So I have now in my hands 4 of the 5 soumatome N2 books (missing only the listening one), and I was wondering which order would be better to study them.

I just finished studying the N3 books in the order Kanji -> Bunpou -> Goi, and I was thinking if letting Goi for last was a wise idea...

For the N3 books I found some awesome anki decks already ready to use, so I just imported them and used only the words that I didnt know and revised all grammar points, thou Im planning on a different aproach for the N2 grammar deck Im gonna create.

Now, for N2 I plan on typing everything down on anki, and in this order.
1) Study Kanji Book -> Type all kanjis example words I dont know in anki.
2) Study Grammar Book -> Type all example grammar points in Anki (even the ones I already knew).
3) Study Vocabulary book -> Type all words I dont know in Anki.
4) Study Reading Book -> Type all words I dont know or grammar points I find hard to understand.
5) Buy a Listening book (either Soumatome or other).

How you guys go through this? You just go and study all books at the same time? Or have a particular order? what would you recommend me, as Im just at the level where N3 is possible to overcome, but N2 is still a far away objective (which I need to get before December next year).

Thanks in advance ^^

I studied for the JLPT level 1 with the Kanzen Master series. I studied all of the books simulataneously, because I found it easier to retain a few vocabulary words plus a few grammar points plus do some reading than to overload myself with vocabulary or grammar points. I took every book and divided the number of pages by the number of days I had before the test, so I had a plan for how many pages of each book I had to do each day.

For me, kanji was the hardest part and reading was the easiest part, so it was good for me to know I'd have a mix of easy stuff and hard stuff to do every day.

I am currently also studying with the 総まとめ books. I am studying them in this order -> Kanji -> Vocabulary -> Grammar -> Reading -> Listening. I am working through 1 chapter of each book every day, and add the material to my deck, after I studied the material for the first time, and did the practice exercises. This order works best for me. I only add material from the Kanji, Vocabulary and Grammar books, though. 586+ cards after the first week. Learning and inital memorizing takes next to no time, but adding the material does, so somethings got to give, and right now its the Reading and Listening books which I only work through in order right now. I will add the material from both those books once I am done with the other 4 books as well. So far, no problem.

Thanks for the input you both.

I think I might give it a try , then. Maybe do one week of kanji, one week of goi, one of grammar then when I finish the reading week I'll go back to kanji for second week.
Think this way it will also give more time to put the words in anki and actually study them, before adding a lot more.

Its nice to know you are doing them as well nagareboshi. I hear so many ppl talking bad about these books, just because it has english words (which some ppl say "its bad if youre doing N2"), but even my japanese teacher uses them.

Its good to point that Im still doing KO2001, very slowly... tbh I just started the 2nd book.

And I need to find something to Listening ASAP. Too bad thejapaneseshop dont have the listening soumatome book, I like so much this serie.

Thou when I finish them I might try adventuring in the kanzen master or Unicom books.

Jonuhey, I'm doing Somatome as well. I don't have the listening book and I'm not doing the kanji one because I don't need it. I do one chapter every day from the grammar, reading and vocabulary books (in this order; I enjoy doing vocabulary the most so I sort of leave it for dessert ). I think it works best if you study a bit of everything everyday. I study each chapter, then do the exercises, then update my Anki deck. It's true that, of the whole studying process, creating cards takes the most time but it really does pay off. Also I find it the most effective to start studying the new cards the next day after creating them (which means the day after I first see the material), so that they don't wait too long until you see them again. It does require a bit of time and organisation but it seems to be working.

I studied for N2 using Sou Matome Vocab, and KM 2kyuu grammar. I neglected reading and listening and it'll probably show on the results, lol.
For N1 studying next year I have Sou Matome Vocab, KM N1 grammar, KM N1 Listening, and Unicom reading.

For me kanji seemed like a waste to study by itself because you should know it in conjunction with vocabulary. I found that one of the weaknesses of Sou Matome is that there are words commonly written in kanji but they write it in kana. Sure it could be in kana on the test but since my goal is functionality, it was quite annoying that I had to verify whether or not it's commonly written in kanji or not. Anyway, I had no problem with the readings on the test.

While I studied grammar and vocabulary in conjunction, grammar didn't really take off for me until I finished studying KO2001. It's difficult to learn grammar points when you're also trying to learn vocabulary at the same time. When studying for N1 I will focus on vocab first with grammar a distant second.

My plan for N1 is to do is finish vocab first, then study grammar/reading/listening in conjunction, and start really focusing on understanding dramas and radio shows completely.

Vocabulary: Word and definition, or sentence and definition. The sample test questions in Sou Matome become cloze delete. Adding cards from drama scripts.
Grammar: Front - example sentence, Back - explanation of grammar point and any vocabulary I don't know. Sample test questions become cloze delete.
Reading: SRS sentences I don't understand 100%. Unicom has explanations for any grammar or vocabulary. Also practicing by reading Kyoko Shimbun, an online site with The Onion-esque articles.
Listening: Chopping up tracks from N1 Listening and making SRS cards, watching drama without subtitles.

I think the good part about soumatome grammar book is that it doesnt use complicated vocab, so you can focus on the grammar point itself, not the other words around it.
It should have more example sentences thou, its usually just 2 for each grammar point.

jonuhey Wrote:I think the good part about soumatome grammar book is that it doesnt use complicated vocab, so you can focus on the grammar point itself, not the other words around it.
It should have more example sentences thou, its usually just 2 for each grammar point.

You can search for more examples here, just pasting expressions:
http://www.alc.co.jp/
example: "ないといけません" gets 36 hits

Sir, that link is awesome. Thanks so much ^^

I had the N3 Soumatome books, and I went Grammar - Kanji - Vocab. Wish I hadn't went that order, by the time I got to vocab I was tired and thus my study of it suffered. Especially as Vocab is my weakest point IMO, I prob should have went with that first.

On the topic of how good the books are:
I did the Soumatome grammar book as my grammar study when I was doing N2. I originally was doing the Kanzen Master book, but I found that the difficulty of the vocab made it take too long to go through, so I gave up on it and went with Soumatome. But, vocab has always kind of been my language weakness, especially since I find SRS so boring.

I passed N2 eventually and time went by. Later, when I was studying for N1, I wanted to review my N2 grammar a bit. I went through the Soumatome grammar N2 book once, reading through all the examples. And, to be honest, I do feel like it has a huge number of problems with it. There really are no real explanations for what the grammar points mean, and the way they are actually used is very unclear. So I kind of feel like I only learned those grammar points in a very superficial way, and when it came to questions in which you have to actually understand the grammar well, which is what happens a lot on N1, the limits of the book were very obvious. The 完全マスター books have a lot more depth to them.

I wish that I had gone through the 完全マスター book instead, even if it took more time, which is what I did with N1 grammar. I also thought that as I went through the N1 grammar book I learned a lot of words and got a lot of reading practice that was appropriate for N1 level. I imagine the same would have happened for N2 had I put in the effort.

Because the grammar explanations were so superficial, I felt like I had less confidence with N2 grammar then with N1 level grammar, since I went through a better book for N1. (Note, though, that the 新完全マスター is what I used, which was a big improvement over the old one. N1, at least, has usage notes that are really helpful. I'm not sure if there is a new edition of Soumatome that I haven't seen.)

There are new soumatomes books, but they are pretty much the same thing with a few changes.

About the N2 books, I havent studied it yet, but I did compare it with the previous version, as my Sensei has all four of the previous 2級 books.

-The N2 kanji is exactly the same book as the old one with a few new questions as far as I could see.
-Grammar and Vocab have a few lessons from the old 2級, but they have lots of new questions and the grammar one has more explanation for what I could see.
-N2 Reading book is apparently completely new, thou it seems they made the N3 reading book from the old 2級, but I am not 100% sure, cuz they changed a lot of pictures in them, but texts seems to be the same.

I didnt compare them with the old 1級 books, so it might be a mix of them too, but not sure.

For what I got, they just updated the books, changing lessons from the old books into the new ones and adding a few more lessons here and there to fill all the weeks in each book. If I had the old books already I wouldnt buy them.

Most people seem to go for the Soumatome books, but the new Kanzen Master series is a lot better. I used both series and SM wont prepare you as well as KM. Of course, if you can afford the time and money, get em all, but if you have to choose one or the other, go with the new KM series.

I found a couple of mistakes in Sou matome N2 vocab... I feel like if I didn't know the general meanings of some of the kanji, I wouldn't have found out. Still I feel like vocab is just a grind anyway no matter what book you use, it's just all about how they package it.

I referred to DJG quite a bit when using KM 2kyuu... but for what it's worth, the grammar felt pretty rare outside of tests. There were many times on the test I could pick out the right grammar but still felt unsure about actually using it or even seeing it in real life.

There isn't much in JLPT1 or 2 that is rare in real life. Just much of it is only used in the written language.

I don't think there's much N2 grammar that i haven't encountered in the real world. Most i see fairly regularly. I'm not sure where this myth that it's rare comes from. Rare in everyday conversation, sure, but rare in the news, in essays, novels, technical documents, etc? Nope.

N1, i'm still learning, but even that i see quite a bit of. Hell, children use some of the points in my N1 grammar book.

I recently saw ならではon a Suntory beer advertisement, and たるもの written in a bathroom stall at a bar in Kyoto. They're both N1 grammar points. So, yeah, they turn up.

jonuhey Wrote:I hear so many ppl talking bad about these books, just because it has english words (which some ppl say "its bad if youre doing N2"), but even my japanese teacher uses them.

Just because there are translations in the books doesn't necessarily follow that one has to pay attention to it, or add it to one's flash-cards instead of, lets say, Japanese definitions for words. I quite like the books as a primer before moving on to Unicom and the new Kanzen Master books. The only problem with the Kanzen Master Grammar book right now is, that I don't understand the explanations for the correct answers, because of the way the books presents them. But I guess I will once I started working with the book. *haha*

jonuhey Wrote:Its good to point that Im still doing KO2001, very slowly... tbh I just started the 2nd book.

You will finish it soon enough, just keep at it!

chillimuffin Wrote:It's true that, of the whole studying process, creating cards takes the most time but it really does pay off. Also I find it the most effective to start studying the new cards the next day after creating them (which means the day after I first see the material), so that they don't wait too long until you see them again.

This can't be emphasized enough! It really pays off doing it yourself instead of asking for pre-made decks. Which, I have to admit, I was considering as an option in case it takes too long to add all that material. I, too, review my card the next day, and found this works best.

kainzero Wrote:For me kanji seemed like a waste to study by itself because you should know it in conjunction with vocabulary.

I study them regardless, but not for the obvious reason to learn the on -/- kun readings, but to learn the correct reading for kanji in words. It still happens that I read じょう instead of じゅう or しょう instead of しゅう, and by adding kanji with readings and vocabulary that use the kanji I found it helps immensly to avoid such mistakes. On a side-note it also seems to happen that after a long day I start reading 今日 as こんにち. Not that it matters, both are correct readings for this word, it's just feels wrong while reading a sentence, knowing that it was always きょう and then all of a sudden I read it that way.