UNLESS you plan to read a lot of books? Like, assuming as the base that you don't?
That is such an alien mindset O.O

haabaato Wrote:That would definitely work for JLPT2. But unless they make the JLPT1 more reflective of real life, it might be hard to pass if you don't specifically study for it.

I'm testing that theory this year. The only studying I did that was specifically for the JLPT was grammar. I did nothing else outside my normal routine of adding words I encounter into Anki. I think it was quite close...

What I will say though is that I already knew all of the words mentioned on this thread. I don't have any objections about what's in the test, I have objections about what's NOT in it. (writing, speaking)

QuackingShoe Wrote:UNLESS you plan to read a lot of books? Like, assuming as the base that you don't?
That is such an alien mindset O.O

Hah, while I understand most of the people who post on this forum are die-hard 勉強家, is it that hard to believe that some people aren't interested in Japanese literature? I do enough reading of Japanese in specification sheets, on the train, in the textbooks, through Anki. And when I do get into a bookworm mood, I go back to English.

If what I'm saying is still alien to you, you should hop on over to a Roppongi bar, where you'll find foreigners who have lived in "Japan" for years but still have no idea what the person at the konbini is saying.

Different motivations.

Well, it's not really that I'm a die-hard anything, let alone studier. I don't really do 'studying' (ask any of those unfortunate enough to have had me as a student). But, I'm learning Japanese for the purpose of using Japanese, in the same capacity that I use English in; to experience the world. I expect to do any particular thing in Japanese that I might also already do in English. Since I read English books, I expect to (and do) read Japanese books. I also expect to read newspapers, blogs, listen to the radio, converse, and.. well, simply, again, do any individual thing I do in English. I intend to incorporate it and become fully bilingual in life, not bilingual in theory but monolingual in practice save for a few specific areas. So a mindset that arbitrarily exempts Japanese books looks about the same as exempting books altogether. Which, for me, is a very alien mindset, despite growing prevalence.

I do understand the different motivations, but I don't understand why original motivations would limit the application of skills already hard-acquired in what seems (again) to be arbitrary ways. In truth, I didn't learn English to read books either; but it has become a rather nice side-benefit that I wouldn't willingly excise.

(But I'm pretty sure we're talking about different things, since I think you were talking about read-books-to-study as related to the JLPT while I was just making a tongue-in-cheek comment about your wording as applies to language use in general. But since I needed to defend my honour [you called me a studier!] anyway...)

Okay, sorry for calling you a "studier."

What I was originally trying to get across was the immediate motivations behind acquiring the JLPT certification. I don't think the majority of people taking the test (in Japan at least) are saying themselves, "gee, I can read books now!" after passing. More likely, "hurray, I can get a job now!" To a person who simply wants to work, learning grammar intended for books (and not the workplace) may seem like a waste of time and energy.

According to wiki, the JLPT was originally made for universities, so from that standpoint, I can see why grammar found in literature is necessary. Aside from that, reading folk literature seems to me like it would be last on the list of topics to learn for living in Japan (or any other country). If entrance into Japanese universities is still the main driving factor for a majority of students, then I take that back.

Anyway, I'm not arguing against literacy at all.

haabaato, you seem to be misconstruing studying for the JLPT as teaching grammar only good for folk literature. I think the material in JLPT is all BASIC grammar. Basic, in the sense that if you built a sentence using JLPT grammar, every native Japanese will understand it. For example, I have NHK News on in the background and I just heard 「～から～かけて」.

Without arguing that point any further, if I want to be able to read anything: books, magazines, what's printed on TV programs, what do you recommend that I do instead? I live in Japan and I want to do all these things. What do you recommend that I do?

10,000 sentences?

I tend to think motivations don't matter as long as they actually motivate me to learn.
I also think there are many different methods to reach our ends: the effectiveness of various methods depends on the match between the method and the individual.

I >DO NOT< want to be that guy in the Roppongi bar you described...

haabaato Wrote:

QuackingShoe Wrote:UNLESS you plan to read a lot of books? Like, assuming as the base that you don't?
That is such an alien mindset O.O

Hah, while I understand most of the people who post on this forum are die-hard 勉強家, is it that hard to believe that some people aren't interested in Japanese literature? I do enough reading of Japanese in specification sheets, on the train, in the textbooks, through Anki. And when I do get into a bookworm mood, I go back to English.

If what I'm saying is still alien to you, you should hop on over to a Roppongi bar, where you'll find foreigners who have lived in "Japan" for years but still have no idea what the person at the konbini is saying.

Different motivations.

I have no idea what a konbini is.

So people have different motivations for studying. If someone doesn't understand what the person behind the konbini is saying, I would assume that someone is not even studying Japanese. Unless the person behind the konbini is speaking some rare and/or ancient dialect.

Truthfully, if your need for learning Japanese stops at getting a job, and I assume you already have one, why are you still studying? What's the point of adding to your anki deck if, at the end of the day, you just want to speak English? If you don't have a job, why not forgoe anki and just cram and take the take test? Even more, why invest so much time and effort to get a job in another country, where you have to learn an entire language, when you can just get one right at home?

Haha, I was exaggerating a little bit with the folk literature bit, but yes, the grammar presented is still useful. I wouldn't go far as to say it's "BASIC" however, given that I've shown lots of Japanese people what I've been studying, and the majority of them said you shouldn't need to know that. My teacher on the other hand, thinks more of the points are valuable, but she's pointed out some examples in my textbook which she thinks average Japanese people don't know. By the way, I'm glad they didn't put your example on the test, as I've never seen it. Next time I'm in Shibuya, I will poll every gyaru around to see if they know these grammar points.

Ya, let's give up that point and move on to how to pass this thing. I'm a fan of learning in context, so my method of adding into SRS was: after inserting all of Tae-Kim, jot down words I heard in conversations, saw on billboards, read in news, etc. I've found that with most words, I'm able to recall the exact situation in which it came up. Since your goal is reading however, this might not help too much? I wouldn't study for reading, I'd just start doing it immediately, inputting new grammar patterns and words into the SRS as they come up. Imagine having to make a card for every single word you encounter... This way you can learn some naturally through context.

I've only made 5000 cards so far, with 900 never reviewed. Definitely don't need AJATT's magic 10k number to pass.

This is an aside, but when I showed an ex-girlfriend a book I was reading, she told me it was pretty difficult for her because she couldn't read some of the kanji. A college grad, but from a 美術大学, so maybe they don't do too much reading? (no offense Art majors!) Her friend also couldn't read the kanji 泰 which was one of my touristy "world peace" shirts. A coworker, engineering major, couldn't read 悦 when he saw me reviewing flash cards on this site. Well, I guess this going off the topic of grammar and into kanji. As has been discussed to death, there's a problem with the 常用漢字 if native college-grads can't read some of them.

I'm a noob at card-making (not including Heisig)...

I started 2 days ago, and have 225 cards so far. But I agree 100% about trying to learn in context. I do not add a card unless I have a sentence or at least a phrase that goes with it. At first, I was lazy in making cards, but now, I think I have to be really hard-assed about it, or it's going to come back and haunt me.

Now, my rule is simple, but brutal:
If I read something I don't understand, I make a card.
(ie after looking up the word and picking out a sample sentence/phrase)

--> By the way, are you using Anki or some other SRS?

I am wary of drowning in cards/review if I use the wrong SRS. I've recently switched from jMemorize to Anki for its flexibility for making multiple-choice grammar-question type cards. But Anki's repetition settings aren't as clear and simple as jMemorize and this has me worried...

--------------------------------
BTW, it doesn't bother me at all if I learned something that a native doesn't recognize, because what I don't know far exceeds what they don't know, by orders of magnitude at this point.

kazelee Wrote:Truthfully, if your need for learning Japanese stops at getting a job, and I assume you already have one, why are you still studying? What's the point of adding to your anki deck if, at the end of the day, you just want to speak English? If you don't have a job, why not forgoe anki and just cram and take the take test? Even more, why invest so much time and effort to get a job in another country, where you have to learn an entire language, when you can just get one right at home?

Are those hypothetical questions or directed to me? I never stated my intentions, just what I _think_ most foreigners come to Japan for (where most = Chinese, Korean, Indian). I enjoy learning languages and want to be able to read literature in the future.

kfmfe04, I'm using Anki too. Ya, card adding is tedious, but it's better than having to wait half a year for a test, cram like hell, and waste money if you fail. I study on my train commutes and rarely at home. Without the keitai/ipod features of Anki, I would definitely not have studied as much.

Anki's repetition settings, there's a guide somewhere isn't there? If not, you'll figure it out after a few cycles.

haabaato Wrote:My teacher on the other hand, thinks more of the points are valuable, but she's pointed out some examples in my textbook which she thinks average Japanese people don't know.

Could you give some examples of what things she said the JLPT tests you on that most Japanese don't know?

My other foreign-language learning experience (to fluency) is in German, and I found that knowing all the obscure points of grammar (I know how to use genitive and subjunctive better than 90% of the Germans I know) was never anything but a help.

-- Never underestimate the power of having a real sense of accomplishment when you get a thorny grammar point under control.
-- As a non-native speaker, you're at enough of a disadvantage with vocabulary that some times knowing what a structure means + being aware of context will help you figure out what was said even if you missed some key vocabulary.

My language-learning method is idiosyncratic, though. I start by getting a decent grammar and reading it straight through, to get an idea of what a language "feels" like. Then, at a certain point in study, I do a lot of learning via active reading; finally, I polish off with immersion. When I don't do that I get much poorer results (French: no immersion; Hungarian: immersion too early).

I got hung up in Japanese study (after 3 years of college Japanese) because there was a point where I just couldn't go off and read without flipping back and forth to a kanji dictionary, and rather than take 3 months to do RTK, I focused on grad school. In retrospect, a big mistake, and one I wish I hadn't made. In terms of grammar comprehension, I was up there in JLPT2 or 1 territory; it's going to take a lot of review to get that back now that I let it sit unused. But I have the motivation to get back into it now, so it's just a matter of cranking through the cards.

Thanks for sharing your experience, joxn_costello.

As I suspected, language acquisition isn't all immersion or all SRS or all grammar/textbook learn or cramming for tests. It helps to do a combination of these things at the proper times. I think your experience actually fits very well with my roadmap - knowing what worked/didn't work in your experience gives me more confidence that I might be heading in the right direction.

Thank you.

kfmfe04 Wrote:

Jawful Wrote:Someone on another forum said they were taking it in China, and everyone just opened it and started as soon as they got the booklets. No one waited and the proctors didn't stop them. That was pretty shocking to me actually.

That >IS< messed up. There were 4 serious proctors in our room. Once in a while, an old guy in his 70's would come in and check on things (must be the head proctor).

Yeah I'm the one, the JLPT China story is here: http://languagebanditry.com/boke/index.p...China.html if anyone wants to see

Come to china if you want 3 extra minutes on the reading/grammar section!

Too bad it is listening that tooooooooootally killed me. I wish there was some way to study for it. I got a book that analyzed all past tests and made 100 listening exercises, all divided into possible categories of questions expected on future tests. It didn't help at all cause the only thing that can make your brain able to compensate for all the blarring and echos coming out of a boombox I guess is several 1000 hours of listening... listening... listening...

The biggest distinction I find on the listening section is the amount of time spent living in Japan. People who have spent a semester or more tend to be able to do fine on listening, and people who haven't been to Japan at all have a ton of trouble.

Your ears need to become acclimated to Japanese, and after that it's a vocabulary issue.

parasitius Wrote:

kfmfe04 Wrote:

Jawful Wrote:Someone on another forum said they were taking it in China, and everyone just opened it and started as soon as they got the booklets. No one waited and the proctors didn't stop them. That was pretty shocking to me actually.

That >IS< messed up. There were 4 serious proctors in our room. Once in a while, an old guy in his 70's would come in and check on things (must be the head proctor).

Yeah I'm the one, the JLPT China story is here: http://languagebanditry.com/boke/index.p...China.html if anyone wants to see

Come to china if you want 3 extra minutes on the reading/grammar section!

Too bad it is listening that tooooooooootally killed me. I wish there was some way to study for it. I got a book that analyzed all past tests and made 100 listening exercises, all divided into possible categories of questions expected on future tests. It didn't help at all cause the only thing that can make your brain able to compensate for all the blarring and echos coming out of a boombox I guess is several 1000 hours of listening... listening... listening...

Hate to say it, but it sounds like your complaining about people that are professional test takers. They know what they can get away with, and do it. Hell, I remember telling guys taking the speed portion on the ASVAB to just "dot" the circle you're choosing then go back later and fill it in properly. Common sense tells you the test is not about your speed of filling in a bubble. Taking the high ground on a test of the lowest common denominator nets you nothing except the feeling in your own mind. If that were the case, why bother with the test in the first place.

True story: US Navy advancement (promotion) is determined in large part by a test given twice a year. Problem was, people in Japan took it about 16 hours earlier. Friends would call friends about the questions. Low and behold, the navy began to stagger test times so they're all with a time frame. My understanding is that JLPT does not take this into account? Who want's to wager a higher score on it on average by Chinese and Koreans (most likely group to have friends to take it earlier) taken in the US and Europe?

Granted, this all helps back the theory that standardized tests really test the ability to take standardized tests.

PS: Yes, listen to hours and hours (thousands of hours) of Japanese. It really does help, especially if it's something you really want to understand like, uh, Nodame Cantabile.

Stop giving me ideas, Mr. Nukemarine.

Nodame Cantabile FTW!

I took 3級 in London -- there were a metric crapload of people -- several classrooms plus a large lecture hall in the SOAS Russell Square campus.

My take: Vocab easy (use the vocabulary from the White Rabbit cards and you're all set), listening less so, grammar finished early but still didn't do as well as I would have liked. Hopefully passed the damn thing; definitely did better than my previous attempt, in Toronto in 1999 (with lots of not doing very much with Japanese between then and now).

I definitely appreciate the well-publicized hardassness wrt cell phones -- there were absolutely no disruptions within the classroom. Now if only they could get some more UK locations... I'd much rather spend the weekend in Edinburgh.

2級 will be some time other than next year; will see if I can get through Heisig 1 by the end of summer and see what happens afterward.

nest0r Wrote:Yea, you're 'muddying' your consonants? Or something. I think the circle is called 'plosive', not voiced.

My goal is to take JLPT (never taken it, just aiming straight for JLPT1) next year, after just doing AJATT and not studying for the test specifically at all. Wonder how it'll work out.

You and me make two

Except I might do some past-papers before the exam.

That's cheating!

"Unless the person behind the konbini is speaking some rare and/or ancient dialect"
That made me laugh so hard

About JLPT1 grammar being useless, I just started working through kanzen master 1kyuu grammar about a week ago, and I've already come across at least two expressions from it in a manga I'm reading. So like, it may not come up in everyday conversation, but you definitely don't need to read like hardcore literature to see it. Personally, I'm just studying it because I love grammar, haha.