I haven't been on Reviewing the Kanji for quite a long time, as I've been studying for the Kanji Kentei test in June.

I've never taken any Japanese class, but my daughter is in a Japanese supplemental school (Saturday mornings) and she is working on her 2nd grade kanji. We decided to study for the KanKen test together, and take it together. It was great to do it with her: she is pretty much bilingual (thanks to my wife) but has a really hard time with stroke order. So I was able to help her with stroke orders and making up stories for kanji, and she helped with the readings and vocabulary.

I'm super-proud to relate that we both passed our Level 10 test (80 kanji). OK, that only puts me at the level of a Japanese first grader, but all the nihonjin at the school are impressed that I even tried to do it, without any formal classes or time >2weeks spend living in Japan.

So we are due to get a big certificate at our next school assembly, saying that both parent and child passed a kanken test. She was very excited that we both passed.

(Score? She got only 4 wrong out of the whole test, I got about 8 wrong but still got 132 points out of 150)

Old dog, meet your New Tricks.

We'll both try for level 9 in November!

Thanks for everyone's stories, I used a bunch of them for my own study. Unfortunately the Heisig order is completely different from the Joyo kanji order, as grouped into grade levels, but there we are.

dzurn wrote:

I'm super-proud to relate that we both passed our Level 10 test (80 kanji). OK, that only puts me at the level of a Japanese first grader, but all the nihonjin at the school are impressed that I even tried to do it, without any formal classes or time >2weeks spend living in Japan.

So we are due to get a big certificate at our next school assembly, saying that both parent and child passed a kanken test. She was very excited that we both passed.

Just wanted to say that I loved reading your story of learning Japanese along with your daughter - I think that's great!  Good luck with Level 9!

Lately I feel I'm able to tell people I'm "fluent" with only one or two qualifiers.

Feels pretty good for having seriously started learning in 2009.

My speaking is rusty because I've been outside of the country for a while. It perks back up when I go back and have Japanese people to verbally communicate with.

I got JLPT1 in 2011 and I've improved a ton since then I think.

Vocab density wise I'm almost past Core 2k, moving at a pace of around 25 new words a day which I think is fast enough. Further, I finished going through Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar and am reviewing the grammar points through example sentences at around 50 new cards a day with an Anki deck while slowly reading through the Dictionary of Intermediate Grammar simultaneously.

Next year around this time I'm hoping to be able to have moved on to mainly native material. With the help of reading forums, posting in Lang-8 and playing FFXIV 2.0 I should be able to get a lot of exposure and practice producing the language both passively and actively as well as comprehension.

dizmox wrote:

@Betelgeuzah why not try checking out PSO2 now? It's free and JP ONRY.

I'm sort of waiting for 2.0 too but I'm not holding my breath too much until I see more information about it...

Yeah, I'm playing it right now- although ignoring the Steam Summer Sale has proven to be quite a task.

In PSO2's benefit the game isn't too hard to figure out even if I can't properly understand half of it. It's very good practice.

Zgarbas wrote:

Finally done with core 6k in iKnow. Woot!
Also, a few days ago I read about 50 pages of キノの旅 in one go, which is way more than what I'm used to. Nearing the end of it . (sad face because I have no idea what to read next since the other books I have are way more high-level and scare me a bit)

Do you mean just the first book?  キノの旅 is a series.  You can buy the next one

Zgarbas wrote:

I know, but that implies making another book order... and I don't have the 50$ to spare . The series is also pretty pricey. I'm thinking about it. It would be nice to keep reading the same style without actually knowing the plot beforehand and seeing if I understand what's going on, though.

(yep. First volume)

50 bucks?  Ouch.  Aren't they like 600 yen in Japan (what does the back say?).  If you send me something random and interesting from Romania worth 600 yen I'll send you the second volume of キノの旅, haha.

I don't know why Amazon.co.jp charges like 5+ times the Post Office international shipping rate for things. Is it just to profiteer off the small amount of people who want something from Japan? If they reduced it to the actual cost then they'd actually have business from people like me...

I believe those reviews were hosted on MegaUpload.

Have studied formally for about 2 years now and just blasted through core 2k in a little over a month at 100-200 cards a day. Started core 6k yesterday at a much slower 20 new card rate since I still have a few hundred cards per day of residual reviews left from the 2k. Hopefully I can finish core 6k in 3 months.

I think those innocent books were in the "study pack". I would have to check (the rar file in my downloads folder, if it's still there @_@). I don't know, I clean up my downloads folder alot.

Tzadeck wrote:

Zgarbas wrote:

I know, but that implies making another book order... and I don't have the 50$ to spare . The series is also pretty pricey. I'm thinking about it. It would be nice to keep reading the same style without actually knowing the plot beforehand and seeing if I understand what's going on, though.

(yep. First volume)

50 bucks?  Ouch.  Aren't they like 600 yen in Japan (what does the back say?).  If you send me something random and interesting from Romania worth 600 yen I'll send you the second volume of キノの旅, haha.

50 bucks as in on yes-asia I have to make an order of around 50$ for free shipping, since without free shipping anything I buy would cost a fortune. (IIRC just shipping with white rabbit press is over 50$ to here, which is why I'm not getting the Kanzen Master). The books are about 10$ a pop, depending on the volume.

I'd love to, but all my books are in Romanian and English, so I don't think they'd present much interest .