2011 JLPT are done and gone. Let's look forward to our awesome Anki reps and keep this study thread going for 2012.

N2 again for me in July pass or fail. Don't think I'll be up for N1 but at least I'll properly study for N2 this time.

Edit: misspelled our as are.

Indeed, 2011's JLPT are over. Didn't want to lose the money, as the risk would be too high just failing through 聴解／読解 at the same time. Guess from my kanji/vocabulary I'd definitely aim towards N1, but with reading and listening, I will hit N2 definitely next year (probably summer in Tokyo).

I'm in! I aim for N1 in July.

I failed N2 by 5 points some years ago. I studied on a very slow pace since then. At the moment, I'm doing RTK again, learning vocabulary with Learning with Texts, watching drama series, practicing with lang-8 and with native speakers on various other exchange sites. I got a feeling that I can do it this time : D

Im in for N2 next year.
Think Im at N3 level atm in kanji, vocab and N4 on reading, listening, grammar.

So yeah, I must study harder and harder.

Here in Brasil we have only the december test. So I have 12 months to study still Hope its enough at least to get to a point where I have a chance to pass

July---->N3
I've just had N4 on Sunday and I really think that I could answer at least 92% of the questions
I thought that the exam was very easy, especially the Kanji part (thanks to RtK)
I'm just waiting for the money of the scholarship to come in order to by a good selection of N3 books, while I get busy trying to finish RtK by the end of the month

My aim is to be N1 level in all skills by next summer

Method?

Reading (news, books, articles) and adding new words to anki.

Nihongo Somatome N1 bunpou/Unicom jitsuryoku appu bunpou 1kyuu/Donna toki dou tsukau -> anki

N1 vocab list and probably a textbook -> Anki

Watching dramas, Ayu ready, variety shows

listening to podcasts and to the media mentioned above (without paying attention)。

みんなで頑張ろう。

I took the N4 on Sunday, and I thought it was really easy. I've picked up some N3/N2 study materials and will decide which I think I can take before the application deadline. Woo!

Already posted in the other thread, but i guess it's not official if i don't post in this one.

N1 in December 2012!

Hmm... looks like i might be doing it in Japan. I take it there's nothing especially difficult about applying etc?

@CarolinaCG, wow. I remember when you were talking about N5. Has more time passed than i thought or are you just making really quick progress?

zigmonty Wrote:@CarolinaCG, wow. I remember when you were talking about N5. Has more time passed than i thought or are you just making really quick progress?

I took N4 one year ago. And 1.5 years ago I had N5 level. I remeber studying genki 2 in the summer of 2010 in order to take N4 in December of the same year.

I started studying japanese in early 2009, but soon gave up (kanji), then in the same year I bought RTK and studied it in the summer vacations, and in september entered university (east asian studies - terribly bad course). I had really basic japanese from the japanese I studied in early 2009, I could write kanas and knew basic grammar (n5 level). In my first year of university I maintained my japanese level, studied nothing, just maintained. This was a huge mistake, if I had started using anki seriously since my first year of college I would know a lot more japanese than I do now.

But, oh well, at least now I know what to do and enjoy doing it ^^

I'm taking N1 in July. I think my level could have been enough to pass N1 last Sunday if I hadn't screwed with my study plan to try to cram.

I've been going on a steady pace of RTK and Kanji in Context since last February. I tried to put new vocabulary on hold from Kanji in Context while I Anki'd どんな時どう使う日本語, but it turns out that was a dumb idea. I ended up just wasting a month burning myself out on that instead of just keeping with the current pace and finishing both RTK and KiC before the test. Since I hadn't taken the test since 2008 I didn't realize just how few grammar questions there are on the new test.

I'm on lesson 115/143 in KiC which is about 1000 new cards left. I'm up to 1650 in RTK, but that's a slow burn kind of thing. I can write about 1850 because of the overlap in the different kanji ordering between RTK and KiC. Now that I'm near the end of both things are flying because I already know most of the new RTK kanji I'm adding every day.

Plan:
Kanji in Context by February 1st.
RTK 1 by February 1st.
どんな時どう使う日本語 by July's JLPT.
RTK 3 by July's JLPT.
試験に出るＮ１・Ｎ２読解 and 聴解 drill books by July's JLPT.
Unicom N1・N2 読解 drill book by July's JLPT.

Fuzzier Plan:
Finish "I'm Sorry Mama" by July's JLPT.
Play lots of text-heavy video games(Final Fantasy 13-2 comes out next week!).
Listen to more Japanese podcasts(Day Catch, Junk).
Talk to my co-workers in Japanese more instead of English.

That was fast...
didn't even have time to think too long about N2 I just did and already a thread for 2012


Anyway,
now this year...

I'm definitely gonna pass N1 for sure, finally

So let's say it's 8 months from now until the next test?

Hey everyone began teaching myself Japanese over a week ago, it's my first time with a second language besides some French in school which I never took seriously. It's a lot of fun learning a language.

Right now I'm just working my way though RTK1 with Anki, I'm at 1014 at the moment and I aim to have the book done by this Friday. Will definently be taking JLPT next year in December, there is a place to take the test not to far from where I live luckily.

Let's all work hard!

[Zgarbas]

Aiming for N2 in December .

This will be a long year.

Zgarbas Wrote:Aiming for N2 in December .

This will be a long year.

Look at the bright side. At least for me, N2 was the level where native stuff stopped being so frustrating. Enjoy.

I'm writing it down so it will have more odds of happening. I'm planning to take the N4 in July.

My plan so far is to do RTK to learn how to recognize the kanji and Basic Kanji Book to learn how to read it. And a mix of Human Japanese, Japanese The Manga Way, and An Introduction To Modern Japanese to actually learn the language.

I'll put this in writing as a goal to work towards. Let's say taking N2 sometime in 2012.

I finally decided to tackle learning Kanji this year, and given my slow progress so far I would have to say N2 is being overly optimistic. Here's hoping things will just fall together and make sense sometime next year.

I am in as well. N2, next year, summer or winter, depending on how well I feel that I have prepared myself for it. I will take it in either my own country, because they are finally offering it here as well, London, France, or some other country that offers it and that I like traveling to. (In case my health situation remains as it is right now, that is. Else I will aim for taking it in my own country.)

Study Plan:

日本語総まとめ2級 books *all five of them (Want to be done with all of them in 2 months - already started - and finished week 1 in the listening book. I have also had my first 模擬試験 in the listening book, timed and well in time finished it. 35~ questions, 5 minutes time limit, and scored 81/100).
どんなときどう使う日本語表現文型辞典 N1-N5 (Used as a reference right now for Sou matome grammar - great book)
どんなときどう使う日本語表現文型５００ (
実力アップ 文のルール　漢字・語彙・文の文法 + 聞く ().
新試験対応　合格できる日本語能力試験N2 (I will work through this book and it's tests once I've finished the 新完全マスター books.)
新完全マスター2級 Reading and Grammar book (Not much to say but I will do them after finishing the Sou Matome books.)
日本語５００問 (has plenty of exercises, vocabulary, grammar points etc. mostly 2 and 3 kyuu I will do them both, for safety sake).

Other plans right now, signed up on a Japanese forum to finally work on my output, which I personally like more than lang-8. Corrections or not, I like the idea of having a set of topics to find to talk about, that I like. This random, oh and this and that happened in my life, or I feel like that I want to talk about XY, and some nice Japanese people come and correct me as they see fit, is not exactly my turf. But that's just me.

Reading: I read one short, one medium and one long article about various things at random, I read signs, on pictures I find with google, train schedules, job advertisements, and other stuff every day. For reading, I also ask myself questions about the articles, sort of JLPT style, to improve my reading comprehension. I am listening to short podcasts, and I keep watching as much as I can.

Also I am reading novels right now. Every day one chapter is my aim, and I started with one of my Narnia books, should be able to finish it in the next couple of days, 6 chapters remaing. I do this more for fun but it also reinforces what I learn vocab, kanji etc. I also keep playing retro games, RPG, simulations, and every text heavy game that I can get a hold of.

I think that way I will be well prepared for next years JLPT. Because in my opinion its not the books or the software or websites we are learning with that decides if we pass or fail, but it is what else we are doing, that lets us improve in the language.

Anyway, now I have written more than I wanted to, I wish everyone good luck for next year. We will ace the JLPT!

Nagareboshi Wrote:Other plans right now, signed up on a Japanese forum to finally work on my output, which I personally like more than lang-8. Corrections or not, I like the idea of having a set of topics to find to talk about, that I like. This random, oh and this and that happened in my life, or I feel like that I want to talk about XY, and some nice Japanese people come and correct me as they see fit, is not exactly my turf. But that's just me.

Just curious, which Japanese forum did you join?

Bokusenou Wrote:

Nagareboshi Wrote:Other plans right now, signed up on a Japanese forum to finally work on my output, which I personally like more than lang-8. Corrections or not, I like the idea of having a set of topics to find to talk about, that I like. This random, oh and this and that happened in my life, or I feel like that I want to talk about XY, and some nice Japanese people come and correct me as they see fit, is not exactly my turf. But that's just me.

Just curious, which Japanese forum did you join?

I did not join any forum yet even though I wrote signed up. This was a stupid mistake. But I will join a board, can't call it forum, for Spellforce players, one for AD&D, a CGI / general PC forum. So, basically, boards I can sign-up to, without the need of having a Japanese mobile-phone. The one's I would wish I could sign-up for are gree or mixi, but no mobile phone, no access to them. 残念だったねぇ！

Nagareboshi Wrote:

Bokusenou Wrote:

Nagareboshi Wrote:Other plans right now, signed up on a Japanese forum to finally work on my output, which I personally like more than lang-8. Corrections or not, I like the idea of having a set of topics to find to talk about, that I like. This random, oh and this and that happened in my life, or I feel like that I want to talk about XY, and some nice Japanese people come and correct me as they see fit, is not exactly my turf. But that's just me.

Just curious, which Japanese forum did you join?

I did not join any forum yet even though I wrote signed up. This was a stupid mistake. But I will join a board, can't call it forum, for Spellforce players, one for AD&D, a CGI / general PC forum. So, basically, boards I can sign-up to, without the need of having a Japanese mobile-phone. The one's I would wish I could sign-up for are gree or mixi, but no mobile phone, no access to them. 残念だったねぇ！

Ah, sorry, misread your post. You know, if you sign up for mixi with a college email address, it doesn't ask you for a cellphone email, although I'm not sure how many different college emails this works for. From asking around and inviting people to mixi (I joined when it was invite only), I've learned it works with US and UK college emails, but not Canadian ones for some reason...

I'm going to try for JLPT N2 this summer. I've been slacking off ever since I've obtained N4 last year, but for the last few months I've been trying hard to keep adding kanji regularly to my Anki list.

I'm going to be in Japan most of this year so I'm aiming for N2. Last one I took was N4 two years ago, so I'll see how this goes.

I'm planning on taking the n2 in June! I took my first JLPT in December, n3, and think I did alright. I'm working from the Kanzen Master Grammar book. It seams like it's going to be quite a challenge learning and using all of that grammar but こうなったら頑張るしかない。That and I'm always adding new vocab and listening to podcasts.

I'm also going to take the N2 in July. I completed RTK years ago (2007 or so) but then didn't study Japanese much for a while.. and before I knew it I'd forgotten almost all my kanji and my level dropped pretty sharply.

I passed N3 last July but only barely.

So starting a few months ago I started right back from frame 1 and am now up to the person primitives (I have stories for them, though) - about half way through.

I'm determined this time to make it through and then jump straight to regular Japanese study to learn new vocab while I know the meaning of the kanji.

Use it or lose it!

N1 in Dec 12. Let's do it! Hope the Mayans were wrong.

zigmonty Wrote:Hmm... looks like i might be doing it in Japan. I take it there's nothing especially difficult about applying etc?

You have to apply by September (I think) and let them know where you would like to do it. I can help you out if you need anything done.
You coming over permanently? We should organize a job exchange with maybe a few hours overlap for a beer or two.