Okay So here is my scenario for you guys. You have 150 days until you start your Year long Study Abroad at a college in Tokyo. What would you like to get accomplished before going to study abroad and how would you accomplish this.


I don't work.
I have finished RTK1 already.
I'm in school for the next 45 days.
from Day 46-125 I'll be in japan.
Day 126-145 back to US.

Specifics are great.

OH this thread sounds good...if i'm lucky I might also be studying in Japan in 150 days

But I think it depends on your level and what you want to do in JP the most.

Gotta think...

1. Speaking and listening skills will be the most important part.

Yeah I'm interested in other people's immediate goals. it definitely will vary greatly between everybody. I could of made this more dramatic and be like "You ONLY have 150 days to learn Japanese and after that pretend it's impossible to learn any more What do you do?!" but I think it would be good to hear others short term goals and how they plan to accomplish it so others can do the same or adjust it if they have similar goals.


Ideally for me I'd like to increase my vocabulary most of all seconded by a decent reading ability (compared to others in my Japanese class). If i wanted to work through all of KO2001 anki deck by then it would take 21 Cards/day (cpd).

KO2001: 21 cpd x 150 days = 3150 cards
From Core: 30 cpd X 150 days = 4500 cards.
俺の文: No limit aka whatever = ??? Cards.

Total 7650+ but probably some overlap.

I glanced through core today ( first 1800 cards) and it seems it won't do anything as far as grammar goes. and those cards I can move quickly through. ko2001 takes a bit longer to move through and more Kanji to write per card.

Hoping I pick up some grammar from my sentences or from websites, watching tv, listening to music, Since either J-tv or J-music is always playing in my room/headphones.


I don't know the viability of working through KO2001 and core at the same time is. Or if it's the best to do since I could just try to find more sentences on my own. I like KO2001 because of my goal to read. I like Core because it's quick and painless. I like my own sentences because It gives me excuses to listen to more music and watch tv ( which even before Japanese I never watched tv ). I don't really set a minimum for myself my New cards per day field is set to zero. I do my reviews and when i feel like it I continue (which may be a formula to not get as far as the numbers above state but it really takes the pressure off).

p.s. 大切な事はすべて君が教えてくれた　is awesome.

Depends on your level and what you want to accomplish.

I'd work on interpretive fluency so that I could spend more of my time in Japan relaxing and enjoying the atmosphere whilst immersing for situational vocab usage/context/speaking, rather than worrying about what the bleep people are saying because they talk too quickly. Thus, probably grammar cemented with a load of reading/listening and some production to make that side come along more naturally, while also raising vocab level to a decent threshold in order to easily follow most basic stuff.

If I had 150 days...oh my gosh that's be awesome. 150 without college...

Anyway, I would study a lot of japanese! My trully hobbie since a few months ago. I's watch a lot of dramas, listen to podcasts, anki, textbooks, etc, what I normally do now (except for the dramas) but much more intensively lol

I'd clean the house. *Rimshot*

Otherwise, I'd cram in as much vocab as is humanly possible, and not sweat too much of anything else.

Since I only have 90-odd days before I have to leave for London and the N2, guess what I'm doing?

Yep, cleaning the house.

I would cram vocab heavy for the first 30 days them slack off so by the time you get to Japan you don't have to worry too much about anki. Hopefully you'll be socialising and stuff and it's real pain catching up high anki reviews if you miss a few days. But obvs socialising wins over anki if you're in Tokyo

I'd also do Pimsleur so you can get used to saying basic stuff pretty quickly. And if you have access to Minna no Nihongo, the conversation drill section in each chapter is great to increase your speaking speed.

Speaking from my experience of studying in Sendai last year, I would most definitely work on vocabularly and speaking/listening skills.

Until my vocab had really picked up (probably the 6 month mark) it was really hard to fully understand what was being said in classes etc and I would always miss the finer details of the conversation. However in saying that, only learning vocab isn't going to allow you to go into a lecture or class and understand 100% of what is going on. You need to work on your listening speed, you thinking-in-Japanese speed and you in-head translation speed (because sometimes you just have to do it to understand what is being said) otherwise it will be hard to keep up.

Actually, I think the most important thing is to try and build up your confidence. If you aren't confident in speaking up in front of the class, or stating your opinion it will be hard to improve. I know for me, for the first term basically, I just sat and listened to the teacher and other students and didn't really participate until I was asked a question. This was because of a) my home university course hadn't prepared me enough for study in Japan (listening, speaking, vocab, everything) and b) all the other students in my class where at a slightly higher level (I was in the 中級、中上級 classes as my level was too high for the easier classes) so I always felt like they were judging me because they were better. However as the weeks progressed and I learnt more and more vocab and my the speed of my listening improved it was much easier to participate. I remember how good it felt when I could understand 99% of the conversation, could laugh at ALL the jokes and join in myself. Also, when the students who were better than me went back to their countries after my first semester (as they started the semester before me), I was then at the level they were at when I arrived, and I and the students I started with became the ones who were then better than the new students. This also drastically boosts you confidence in a selfish kind of way, but I spoke to my friends about it and they also felt the same way. It is sort of a vicious circle...

Anyway, I don't know how relevant that all really is, but I suggest focusing on listening, vocab, speaking and CONFIDENCE!!!

Work Mixi hard so that by the time you get here you already know a bunch of cool people to hang out with (and help you out if you don't know how to do something like get a cell).

Jarvik7 Wrote:Work Mixi hard so that by the time you get here you already know a bunch of cool people to hang out with (and help you out if you don't know how to do something like get a cell).

Do you know of any good ways how to do it? communities or something else?
I don't get much requests.

I get a fair number of requests, but the next best thing is just messaging everyone who shows up in your 足跡 and seems interesting. It gives you an excuse to message (足跡返し) them instead of just something out of the blue. Just don't do it for an 足跡 that is a couple days old.

A good way to get more requests and 足跡 is to post in the 自己紹介 thread of a community for the region you'll be in. I'm in a few for Nagoya that are for drinking events in the area, not that I've been to any. There are also a lot of regional "be my mixi friend" communities.

Of the four people I've met offline to date, three were people who messaged me and one was someone I messaged from my 足跡. I've ignored or stopped regularly messaging a great number more than that though.

You can also search for people using various criteria, but I've never bothered.

A good tip is to never keep someone waiting for a reply. If you go two days or so without replying it's almost a sure thing that they'll ignore all future mails. The mixi interface is crap, especially on a phone, so I try to move to keitai e-mail after the first few days if they seem interesting, otherwise I'll be too lazy to keep up the messages.

Also, don't bother with people who have tons of my-mixi friends (more than 70-100), they are just collectors.

*Note: the above tips are for making friends with women on mixi. I ignore all requests from men since it's just kind of creepy. I'm guessing most JP men on mixi will also ignore most messages from other men for similar reasons. If you want guy friends, go to bars once you're here.

@Jarvik7
How does one go about getting registered on Mixi? I'm also in Nagoya and I have Softbank account and address but no internet on the phone. I've tried registering before but all I get is a link sent to my phone that obviously does nothing as my phone doesn't have access to the web aside from the phone's built-in email. I'd love to use Mixi now that I have friends here who use it but I've kind of run into a wall. Any ideas?

Wow this is possibly even more than I need, ありがとう！

Some of my real life friends have something like 130 or 200 contacts though, so while it is definitely good that you said it, it doesn't always apply. But it's obvious of course...

When I signed up for mixi in ~2006 it was invite-only, but didn't require a cellphone. You can try to add internet to your contract for a month, or you can ask a friend to let you use their phone email (they've probably changed emails since signing up, or their sign-up predates the new system).

Jarvik7 Wrote:When I signed up for mixi in ~2006 it was invite-only, but didn't require a cellphone. You can try to add internet to your contract for a month, or you can ask a friend to let you use their phone email (they've probably changed emails since signing up, or their sign-up predates the new system).

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll ask my friends whether or not they have their phone addresses registered with Mixi. I'll also look into the possibility of someone at a local Softbank shop helping me.

BTW, I once changed my phone's email to a gmail address to try to skirt around the problem, but when I clicked the link from my computer, Mixi detected that it wasn't a request from a Softbank ip (I assume) and promptly rejected the confirmation!

Anyway, thanks again.

EDIT: Actually, I may have just stumbled upon a simple solution. I'll report back tomorrow if it works. Maybe it will help some others out.

150 days? Hmm...

April) 30 days) 日本語）
*Learn to use Anki in a variety of ways such as BGs and music files (I'm teh nube)
*3000 kanji via Heisig ON Anki (I haven't done the last thousand and I need a review)
*33 SRS sentence mining 日--日 (though Jap-Eng dict)
*Small Journal on Lang-8 everyday
*Get my official driver's license (I know I know)

May) 31 days) 中文) (Taiwanese dialect but learning to read simplified too)
*Heisig Hanzi (1500) Simplified and Traditional (I only got the simplified book so does anyone have a list of primitives/radicals I will need for Traditional?)
* Learn 1 pronunciation and at least 1 word for each character
* 10 SRS sentences mining day
*Small Journal on Lang-8 everyday

June) 30 days) 한국어)
(I can already read Hangul)
* Integrated Korean beginning 1
* Integrated Korean beginning 2
* Integrated Korean intermediate 1
* All of TTMIK
* No sentence mining yet but Anki everything
*Small Journal on Lang-8 everyday (bilingual)

July) 31 days)
*Doing all Anki Reps everyday
*Write daily in Lang-8 but switch language for each day (too much stress for me)
*I have a lot of books in Japanese so Sentence Mining for 4 of them

August) 24th)
*Doing all Anki Reps everyday
*Write daily in Lang-8 but switch language for each day (too much stress for me)
*Sentence Mining for 4 Jap books
*Buy Korean and Chinese books (I am thinking Harry Potter in Korean and Lord of the Rings in Chinese since I did buy Narnia in Japanese haha)

August 25th is the first day of college for me! (perfect timing!!!)

At my college you are required to take Latin every year and since I am going to do a Classics major with a minor in music I will have to learn some Greek as well. Add all of this plus my final languages choices of Cantonese and Thai and I will have a full plate:

English
Latin (Not sure which kind yet)
Greek (again not sure what kind)
Japanese (標準語＋関西弁＋福岡弁)
Korean (obviously Southern)
Mandarin (Taiwanese dialect if you are curious)
Cantonese (More curious as to the type spoken in America)
Thai (Where is the love for this poor language?)
...oh I wanted to learn Sanskrit but I am thinking that I will likely die from exposure