fun"?

If hes level 2 after 6 months then I think it goes without saying that I'd be super impressed.

Why should you be impressed that a guy who actively studied Japanese for 600 hours and in addition watched, listened and read it a lot is able to pass a JLPT 2 test?

Please note I'm not deriding Alyks. I'm just saying what Khatz and Alyks have been saying. They're not doing anything special other than putting in their time doing something they like.

Nukemarine Wrote:Why should you be impressed that a guy who actively studied Japanese for 600 hours and in addition watched, listened and read it a lot is able to pass a JLPT 2 test?

Please note I'm not deriding Alyks. I'm just saying what Khatz and Alyks have been saying. They're not doing anything special other than putting in their time doing something they like.

I would be more interested in knowing the output ability. Khazu has always claimed that output comes automatically (even though we know he spoke in Japanese a lot while studying) so it would be fun to see how someone who hasn't really tried their hand at outputting at all would fare after 600 hours of study.

I think you are absolutely the last guy on this board who would ever deride alyks, so don't worry about it

Tobberoth Wrote:

Nukemarine Wrote:Why should you be impressed that a guy who actively studied Japanese for 600 hours and in addition watched, listened and read it a lot is able to pass a JLPT 2 test?

Please note I'm not deriding Alyks. I'm just saying what Khatz and Alyks have been saying. They're not doing anything special other than putting in their time doing something they like.

I would be more interested in knowing the output ability. Khazu has always claimed that output comes automatically (even though we know he spoke in Japanese a lot while studying) so it would be fun to see how someone who hasn't really tried their hand at outputting at all would fare after 600 hours of study.

That actually would be interesting. Most likely his output ability sucks, but far surpasses mine (which really sucks).

Although it's Alyks' place to decide on whether to answer for himself, for myself I shadow my sentences (iKnow and TTS for now) in addition to Karaoke (does NOT count). I will also shadow dramas in time thanks to subs2srs. So there is talking practice. I just don't "wing it". If I say something, it's shadowing something or the correction is forth coming. Granted, reading aloud from books and manga can be done (just annoys people on the train), but there's no audio correction if you're pronouncing it wrong.

Until now I never really talked japanese.
2-3 months ago I've visited a few chat rooms, just to spy. Once in a while I would write something and it all went fine.
After reading that thread I tried to talk with myself. It flowed very slowly but because I contained my speach into what I was confortable with, I probably did not commit many mistakes.
I'll try to write more in lang-8 and I'll post in my blog eventualy.

Nukemarine Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:

Nukemarine Wrote:Why should you be impressed that a guy who actively studied Japanese for 600 hours and in addition watched, listened and read it a lot is able to pass a JLPT 2 test?

Please note I'm not deriding Alyks. I'm just saying what Khatz and Alyks have been saying. They're not doing anything special other than putting in their time doing something they like.

I would be more interested in knowing the output ability. Khazu has always claimed that output comes automatically (even though we know he spoke in Japanese a lot while studying) so it would be fun to see how someone who hasn't really tried their hand at outputting at all would fare after 600 hours of study.

That actually would be interesting. Most likely his output ability sucks, but far surpasses mine (which really sucks).

Although it's Alyks' place to decide on whether to answer for himself, for myself I shadow my sentences (iKnow and TTS for now) in addition to Karaoke (does NOT count). I will also shadow dramas in time thanks to subs2srs. So there is talking practice. I just don't "wing it". If I say something, it's shadowing something or the correction is forth coming. Granted, reading aloud from books and manga can be done (just annoys people on the train), but there's no audio correction if you're pronouncing it wrong.

When I'm saying output though, I'm talking creative output. And even then, there's two kinds: written creative output (sitting in a chatroom/writing on lang8) and spoken creative output. Spoken creative output is no doubt the hardest since it has to be really fast and the conversation can shift in unexpected ways. With written creative output you have time to plan your sentence, you might find errors as you write it out etc. In spoken output, you have no such ability. You have to think a thought and state it, often you don't clearly know what you want to say until you have started the sentence.

It's creative spoken output where I think AJATT is weakest because it really doesn't train it at all no matter what you do. The only way to train it is to speak Japanese (real life or skype).