My main focus right now is to absorb as much vocabulary as I possibly can.  That involves a lot of vocabulary drilling with my trusty side kicks, memrise and StickyStudy.  I have been able to really make a lot of progress with memrise.  I’m currently learning around 20 wors a day, but StickyStudy has been starting to get less time because I have less standing around time.

I do want to get in a practice test sometime this month so that I have a clearer picture of what my weaknesses are for the test.  I already have a general idea that I’m going to have a lot of weaknesses across the board.  The main one is going to be just an utter lack of the sheer quantity of vocabulary that you have to study for the main test.

A Memory Problem

When you go to remember a new word a grammar point there is a lot to put in your head.  For vocabulary words, you not only have to remember the meaning or general sense of the word, but you also have to know the collocations, usage information, what part of speech it is, etc… There is a lot to know and the test will most likely cover every little aspect of it.

A lot of times if you try to cram all this in at once, it is liable to simply fall right out of your head.  This is especially true for grammar I feel.  It usually takes me good two or three sweeps through a grammar book to really grasp it and be able to use it naturally.  When I first started studying for the test, I would always try to internalize everything in one go, and that is simply not possible.

Regular Tactics Don’t Seem to Work

When going to remember some of the trickier vocabulary words or grammar points the regular methods you use to remember Japanese often don’t seem to work.  If there is a short phrase to remember with out too many nuances to it than you can easily build up a link in your head.  For example, it is pretty easy to remember that ねこ means cat.  It is a pretty short word and we can pretty easily visualize a cat.

However if you take a word like 作戦 (sakusen), it becomes a little bit more difficult.  This word has a basic meaning of strategy, but it can also be used to mean operation, like a bombing operation. Now, those two senses are very similar, but they are different, and it is hard to remember those both the first time you see the word.

Often times you can use a clever mnemonic to help you remember a particularly stubborn word, but what about grammar points?  It is pretty difficult to break a grammar point down into small enough pieces to build a mnemonic out of it.

Or what about one of my other tried and true tactics?  Saying everything out loud?  This can help in a lot of ways, especially if you have some example sentences to work with, but it won’t solve all your problems.  And some grammar points or vocabulary words are simply too unwieldy.

Create a Memory Hook

Since all of this is too difficult to remember the first time you see it, it is best to create a smaller link to start off.  The simpler the better with this one.  You don’t want to stuff too much information onto that link at first.

I like to call these links “memory hooks” because they act like little hooks that you can link more information on to later.  Once you have that initial bond created in your head, you can add on more and more information later when you review to further expand your understand of the word or grammar point.

So don’t try to bit everything off at once.  Try to keep it to a minimum.  A lot of times, I’ll see these huge decks in Anki that contain 6 or more definitions for a single word in Japanese.  Although the Japanese word may very well mean all those things when used in different contexts, it is next to impossible to try to remember all of those words the first time you see it.

Next time you go to study a new grammar point or vocabulary word, make sure to try to reduce the amount of information to its most primitive form.  Remember you can always add on more information later to clarify the memory.

Do you Currently Use Hooks?

What do your flashcards look like?  Is there a lot of information on them or just a little?

Photo by Jean-Baptiste Carre

I guess it really hit me when I picked up the So-Matome N1 Listening Book and started leafing through it. There is a lot of stuff in there that I simply haven’t heard before. I’m going to be doing a lot of listening from here on out just so that I can make a showing in the listening section. I’m starting to get really curious to see how well I can do, and how much of an improvement I can manage.

This is all coupled with all of my new responsibilities as a dad. My little daughter loves to not sleep. It seems like it is her favorite thing to do in the whole wide world as a matter of fact. I’m personally in the I love sleep camp. It is a lot more fun in that camp, but I haven’t been able to persuade my daughter of that, YET.

Make it your Own

If you crack open your typical JLPT drill book you’ll see a ton of example sentences to help you understand the different grammar points. Textbook authors, in general, try to give a very representative example of the type of sentences that use a particular grammar point and for the most part they do that job pretty well.

But, a lot of the sentences are really, well, boring. They are pretty vanilla stuff. One of the reasons for this is that the JLPT, by design, is suppose to test over Japanese used in everyday conversation. This limits the scope of the vocabulary and topics that come up on the test to smaller band of things.

This is a good thing. It follows the comprehensible input principle of language learning, which is that in order to learn a language, you should be absorbing content in the target language that is just above your level. Just difficult enough that you can follow along and learn a few new things because you understand just enough of the other content.

To really Learn it, you DO have to Use it

Those vanilla sentences are great for demonstrating the meaning of the grammar point or vocabulary, but will they help you to be able to remember it? For me, a lot of these meanings just roll on out for me. It has a really hard time sticking, and I feel like I study a lot repeating the sentences over and over again for on real gain.

Since the sentences often don’t pertain to me, or are about a subject I’m not exactly jumping up and down to read about, they don’t stick. It can also be incredibly boring to go through as well, which tends to slow down or even stop your studying.

How do you solve this problem? How do you put an end to the monotony? There is actually a pretty simple solution for this one.

Start Experimenting with it

In my experience, you really need to make a particular grammar point your own. Make example sentences about you and your life. Don’t put up with some vanilla sentences to help you remember the grammar, write something that will actually help you.

And once you come up with that sentence, make sure you get it checked. Then, make that darn thing your anthem for the day. Try to apply it everything you possible can. When you have a few free moments in the day try to recall it back up again. Really focus on that stubborn grammar point if it won’t stick in your head.

How Active are you?

Do you re-write the grammar sentences or just leave them be? Have you ever come up with some real funny or comical sentences to help you remember a particular point? I’d love to hear them in the comments below.

Photo by Wonker

I think a lot of people focus too much on the infamous lists.  I certainly did when I first started preparing for the N2, but I think the test has changed a bit because they no longer have an official vocabulary list for each level.  Since they no longer have this restriction they can theoretically put any word they want to on the test.  Which makes studying only the lists a little dangerous.

The other problem is that if you just study a bunch of lists the vocabulary has no context.  It means something, but it doesn’t mean anything to you if that makes any sense.  Since you haven’t experienced it personally I think it is hard to use it naturally or to understand how it is used.  And what is the point of learning a bunch of vocabulary if you can’t really use it and don’t have a clear understanding of the word when you are reading?

In the same sense, if you simply add words that you have only experienced you might not learn all the words you need to know for the test, so it is good to study the lists a little bit.

N2 Grammar – つつ

The grammar point つつ can be used in two different ways in Japanese as a conjunction and as a auxiliary verb.  Both of these uses have their nuances though of course and are used in very different circumstances.  They are also confused with several other grammar points that have different meanings, but could be used in similar situations – things like ばかりだ、最中に or としている.

This week I continue the popular series on tricky JLPT grammar points and go over somethings to look out for on the JLPT.  Find out what the differences are between some of these difficult grammar points so that you can increase your chances of passing the JLPT.  Don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter if you haven’t already so that you can pick up the free newsletter-exclusive PDF that goes over this grammar point in detail as well as tests with some practice questions.

Put it to Use

After you’ve given the podcast a listen, put your new found knowledge to use.  Give this grammar point a try in the comments below.  This is a great way to lock in your knowledge and test your understanding of the grammar.  Also, it’ll help your fellow JLPTers with some more examples of what the grammar point is like.

I recently tried Gakusen, which is supposed to be a great drama.  The main issue I have with it is that it is based off a manga so the entire style of the drama is very exaggerated and cartoon-y.  I think this would be interesting if that is what you want to study, but if you want to focus on more serious language like what is on the JLPT it is not really the best choice.

First off, it is full of slangy choppy dialog.  The characters make short quips to each other that are mumbled and a bit hard to pick up.  This makes it difficult for me to practice listening.  Also, it seems like they are using a lot of high school slang, which isn’t really useful to me on any level.  I don’t do a lot of talking to high schoolers these days (at least in Japanese).

The other problem with the drama is that the characters are completely unrealistic.  This is, of course because they are suppose to be caricatures based on the manga.  That would make the drama a really interesting TV show to watch, but maybe not the best choice for something to watch if you are studying.  Anyway, I’ve stopped watching it for now in favor of something a bit more useful.

Giving Birth in Japan

As you might know, about a month ago, my daughter was born.  It was an incredible experience that I will never forget full of highs and boring moments.  Everything changes once there is a baby in your life, and I’m starting to understand that whole saying “You’ll understand when you have children of your own.”

But, it was also an interesting opportunity to speak Japanese.  I was forced to try to do my best to understand from the nurses what was going on because I couldn’t rely on my wife to translate for me.  These types of situations are always the best to learn anything, because it forces you into a do or die moment and you end up learning a lot.

I certainly learned a lot about what all goes into having a baby as well as the specialized vocabulary that goes along with it.  One thing about the JLPT is that even though the highest level covers some 18,000+ words, that certainly is not the entire language.  There are plenty of extra vocabulary words out there that you still can learn.

Differences from America

Japan has some noticeable differences between how they do things and how America does things.  One big noticeable difference is that the hospital stay is a lot longer. In most cases in Japan, the stay at the hospital or clinic is somewhere around a week compared to about a day or two after birth in the States.

This extra time is not just for relaxing though.  The nurses taught her how to do all sorts of stuff and to top it all off she got a aromatherapy massage to help her relax.  The food was also amazing and she got a nice little private room with a DVD player, electric kettle and the works.

Another big difference is that there wasn’t a month (or more) long birthing or Lamaze class.  It was actually just one class where they went over everything with us.  It was still pretty entertaining.  At the beginning of the class the nurse asked for volunteers who wanted to wear an empathy belly.  Of course, no one volunteer so she started strongly suggesting to a few men to wear one, who eventually caved in.  Yes, I wussed out.  She got me back however when she told me to get up on the delivery table in the delivery room in front of the whole class.  That’s the kind of stuff you come to Japan for, the cultural experiences.

Going Back to Mom’s House

Mother’s in Japan typically go back to their mom’s house for the first month after having a baby.  This is so their mother can take care of them while they are resting and recovering.  Also help do things like care for the baby and cook meals.  This is of course kind of a bummer for us fathers, but a bit unavoidable.

Recently, a student of one of my friends had a daughter and his wife went back to Hokkaido for 6 months.  This, to me, seems a little overboard of course.  I can’t imagine going 6 months without seeing my kid.  It is difficult enough to only be able to visit on weekends during this first month.  Hokkaido isn’t exactly just up the street either, it is a good 2 hour flight from Osaka, which in Japan, is like the other side of the universe.

What about you?

Have you ever had an experience like this?  Were you ever in a situation where you were forced to use Japanese?  Let me know in the comments.

I have finally made to the 25% mark with StickyStudy. Even though I’m a bit suspect of some of the words in its list, I really like the pacing and design of the whole app.  I, of course, am backing this up with plenty of words from reading on memrise.  I’ve managed to crack the top 200 over at the site, and I’m sure I’ll keep climbing the charts because I need to get as much vocab in my head as possible.

I’m starting to make pretty good progress with ほぼ日.  I can usually get through 5 or 6 pages a day.  That doesn’t sound like much I know but it is a lot better than I was doing when I first started.  Again, I’m looking forward to reading something with a little bit more of a flow.  ほぼ日 has great examples of the kind of stuff you see on the test, but it is a bit difficult to stay focused on.

Finished off Nagareboshi, which is a pretty good jDrama for studying.  It contains a lot of daily conversation language and expressions.  Although the story is pretty typical – a man’s sister will die if she doesn’t get a new liver, so he contracts a woman to marry him so she can donate her liver.  Like any  jDrama there are bumps and rough spots along the way of course.

N3 Grammar – とたんに – ‘as soon as’

This week I go over all the details you need to know about とたんに a Japanese adverb that basically means ‘as soon as’.  Of course, it isn’t just that simple.  There are a few other grammar points that share similar meanings, but are used differently, some of them include 次第, ついでに, and 以来.

I’ll give you the scoop on what to look out for and what the differences are between these different grammar points in this week’s podcast.  Be sure to sign up for the newsletter so that you can pick up the cheat sheets that I send out whenever I do a podcast like this.  If you missed out this time, I’ll be doing these types of podcasts on a regular basis, so if you sign up you won’t miss out again.

Give it a Try!

I’d love to hear your examples of some sentences using とたんに, give it a try in the comments below.

I’m actually looking forward to finishing this book off and moving on to focusing more on the N1 grammar that I need to know.  I’ll probably be doing that while I’m reading another novel, hopefully something a little more fun to read like Harry Potter or something.  I want to get through all the N1 grammar at least once before I make a valiant effort for the N1 in July.

I’m also still working my way through StickyStudy for iPhone.  If you are interested in picking up this app, I created a video that reviews StickyStudy for iPhone that you might want to check out.  At first, I thought it didn’t re-test words that you mastered, but it does, it just does it a lot later than I expected it would.  Still probably the most aesthetically-pleasing flashcard app in iTunes at the moment.

Variety is the Spice of Life

Some people have a tried and true way of studying.  You might drill words to death on memrise.com, read manga like it is going out of style, or shift through thousands of sentences in Anki.  Chances are if you have reached an advanced level in your studies you have tried several different kinds of study methods in order to come up with what interests you and what helps you recall the most stuff.

I’m starting to realize though that if you just focus on one particular source for learning, there are some drawbacks to this.  You can’t really rely on one resource to get you everything you need.  For example, reading manga is great, but in realty reading manga a lot helps you get better at reading manga.

Proof

The book I’m reading now, ほぼ日刊イトイ新聞の本, is a great source of essays and musings from Mr. Itoi.  It contains a lot of writings that are similar to the kinds of essays you see on the tests.  But, I’m starting to see some of the same words being repeated.  This isn’t so bad actually because I get to naturally review their meanings in context, but I also feel like I should try out a different author later.

Another example of this is when I went to the clinic when my wife was having a baby recently.  I could get a basic idea of what everyone was saying, but needed to look up a lot of extra vocabulary.  Also, just the phrasing of what the nurses were saying and asking me was a little unfamiliar to me.  Overall, it was of course an amazing experience (having a baby) and a good learning opportunity as well because I was extremely motivated to know what the heck they were talking about.

The JLPT is good in the respect that it forces you to spread out your learning.  You can’ simply watch jDramas all day and expect to pass the test.  You have to spread out and hone your skills in order to have a chance of passing the higher levels.  In this way, it pretty much prepares you for anything that is going to come your way.

How to Add some Spice

My current philosophy is that the minute you start getting really comfortable with a particular source of material is the minute you should start thinking about changing to something else.  I’m starting to see this with ほぼ日.  It is getting easier and easier and so maybe it is time to branch off and do something else more challenging.

It’s good to challenge yourself with something even if it seems next to impossible at first.  This is especially true if you are at a higher level (N3+).  Try to take on some material that almost seems next to impossible.  This is the best way, in my opinion, to smash through plateaus you might run into from time to time.

What is your Favorite Spice?

What are some non-standard sources of materials that you use to flesh out your study routine?  Let me know in the comments.

Music by Kevin MacLeod and photo by Michael Caven

For my studies, I’m maintaining the same routine, although to tell you the truth I’d like to move on to something a little more with a story than ほぼ日刊イトイ新聞の本.  There has been more than a few times that I’ve caught myself nodding off while trying to read that book.  I think with a novel at least there is a story that you can follow and you want to know the ending to.  But, with Mr. Itoi’s book it almost sometimes seems to be random thoughts that he writes about.

I have found myself getting really competitive over at memrise.com.  It is really fun to try to rack up as many points as you can as you play against other learners.  It’s crazy, but I’m nearing the 1 million points mark soon.  I wonder if I can ever make the top 100.  Anyway, it is definitely a motivating way to keep studying.

N4 Grammar – The Japanese Particle ka

My last podcast on the grammar particle kurai/gurai was a roaring success.  I got an incredible amount of readers and the guide for that episode got a ton of downloads, so I figured I’d continue the series this week with some N4 level grammar.  This week I’m going over the Japanese particle ka and specifically how it is used in embedded questions.  I’ll also be going over かどうか and some things to look out for with that particle grammar point.

Don’t miss out on the guide though!  If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for my newsletter to get the full guide delivered right to you.  It’s packed with examples, explanations and a few sample questions to help you prepare for the exam.

Give the Japanese Particle ka a Try!

Can you write a sentence with an embedded question? or one using かどうか? Give it a try in the comments below and I’ll double check it for you.

What is really refreshing is that about half the words I don’t know in Mr. Itoi’s  ほぼ　are words that are on the N1 list. This seems to bust the myth about N1 containing only useless vocabulary that is often not used. There actually numerous words that have come in handy from the list that I found in the book.

I have also finally broken down and started my N1 book buying. Whenever I prep for a certain level this seems to become an ongoing affair where I’ll first start off with a grammar book or two and then simply keep buying a new book every 2 months or so until I finally pass the test. I feel like for the N1 level, I’m going to be doing much the same thing.

N1 First Impressions

When I first starting taking the JLPT, I never thought I would make it to the N1 level. It just seemed to be that big pie in the sky dream that I would never achieve. Or I would need to major in Japanese in order to reach such a goal. But, here I am taking the first steps toward trying to absorb the vocabulary I need.

I starting to realize though that the N1 is pretty much any level of the test. You just have to digest the material, go over it and drill it until you know it by heart. And it is exciting at the beginning of this process because you are absorbing so much new material and discovering new ways to say things. I also get to try out different techniques to see what helps me to retain the information the best.

In this episode, I thought I would go over my early impressions of what the N1 material is like. I’m finding out that passing the N1, isn’t as bad as most people think it is. It’s definitely going to be hard, but it is definitely going to be manageable.

N1 Vocabulary Impressions

Some of the N1 vocabulary I’ve picked up before in my reading of native materials. This is great validation for all the hard work you have to put in to read through a book. It is also such a great feeling to encounter a word that you have seen before. Because you can just skip over it and not have to deal with all the hard work of learning the word.

Some of the N1 vocabulary appear to be what we would call in English ‘phrasal verbs’ or ‘two-part verbs’. Basically verbs made of two words like ‘pick up’ or ‘turn off’. In Japanese, these come in the form a verb that is two verbs glued together.

One I encounter the other day is うけいれる or 受け入れる. You might recognize the first part as 受ける – to receive, and the second part as 入れる – to put in.

Together, these two verbs make one verb 受け入れる, which has a basic meaning of ‘to accept’, but this meaning is more like to accept something mentally (like a truth or someone’s values) more than a physical object.

I fear that it is going to be these small little nuances that the test will drag out and test us over, but hopefully with plenty of reading practice and a good amount of vocabulary drilling I can sail through these tricky vocabulary words.

One relief is that there are a lot of katakana words for the N1 level. I guess these are introduce at this level because they aren’t used so much and would be considered difficult for non-English speakers. For English speakers of course this seems to be a free pass. Woo Hoo!

N1 Grammar Impressions

N1 grammar doesn’t seem to be too alien so far. There are a lot of expressions that use particles that are pretty familiar, things like ぐらい,　こそ、まで… but assembled together in more complex ways. A lot of these phrases can be replaced by other simpler phrases, but the N1 phrases are stiffer and more formal sounding. There appears to be a significant amount of written only grammar and not a lot of new spoken grammar.

There are a few familiar grammar patterns from N2 with some different new nuances to them as well. This seems to pretty typical for every level. There is always a little overlap with the grammar drill books just so everything is covered.

There is definitely a good chunk of stuff that I have never seen before in my reading practice or otherwise. And there is a handful of stuff that I’ve asked native speakers about and they swear they’ve never seen it, so maybe it only shows up in very formal writing?

How about your Impressions?

If you are studying for the N1, or have taken the N1, what were your impressions of the vocabulary and grammar? Let me know in the comments below.

Music by Kevin MacLeod

You can check to see if the test is being held in your country at the official JLPT website. Keep in mind though that this isn’t always completely up to date so you might want to double check with the institution that puts on the test in your country to see if they are putting on the test.

Interview with Andrew

This week, I’m doing something a little different. You asked for interviews with your fellow test takers, and I’m finally going to deliver on that request. We have a very special interview with a fellow test taker that is currently living and working Japan down in Hiroshima.

Andrew passed the N2 in 2010 and tried for the N1 in 2011, but didn’t make it. I talked to him recently about what he does to study and his personal recommendations on how to prepare for the JLPT. We went over how he studied for the N1 and some good tips on how to absorb all the kanji that is required for the N1.

Be sure to give it a listen and tell me your thoughts in the comments below. I’ll be back next week with some more great information to help you pass the test!

Music by Kevin MacLeod

For vocabulary, I’ve been sticking with StickyStudy (haha).  They did a major update to the app that makes it even more beautiful than before and makes the interface a lot slicker and faster.  One thing I started doing this week is slowly putting in N1 grammar points.  I just picked up So-Matome N1 Grammar book and I’m starting through it slowly.  I’m going to try to put in all the grammar points to StickyStudy for study mostly because I want something more portable and easy to just whip out and start studying with.

Other big event that happened recently is the release of Japanese support for Siri.  If you not familiar with Siri, she is the new virtual assistant built into the iPhone 4S.  Overall, Siri isn’t the best thing in the world.  She is still pretty basic, but with the addition of voice support for Japanese, it has become an incredibly useful tool to check my pronunciation with, which is pretty bad to tell you the truth.  I’ve been doing a lot of speaking in Japanese lately and it has started to improve, but I can honestly say my reading and listening skills are a lot better.

The Japanese Particle Kurai/Gurai

For this podcast, I’m going to try to do something a little different, so bear with me.  I’m going to give the Japanese lesson thing one more try, but this time it is going to be a little different.  In the podcast, I go over the grammar particle kurai/gurai and its uses.  For those of you that are signed up for the newsletter, you’ll get a handy little pdf that has all the information I went over in the podcast as well as some extra sample sentences and information.

As always, I’d like to hear your feedback on the new format and if it is helpful for you or not.  What I’ll probably do is cycle through the levels each week with a different topic.

Is this a Clever Ploy to Get Us to Sign Up for your Newsletter?

Well, kind of, I wanted to give something a little extra to those that have signed up for my newsletter.  So, now the newsletter will have a few extra goodies that you can’t get anywhere else.  And just as before, I’ll never spam you with unwanted offers and general junk.  Just the good stuff.

Can you use kurai/gurai?

Give this grammar point a try in the comments and I’ll give it a look.  Hope to hear from you soon!

Music by Kevin MacLeod

I have also been making my way through the N1 list of vocabulary on StickyStudy: Japanese, which is essentially a very pretty flashcard app. I’m at about 10% so far. I’ve been coming across a lot of words that I’m a little familiar with so it hasn’t been as difficult as I thought. I always had this image in my mind that N1 vocabulary will be unbelievably difficult, but it is turning out to pretty simple really, just a matter of practice.

I just stumbled upon a iPhone app called Vocre, that just recently became free. It is essentially a voice translator that you can use for several languages. One of the available options is Japanese, so I’ve been toying with that. The machine translation is of course utterly laughable for everything but the simplest of phrases, but it is good practice for your pronunciation. I’ll try to get a video out about it.

You have to Absorb Culture not Learn It

Before I came to Japan, I did a lot of reading about what Japanese culture was like. I had a couple of books written by so-called experts on Japanese culture. I thoroughly read any book I could get my hands on that dealt with Japanese culture.

I even waded through a 1000 page book about the modern history of Japan, which was actually quite useful for understanding modern Japanese history. It took me forever to get through the book, but I made it. And now I’m actually quite glad I took the time to read through all that because I have a much deeper understanding of all the places I visit.

In general, I just wanted to be prepared for Japan. I didn’t want to end up being that guy that is incredibly rude and does absolutely everything they are not supposed to. In other words the dirty American or dumb foreigner stereotype.

But, Japanese Culture is Different

But, I quickly found out that Japanese culture really isn’t anything like what was described in my books or the headlines you see. It definitely wasn’t what I thought it was.

Now, first off, I live in Kyoto, which is pretty thick with culture for obvious reasons. And just a stone’s throw away is Osaka. Both of these places have pretty distinct cultures. That doesn’t really seem all that likely given that they are basically one big interconnected city area. There is a strip of suburbia that connects the two.

These two cities are nothing like what I read about in my books. Kyoto is obviously rather traditional, most people have exceptional manners and everyone seems to love to drink gallons of coffee every day. This is compared to Osaka, where people considered a red don’t walk light as a warning to look both ways before crossing; where people love to eat; and occasionally throw Colonel Sanders in the river for fun.

Obviously not the picture of Japan I had in my mind before I came here. I read that people in Japan never hold hands or kiss in public, which they do, maybe not as much as say, people in some European countries, but they do.

I was also told that people were always on time. My Japanese professor told me once that Japanese people almost always arrive 15 minutes before every appointment and patiently wait until the appointed time to meet with people. I don’t know any of my students (young and old) that have always matched this stereotype. Some people can come as late as 15 minutes to an hour long class.

Come to Japan

If you have a strong interest in learning the Japanese language, which if you are taking the test you probably do, then you should strongly consider coming to see Japan for at least one visit. There is so much that you just absorb by being here that you simply can’t read in a book or on a blog. And even a short one week trip can fuel your motivation for your studies.

At the very least, if you can’t afford a trip to Japan, try to pick up a Skype chat buddy to talk with on a regular basis. Having some exposure to real culture really helps bring you closer to understand the ‘Japanese mind’.

Having a deeper understanding of the culture will help your language skills as well. The more you study Japanese the more you’ll begin to realize that people in Japan simply don’t usually talk about the same stuff we usually talk about. This is what sometimes makes the reading sections of the JLPT so difficult to understand.

How about you?

What’s something unexpected that you found out about Japan? Are there some stereotypes about Japan that you’ve always wondered about? Let me know in the comments below.

Join my newsletter for hot tips that I don’t share on the blog. If you like the podcast, be sure to stop by iTunes leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Even a baby can do it

I have finally given in to doing a little bit of studying for the N1. I’ve started to try to absorb as much of the vocabulary I can on a daily basis. I know that is going to be the most time consuming part of the whole studying process, so I want to get started early, working my way through the vocabulary list for that level, especially, if it suppose to be somewhere around 18,000 words. That’s still pretty hard to believe though!

I am at about page 115 of the Itoi book. I seem to be averaging about 50/50 with it. That is, about 50% of the articles I can understand fairly well, the other 50% I really struggle to make heads or tails of. I usually have to look up a lot of words, and even then I’ll usually end up asking a native for clarification.

I am already at about 7% of the N1 list on Sticky Study for iPhone. I really like the look and feel of the app, but there are a few features of it that I’m not a huge fan of. I’m also starting to distrust their N1 list a little. It only contains about 3300 words, but I think the N1 test has a lot more than that. I’m definitely supplementing this with a lot of reading and plugging words I don’t know into memrise.com

One last really big personal announcement is that I’m going to be a father soon. In about a month from when this podcast is published, I’ll be a proud father. That’s why I’ve been a bit non-committal with my study goals recently. I know that as soon as the baby comes my schedule is going to be turned upside down, so for the moment I’m playing it a little cool. But, I will try my best to get a respectable score this December though!

Going on Man Dates

So, if you’ve been following the podcast recently, you know that I’ve been on the hunt for a good conversation partner. Mostly I want to be able to practice Japanese conversation, so that I can get my fluency up. I also wanted to be able to talk to a male speaker, because it seems like I get plenty of exposure to female speakers of Japanese at work and with my wife.

This seemed a little awkward at first to tell you the truth. I felt like I was going on a man date, but after the first couple initial meetings with a few nice folks, I’ve gotten more and more comfortable, and the whole conversation practice thing is getting a lot smoother.

My advice is, if you are going to try this at home, by all means start small. Start with a few short meetings where you just introduce yourself to each other and consider a success. This is especially true if you are at the N5/N4 level I think. At this level, it might be pretty difficult to keep a conversation up for more than a few minutes, so take baby steps before going overboard.

Am I ‘learning’ anything?

I think one concern that was brought up by a few commentors when I first started talking about this was that they felt like they didn’t really learn all that much. This is true to a certain extent. You aren’t really going to be able to take home something really tangible from these chats. Chances are pretty good that your chat partner doesn’t have a list of vocabulary handy that they want to go over with you.

But, you are practicing the basic, but essential skill of speaking. One misconception that I had of language learning (and a lot of people make this mistake) is that I thought if I learned a word, I could use it. So if I read it, put down on a flashcard and drilled to death, I could use it; it was mine.

However, that really isn’t completely correct. You have to practice speaking the word in order to be able to say the word. That may seem like common sense to some (or most?) people, but it wasn’t completely evident to me, and I often see students make the same mistake. So, I wanted to start practicing the skill of speaking and using the language.

My main goal behind all of this is to be understood. Not be super ultra correct; not have perfect pronunciation; not drop that bomb 四字熟語 (yojijukugo) or four kanji compounds. The idea here is to be understood and get my point across. Be able to discuss things and support my opinions without drifting off into ええと。。。

What Separates the Cool Kids from those Other People

In my experience, through talking to people that have passed the N1 and N2 in person, by email, and by the blog, I’ve learned that they tend to have a few things in common. One major thing in common is that they use the language on a daily basis. So, every day, they are writing, speaking, reading and listening.

You can study drill books all you want, but you will have to start using it in order to take it to that next level. It’s my belief that it is almost impossible to do so otherwise. For some people this jump into using it is, psychologically, quite big, for others it is just a small step on their road to fluency. Either way, it is something that you must do.

Getting a chat partner or even a pen pal are just a couple of tools that can also help you if you are studying Japanese outside Japan. You are fighting an uphill battle being outside the country, but it is completely possible if you immerse yourself in the language and take the initiative.

What are you doing to use Japanese?

How are you making an effort to use the language frequently? Let me know in the comments.

Join my newsletter for hot tips that I don’t share on the blog. If you like the podcast, be sure to stop by iTunes leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Mark Evans

I’m still reading through Mr. Itoi’s book.  I’m at about page 90, which is about a quarter of the way through the book. There are some hard parts and there are some easier parts. Overall, I think I’m making pretty good progress through the book. I had to switch to reading it in the morning now, because I had a hard time staying awake on the train ride home studying it, but other than that a good book. By the way, if you happen to be reading this book, I made a course of the more difficult words on memrise.com.

I have officially started studying N1 vocabulary with Sticky Study for my iPhone. Although this app does not have the most intuitive interface (I found myself several times hitting the wrong button or just plain getting lost in the interface) it does have a really nice look about it. There is something about good aesthetics that just helps you stay motivated longer.

I’ve also been narrowing down my hunt for a conversation partner. I have done a few Skype chats here and there with a few people that I met online. It has been a bit of an awkward first start, as these things are bound to be, but I’m optimistic that some good things will come out of it.

Are Non-native teachers completely useless?

I was cruising around the web doing some research for JLPT as I often do on Friday night (what else would a super cool married guy be doing?) and I happened upon a forum discussion where someone was talking about how non-native teachers are fairly useless.

I’ve actually had experience with a non-native teacher when I was first studying Japanese a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. I took a year of Japanese college classes before I came to Japan. The classes were arranged so that we took 4 classes a week. 3 of those classes were with native Japanese instructors and the 4^th one was with a non-native guy that was suppose to clarify grammar, writing, and other parts of the language that weren’t covered in the immersion classes with native teachers.

This worked out fairly well except the non-native teacher wasn’t all that sharp, and would often forget what he was doing mid-class. In theory though, if he were a little sharper, it would have worked out pretty well. Luckily, a lot of the Japanese instructors knew English fairly well and had mercy on us.

Except for one instructor who made it his mission to break us and convince us that all Japanese people are incredibly rude and cruel. He is still the meanest Japanese person I’ve ever met. But, that is a story for a different time.

Advantages of a Non-Native

A non-native teacher is able to really give you a clear explanation of the nuances in your native language. This is helpful, because you really want to be clear about particular points of grammar or else you risk making the same mistake over and over again. Also, a clear, solid explaination of grammar, vocabulary, or a particular difficult reading or listening can save you time and frustration.

Motivation is one big advantage in my opinion. Whenever I see someone whose Japanese skills are better than mine, I always look upon them with respect. They have must likely studied really hard to get to the level that they are at. It is also encouraging because they act kind of like role models. In other words, if they can do it, I can do it. With a native speaker, it is sometimes to easy to simply say ‘well, easy for you, its your native language.’

One last advantage is that non-native speakers have a greater ability to be empathetic. They have been through what you are going through so they aren’t going to throw the kitchen sink at you and expect you to catch it. They will help you along and be more sympathetic than a native. When I first started teaching English, I had a hard time putting myself in my student’s shoes and I feel that sometimes came out in my teaching.

Disadvantages of a Non-native Teacher

If your Japanese knows English, it can be all too easy to use that as a crutch to walk with. You can keep on using English to ask questions or to check your understanding, and not really get immersed in Japanese. I sometimes ran into this problem early on when I was studying. Heck, I still sometimes breakdown and use English to ask questions from time to time.

A non-native teacher’s Japanese is ‘learned’ Japanese. In other words, it is almost too correct. They speak using rules that they have learned and practiced, so that they are so good at speaking, they actually become unnatural. I’ve met a few Japanese that speak English really well, but I can still tell they are non-native because they are too perfect, and thus unnatural.

A non-native speaker will also never be the final authority of the language. Anything a native says is going to be okay (even if it’s ‘wrong’) because they are native. They use the living language which is constantly evolving (albeit slowly), whereas non-natives are just imitating it based on books, movies, TV shows, and the relatively (compared to natives) limited exposure they have had to it in real life.

Summary

So, what can we make of all this? Do you go the way that everyone seems to be leaning toward, all native teachers, or do you call on a non-native to help you out? I would say the best way is to use a blended approach because it’s good to have both. Natives are great for practicing skills, the skill of reading, listening, speaking, and writing.

But, non-natives are pretty good at the nuts and bolts, especially the grammar and expressions. Explanations of grammar points in English can really bring some clarity to what you are learning.

My advice is to realize the disadvantages and get the most out of the advantages, but don’t overuse a non-native. Non-natives are useful for about 25% of your learning starting off, this would include books in English as well. But, as you move up, I recommend making that percentage smaller and smaller until you are around maybe 5% or even 0%.

Always remember, everyone has their own way of doing things. Some people will excel with a non-native teacher others will do better with a native. It all depends on your personality and how you learn.

Who is your favorite teacher?

Do you prefer native or non-native teachers? Why?

P.S.  Do you like native teachers? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Do you like non-native teachers?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes about them and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod

I’ve also been busying myself with curator duty over at memrise.com. It has really started to be a great clean site with a lot of participation from students of Japanese. We are slowly cleaning up the decks and really making them a great resource. It’s good to see it happen.

I have started on my epic quest to find a conversation partner as well. I spent the whole day emailing and signing up for just about any and every place that would have me.

Part of me feels a little embarrassed that I’m trying to hunt down a conversation partner online, meanwhile my wife is Japanese, but I think it is important to diversify your conversation partners. After all, context is key right? And if I’m only talking to my wife, I’m just practicing how to talk to my wife, not talking to other people. And so, I must embark on my quest…

Options for Finding a Conversation Partner

To be honest, if you are living in Japan, it should be fairly easy to pick up a conversation with folks here. There are several good conversation partner meet ups in any major city, but what if you are busy, and can’t make a meeting? What if you live in the middle of the sticks (or don’t even live in Japan at all) and you can’t find somebody? What is a guy or gal to do?

Well, there are a lot of options, but few good options as far as I can tell. I’ve been wading through a lot of websites with a great interface but no Japanese speakers; sites that had a lot of Japanese speakers, but they all left town a long time ago; and some that make you pay some cash before you can see anything good.

I’ve still been posting to all the sites in the interest of scientific research. I’m really curious as to what site has the most active community on it. I’m sure it is pretty difficult to attract and hold a group of language exchange folks.

What I did so far

So far, I went in and set up a basic profile and made sure I put a picture up. I think this is key in any kind of exchange. Who wants to talk to someone that they can’t see?

I also made sure to put up a bio in English and in Japanese. I think this is probably another critical step because first of all, it’s good to let people know who you are, but also it is important to literally speak the language.

I’m guessing that some conversation partners might be turned off by the fact that my entire profile is in English. Also, I’d kind of like someone that ISN’T good at English to keep me from using that as a crutch.

I also fired off messages to at least two people per site that I signed up for. These were just basic messages that introduced myself. Mostly just a rehash of what I put in my profile bio, nothing too major. I didn’t want to spend a bunch of time writing an email and not getting a response.

And now it’s time to just patiently wait for responses. I’ve already gotten a few people that messaged me back that seem interested, but need to do some more follow up and see if I can meet up with a few of them. Hopefully I’ll have more to report next week!

What is Looking Good so Far

So far, the Polyglot Club is looking pretty good. It seems to have a pretty active community and might yield some responses. SharedTalk.com is also looking quite promising. It is a resource created by Rosetta Stone and looks to be pretty well put together. Both of these sites boost about 2000+ Japanese speakers to talk to.

Another site worth an honorable mention is iTalki.com, it is pretty well put together site. It might not have the most active Japanese speakers though.

Anyway, time will tell which one really pans out. I tried a good 10 different sites out, so there is a possibility that a better site than these 3 will surface, but I doubt it. There is pretty big difference between the good and the not so good, if you know what I mean.

Did you Find a Conversation Partner?

Have you made friends online that you chat with now? How was it? Let me know in the comments.

P.S.  Do you need more tips on speaking Japanese? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Do you like speaking Japanese?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes about them and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Something seems odd about this picture.

Generally speaking, it is usually pretty easy to find a conversation partner in Japan. I mean the whole country is literally filled with native speakers. But, being that I have an incredibly crazy schedule, working 6 days a week, I’m usually not free to meet up with folks at any reasonable hour.

I also think the other challenge for me will be simply getting my conversation partner to meet up regularly. After all, I live in the ‘big city’ (is Kyoto big?) and people have some pretty crazy schedules. Especially during this season.

If you are unaware, the Japanese fiscal year ends in March, which means that this is an incredibly frantic time for people making budget, spending excess money, transferring folks around to other parts of the country, etc… So that means it’s next to impossible to arrange anything regular.

Nonetheless, I’ve started the wheels rolling. I haven’t come across that much significant yet, but I’ll report in as soon as I do.

Other than that, I’ve still been hammering away at ほぼ日刊イトイ新聞の本 (The Book of the Almost Daily Itoi Newspaper). It has some pretty interesting meanderings. The most recent I read was his musings on how the internet connected people together. Pretty entertaining and pretty good reading. There are some tough spots with some tough vocabulary, but overall, something that a N2+ person should be able to make their way through.

Context is Key

If you’ve lived in Japan for any length of time, you’ve probably come across that guy or gal that can tell jokes in Japanese like the best of them. They can place complex food orders, telling the waiter to hold that and add extra bit of this, flirt with girls or guys, and generally be a jovial conversationalist in Japanese.

But, if you put anything with kanji in front of them they faint. Or, if they did take the JLPT, they might be able to just pass N4. And they might even turn to you ask, how do you say ‘What are you doing?’ in Japanese.

There is of course the opposite situation, where someone can read a book on modern philosophy, or listen to a newscast without issues, and be able to talk about those things fairly easily but have trouble asking some simple questions about an item at the electronics store. Or not be able to ask for directions effectively.

It’s easy to assume that if you study all the words, the phrases, and the grammar points, you’ll be able to handle all the situations that life throws at you. But, that isn’t actually the case. You’ll be well prepared for those situations for sure, but still struggle when you first encounter them.

It’s all about the situations you are exposed to

It all comes down to context. The context that you are exposed to the most will be the context that you will be able to handle the best. This is in fact how you learned your first language growing up. You were exposed to different situations, and through trial and error discovered what language was best to use in what situation.

One clear example of this comes to mind for me. We once had a new Japanese teacher come in that started working for us. He had spent most of his adult life in Australia (since he turned 18). He had to ask the other Japanese staff members about how to answer the phone in Japanese. He wasn’t quite sure about the most polite way to answer.

He never had to learn that skill because he had never been in that situation before. He had worked in Australia which is a generally pretty laid back society and never had to answer the phone very formally in any language.

We learn languages mostly from context. You can’t just learn words in a vacuum and assume you are able to take on the world. It is a lot more complicated than that. There are certain phrases and expressions that are only used in a particular situation. This becomes more and more true the higher up you go.

Vary your Exposure

So, it might be a pretty good idea to go through not just one textbook but another textbook to help you see things from a different direction or to get something to click. Seeing the same grammar point in a different context is sometimes enough for it to click perfectly into place.

Also, specifically for the JLPT, you should vary your reading. Spread it out between novels and fiction, blogs and news articles, apartment flyers and advertisements. All of these types of readings are on the test.

And, yes, it is a good idea to go through a reading comprehension book, but that’s just going to give you the rules, and order for it to become natural, you are going to have to practice it. And that means a good healthy amount of native material. Again, this is really true for those going for N2+ (and even a little bit of N3).

Of course, you should vary your exposure to listening as well. There are tons of listening materials to choose from, you can check out jDramas or soft news stories (on broadcast in Japan or on YouTube). There are also podcasts that you can listen to of native speakers that you can get from the Japan iTunes store. Or of course, Japanespod101 has a wealth of material as well.

How do you get your exposure?

What are some ways you try to vary your exposure to Japanese? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S.  Do you need more context? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Do you like getting exposure?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes about them and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Kate Ter Haar

That lull between taking the test and getting the results can be a bit rough. I never know quite know what to do. Should I study for the next level? Should I try to review what I know? This time I decided to just review a lot of my vocabulary that I’ve learned, study kanji in depth, and do a lot of reading.

But, needless to say, I’m incredibly relieved that I passed N2. I now have that stress off my shoulders and can set up a new game plan for the ultimate goal, the N1.

Congratulations to Everybody!

But, before I start talking about myself, I just want to take some time to say a big congratulations to all those taking the test. Heck even getting up the motivation to go take the test means that you are serious about being a good and accurate Japanese speaker/reading/listener/writer.

But, of course if you passed the level you were going for this time, a big congrats to you. It takes some serious studying and ambition to get that little certificate. Even if you didn’t pass, but got a higher score, you know what to work on for next time, and you’ve improved!

A super congratulations goes out to all those that passed the N1 and N2 this year. These two tests are a huge step up from the rest and require you to know more than just the ‘lists’. You have to really practice your reading and listening skills before you can pass these two. You must have worked hard, so a big congrats to you.

The Road Forward

I’ve been mulling over what I should be doing going forward. It is going to be tough to choose the exact path for me. But, I have formed a rough outline of what 2012 is going to look for me and my Japanese studies. I’m sure this will inevitably change over the coming months, but here it is the sketch of it.

I’m going to practice more speaking. I’ve realized that my reading and listening skills have improved to the detriment of my speaking skills. I went into the store the other day, and had trouble asking some basic questions about some of the products.

I was a little bit embarrassed that I hold an N2, and supposedly have a pretty good competency level with the language, but hesitate to ask questions like ‘How long does the battery last?’. That should be second nature to me buy now. I’m sure I can hear and understand a question like that, but I’m not confident I could ask it easily.

Also, now that the pressure is off so to speak, I’m going to be doing a little bit more experimenting with my studying style. I want to try a couple of different things that go beyond the drill books. I feel like drill books can be of tremendous help, especially at lower levels.

But, the higher levels cover such a wide range of things, that it is hard to fit it all in one book. I think you need to journey out and do more things like reading and listening in order to fill in the gaps enough to pass.

That’s why I’ll be poking and prodding a variety of different methods to find one that works the best. Of course, I’ll be reporting back on what works and what can be scrapped here at the blog and podcast.

What I’m going to Keep Doing

I’m going to stay pretty persistent with my SRS, or Spaced Repetition System, practice. I feel like Anki was a big help and one of the reasons I passed the N2. I’ve recently switched to memrise.com which is very similar but with a gaming aspect to it. Working over there on the different courses and doing some moderating has really helped me to put some clarity to some difficult words.

I’m going to continue doing some reading with books. I’ve picked up a few books recently that are more for adults compared to the elementary kids books I was going through before. I think this will be of tremendous help to my vocabulary and grammar.

I’ll be practicing my listening with Japanesepod101 as always, but I will be branching off with some other listening practice. I’m going to try my hand at studying with jDramas by cutting them up and drilling the vocabulary and phrases I learned with Anki or memrise. I currently watch jDramas on a fairly regularly basis (1-2x/week), but I want to get a little more in depth with them.

I’m thinking about trying to do some writing here and there, but I’m not sure if I’ll have the time to get to that or not. I guess only time will tell.

How about you, what are your steps forward?

If you hit a setback and didn’t get the results that you wanted, what are you going to do to fix those weaknesses? If you achieved your goals, where are you going to go from here? Let me know in the comments below.

Have you joined my newsletter yet?  It’s full of all the latest tips and info.  If you like the podcast, you should leave me a comment on iTunes about it and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!  Of course you can also join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Or be my mempal at memrise.com.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Slava V

I think the biggest thing on my mind right now (and everyone else’s) is our test results. As of this recording, JEES hasn’t announced the exact date when they will be sending out the results, but I’m guessing it will be around February 9^th or so. That’s when they typically make it out to the mailbox.

For the latest details be sure to check the JEES website. They might have a more specific date by the time your reading/listening to this. At the moment, they are just reporting a tentative mid-February.

Another big goal of mine for February is to do more speaking in Japanese. I feel like my speaking skills have fallen by the wayside a bit recently and it is time to sharpen them up so I can actually, you know, use the language. I’ll be going through a couple of different activities to see what works and what is practical.

Use or Lose It

Which leads me to the topic of today’s podcast, use or lose it. Just to give you a little background. When I first came Japan millions of years ago, I had a tutor that I met with twice a week. Not a teacher, but a tutor.

We did a lot of chatting in Japanese, which was very hard at first because my Japanese was pretty bad, but gradually over time it became a lot easier to cope with. What also helped was having to ask and answer questions in Japanese and working out different situations.

If you are in Japan, I highly recommend getting a tutor. There are usually volunteers in your area that will help you learn Japanese. You just need to ask around or contact your local city hall, they will sometimes know where to go as well.

Nowadays

About 3 or so years ago though, I became a chronic workaholic. This prevented me from meeting up with a tutor or my regular exchange group that I met with on another day. So, recently, I haven’t had that much speaking practice. Only the occasional visit with in-laws and a semi-daily chat with my wife.

I do have plenty of Japanese exposure. I listen to a lot of people chatting in Japanese and read numerous emails, memos, and newsletters all in Japanese, but I don’t actually use the language. I can say that I get plenty of input, but not a lot of output experience. It’s not the end of the world, but it certainly isn’t helping things.

This has been exacerbated by the fact that over the last year, I’ve been really focusing on passing the N2. And, I’ll probably continue to focus on passing the N2 if I didn’t make it this last December. So, instead of doing any kind of speaking or writing practice, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and listening exercises in order to prep for that test.

Time to Get Back into the Groove

I’ve started going out of my way to try to strike up a conversation with people these days. Even if I know all there is to know about something in the store. I take the time to try to ask a few simple questions about it or bug a clerk to give me a few recommendations instead of meandering around the store looking for something.

The biggest thing to remember is that talk is free. You don’t have to buy anything after all, and often times clerks are pretty bored and happy to help (that is if you go when it isn’t busy).

Another big goal of mine for February is try to hunt down a good exchange partner online. Somebody I can simply chat with on a regular basis in Japanese to get my conversation ability up. I’ve always found that this alone is a big help. The person you are chatting with doesn’t have to be a full-blown Japanese teacher, just be willing to help you out and be patient.

I’ll try to report back on what I find out, or what I don’t. I’m sure there will be a lot of failings along the way. I’m sure I’ll end up learning a lot about the whole process and I’ll keep you posted on the whole thing.

How about you?

What do you do to get your fill of speaking? I’d like to especially hear from you if you live outside of Japan. How do you get your conversation practice? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S.  Are you in the groove? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Do you think you’ve lost it?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes about them and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo and Bookmark available at Black Heart Letterpress

I finally finished the book I was reading: 会話がとぎれない！話し方６６のルール It contained a lot of useful tips on how to have a good conversation and was great practice for vocabulary and overall reading skills/speed.

But, I need something more challenging in order to get use to N1 (hopefully) reading. And the grammar and the style of the book wasn’t quite that level. It wasn’t a cakewalk, but it was simply too easy compared to the essays you find on the test.

So, I went to my trusty Book Off store and picked up another book. I’m not sure what category you would put it in, it’s kind of a modern philosophy book, something along the lines of what Seth Godin in the states writes.

This is by 糸井重里 (Itoi Shigesato) and is called ほぼ日刊イトイ新聞の本(Almost daily Itoi Newspaper, The Book). Which apparently is quite popular in Japan, ranking #173 on Amazon out of all books. Anyway, the material in this little book is absolutely priceless, very similar to what you will see on the N2 and N1. If you are in Japan, I encourage you to pick it up (It’s only Y620 shipped!).

For those outside of Japan, you can of course check out tenso.com, which will reship it for around Y1400 or so. Pricey, but not impossible. And you can always pick up a used copy to save a little yen or pile on a few more JLPT books to make it worth your while. Or, who knows if there is big enough interest I might give it away in a contest. Anybody want a book? (after I’m done reading?)

Abbreviations are Everywhere

Abbreviations are pretty much apart of any language out there. We have more than our fair share of abbreviations in English. We’ve got PC for personal computer, ATM for Automatic Teller Machine, … the list goes on and on.

Shortening is also done in Japanese, but in a slightly different way. For example, personal computer becomes pasucon and remote control becomes remocon. In standard Japanese at least, they don’t use that many letters when doing the abbreviating. They choose instead to do a different kind of shortening, simply cutting the first part of the two words off and combing them to make a new word.

WTF is KY?

So, you are probably thinking that that is all old hat. After all, everybody knows that pasucon means personal computer. But what about KY?

I recently overheard a conversation amongst some colleagues and they used the phrase KY. I was really baffled by the whole thing because well KY brings up a slightly different image than what they were obviously talking about. So, I got a little curious and did some snooping.

I came to find out that KY actually means kuki yomenai , which roughly translates to can’t read the air or atmosphere. It’s used to describe someone or a group of someones that aren’t able to get a grasp on the situation or misunderstand what is going on. Kind of like the geek that shows up to the house party in a tux.

I found out that there are actually a few of these running around. A few of the popular ones are IW for imi wakaranai (I don’t understand the meaning) and CB for cho bimyo (Really doubtful/unreliable).

In case you were wondering, cho is kind of like uber in English, it is a cool way to emphasize something. It is mainly used in the Tokyo area and is considered a bit slangy, although I’ve heard my boss use it before.

Where do they come from?

They seem to come out of the language that is mostly used by high school kids. They take the first letter of two words and use them to create the abbreviations. What is interesting is they used the romanization system most often used by foreigners ( ちょ = cho) instead of the system that is more commonly used (or so I’ve heard) in Japanese high school ( ちょ = tyo).

They even will use the English word if it is available. For example, IT means aisu tabetai (I want to eat ice cream). In this abbreviation, I stands for ice not A for aisu.

Of course, it seems like this is simply another way for teenagers to create their own language. You can see the same thing happening in English with OMG, WTF, and a whole dictionary of other abbreviations like that.

It just goes to show that a language never stops growing and changing even if there is some kind of ‘standard’ that we are being tested on. Be aware that the living language is far from being standard it is quite alive.

Have you heard anything?

Have you heard this language used before? What are some of the ones you heard?

P.S.  Do you like abbreviations? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Do you talk to high schoolers a lot?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes about them and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by RageZ

So, I drink this and I get smarter?

I had an incredibly busy week teaching an intensive that I do twice a year (12 hour days of teaching). This is usually a good opportunity because I have a lot of choice in how to teach the class and how the material is presented.

I get to experiment with multiple ways of helping students remember the phrases that they have to memorize for the test that is at the end. Yes, I know memorizing phrases is bad, but that’s what they want me to do, so that’s what I teach.

Other than that, I’ve started up my regular chat again with my wife everyday in Japanese. This has really helped me to be able to talk about daily activities and practice some vocabulary. I usually set a goal or task for myself every day. For example, try to explain how to do something at work, or try to tell a story or just relay a news article that I read in English.

I’ve also been continuing to do my reading and adding words to my memrise word list. I’ve almost finished the first book I was going through and I hope to tackle one more before the N2 results come back.

In case anyone was wondering December test results should be back somewhere in mid-February. I think last year they were printed on Jan 31^st and then sent out a week later around Feb 7^th or so. That’s for here in Japan. In my experience, other countries with the July test will get a week later than that and countries without a July test (like the States) will get it in mid-March. Be sure to check the organization’s website that conducts it in your area for more info.

Be SMART about your New Years Resolutions

I hesitated for a few weeks to write up a blog post about setting or making resolutions. I feel like this sometimes gets a bit overdone. Some people get so focused on setting goals that they forget to actually do something to achieve those goals, so I almost skipped the topic entirely.

I personally think that you need to be thinking about your goals on a regular basis and adjusting them from time to time to fit your needs as well as your strengths and weaknesses. However, this does seem like a pretty good time to set some goals considering we will be getting our test results back here in a few weeks.

SMART Goals

So I used to be a lot of people in that I set pretty ambiguous goals for myself like ‘speak faster’ or ‘learn more vocabulary words’. I got a little bit of a boost when I learned about the JLPT and was able to really set a solid goal for myself with a test, but even that has its problems because the N2 can be quite an ordeal that takes a lot more time than some of the other levels.

It became more important to set smaller goals that I could achieve in order for me to keep my language studies progressing forward. So, I started to set more solid goals for myself. One system that I came across when learning how to set goals was the SMART way of setting goals. Each letter stands for something you should be keep in mind when you set a goal.

S – Specific

The goal you set should be pretty specific. Do you want to work on vocabulary or kanji? Grammar or listening? Ask yourself: Have I stated the goal clear for me to know exactly what it is I’m trying to achieve.

GOOD – ‘be able to score above 50% on a listening practice test.’
BAD – ‘become better at Japanese.’

M – Measurable

Is there some kind of metric for you to see how close or far away you are from your goal? Is there someway for you to clearly see your progress? Ideally this should be an automatic system that you don’t have to do anything with like Anki, or memrise, or working your way through a drill book.

GOOD – ‘Learn 20 new words a day on average.’
BAD – ‘Learn some vocabulary.’

A – Achievable

Let’s be a little realistic here. You aren’t superman. You are going to have to be realistic about the goals you want to achieve. Take in to consideration holidays, family time, and just times when you are going to be burn out and want to veg out on the sofa.

GOOD – ‘Pass N5 in one year after starting to study Japanese.’
BAD – ‘Pass N1 in one year after starting to study Japanese.’

R – Relevant

Is this goal going to benefit you and your life? Learning all the Japanese curse words so you can trash talk to your Japanese friends is fun and all, but is it going to help you achieve your goals? Is it going to really get you to where you want to go with the language?

GOOD – ‘Pass N2 and get a job in IT in Japan.’
BAD – ‘Learn how to talk dirty in Japanese.’ (Unless, you are in the adult entertainment industry, this might not be relevant to your life goals.)

T – Time Specific

This last one is incredibly important. Setting a time limit on your goal will help you pace yourself and get an idea of how close to your target you are. Your studying will expand to meet this limit and you’ll just naturally find ways to make it more efficient and stay on task.

GOOD – ‘Finish my New Kanzen Master N2 Grammar Book by May.’
BAD – ‘Finish my New Kanzen Master N2 Grammar Book as soon as I can.’

What is your goal?

How about you? What is your SMART goal for 2012? Let me know in the comments.

P.S.  Are you SMART? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Are you a genius?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes about them and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Thomas Duesling

Since I’ve been back to Japan, I’ve been putting in some volunteer time being a curator over at memrise.com. We have been really cleaning up the data and making it a great place to study Japanese. Recently, we added the 20,000+ most common words from the WWWJDIC database to sort through and clean up the words that are already in the courses there.

Last week I published my first N5 vocabulary lesson. I have a few mixed feelings about it though. It seemed to take forever just to get a small little lesson out, but I’d love to hear your comments on whether it was useful or not, or if you’d like to hear more of the same. I’m very keen on making some serious improvements to the podcast this year.

Other than that, for my studies I’ve just been doing a lot of reading. I’m putting in about an hour of reading a day. This has started to really boost my vocabulary and reading skills (and speed). It’s also taught me a lot about Japanese writing style as well. I always encourage people to pick up a book and do some reading if you can.

Visual Learning

There is a saying in Japanese: 十人十色, ten people ten colors. I think that holds true for learners of a language, too. We are all a little different, so it makes sense that we learn things a little differently.

You’ve probably all heard of analytical learners, visual learners, auditory learners, or kinesthetic learners. Nobody is strongly one type of learner, but we are usually a mix of several types of learners in one. Some of us are 60% visual and 40% analytical or 30% audible and 30% physical and 40% analytical. It is very rare to have a pure visual learner for example.

So, it is important to keep in mind some visual learning techniques because they just might help that grammar point finally stick in your head. We can all use a few more tools in our JLPT studying toolbox, if you know what I mean.

Am I visual learner?

You may be wondering to yourself – am I a visual learner? There is definitely no checklist that you can go down and check to see if you are a visual learner or not, but there are few indicators that can help you to understand if you are more of a visual learner than another type of learner.

First off, do you need it to have a fairly quiet place in order to study? I definitely have this problem, when I study on the train I have to pump in nature sounds in order to blanket out what is going on in the train even if it is fairly quiet. If random noises like people talking or moving around distract you from doing your studies, you might be a visual leaner.

Do you need to write things down to understand them? Do people tell you to do something (audibly) and then you forget to do them? But, if you immediately write it down, you remember to do it without any problems? This could be good indicator that you are a visual learner.

One final test, which probably seems pretty obvious, but are you attracted to fashion or colors? Do you understand charts more easily than any kind of writing? If so, chances are pretty good you are a visual learner.

Visual Techniques

If you are even part visual learner, you should try to integrate some learning techniques that can help you lock in the information. One really simply way to do that is to use highlighters and colored pens in your studies. During your reading exercises you can for example color in the grammar particles in the passage so that they stick out better.

You may also want to dissect a few sentences here and there as well. If you are having particular difficulty with a grammar point you can pull apart a sentence into pieces and take a look at how all the pieces fit together. This is especially useful for the second part of the grammar section of the test where you will have to unscramble the sentences (sentiential questions part 2).

Finally, take a look at a few videos online to help make the language real and have some visual reinforcement of what you are hearing. For example, you could do a search for 方法 which roughly translates to ‘How to …’ in YouTube. You have to do a little sorting, but you’ll be amused at a few of the videos posted on there from a few helpful folks.

Time to Get Visual

What kind of activities do you use to learn more visually?  Let me know in the comments below.

P.S.  Are you about ready to get all visual? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Can you see the hidden animals in the picture above?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes about them and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by qthomasbower

You know it's delicious when it says so on the bottle.

I just got back in a few days ago and I’m struggling with jetlag off and on. I do seem to get better at it every time I go. This time it has left me a little drunk more than anything else. I’ve also been getting through my massive backlog of emails and comments. Thanks everyone for sending me some awesome mail. I always love to answer questions.

It was also good to just take two weeks and forget about it all. I was able to devour massive amounts of American food and eat all the sweets that my family notoriously cooks up for the holidays. You don’t think you are going to miss American food when you come over here, but you do. Anyway, it’s good to be back and I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and start blogging and podcasting again.

Going Back to the States

Going back to the States always reminds me of the sharp contrasts between Japan and America. There are plenty of sharp contrasts to notice. I almost notice them immediately. From how it’s such an absolute pain to get through an airport anymore to how different everyone’s mannerisms are.

This is one thing that you can’t read in a book or see in a movie. It simply most be experienced to really realize the importance of it all. That’s why I encourage anyone that can to live abroad. Even if you can only make it over to another country for a few months, it is definitely something that will change your perspective on life.

I Have a Drinking Problem

Yeah, it’s time I come write out and admit it publicly. I, Clayton ‘Mac’ MacKnight have a drinking problem. You heard it here first at JLPTBootCamp.com. It’s time a finally got it off my chest.

It all started when I first came to Japan and I discovered this strange substance that was green tea. At first I thought it was bizarre that they brewed tea and then stuck it in a bottle and charged you as much as a soda for it, but the concept grew on me little by little.

Now I have to have a drink of the stuff everyday. It’s my go juice. It’s healthy, zero calories and it is the most abundant resource in Japan aside from dark-colored business suits. I absolutely love the stuff and so does Japan.

If you walk into a convenience store in Japan you are most likely to see an entire drink section dedicated to green tea (and probably another half section devoted to coffee). You won’t see many sugary drinks (at least not yet anyway). Oh, you might find your trusty Coca-Cola and Pepsi and whatever they happen to be calling their zero calorie Frankenstein drink, but beyond that there aren’t many options.

It is quite the opposite in the states. I always dread going back because there simply aren’t any real drink choices that don’t contain something sweet.

Now, don’t get me wrong I like sweet. Sweet is well sweet, but I like chocolate cake, too, but I’m not going to eat it every meal. I think I’m truly becoming Japanese because I don’t need that much sweet anymore.

I’m actually starting to understand why people in Japan don’t like starburst, skittles, and other ultra-sugary sweets. Although, I still have a place in my heart for Sour Patch Kids. They’ll always be my favorite.

In Japan, people prefer more chocolately things. For example, chocolate covered macadamia nuts or chocolate covered biscuits. This seems to be the general trend. So, if you are ever buying some sweets for your sweets, be sure to avoid the Skittles.

What Contrast Have you Noticed?

What is a contrast between Japanese and western culture that you have noticed in your studies or your trips abroad? Let me know in the comments below.

Stay tuned toward the end of this podcast for a special bonus N5 vocabulary lesson. Give it a listen and let me know what you think. I’d love to hear your comments.

P.S.  Do you have a drinking problem? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Did you kick the bottle years ago?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Anthony Easton

I’m starting to also move more towards doing all my vocabulary practice on memrise.com, especially after their recent improvements. I’ll probably keep using Anki for grammar and sentence translation though.

Passionate about Language

Language are such an interesting anomaly in our modern world. We have standard systems and protocols for just about everything else, but for reason, different languages live on. I think this is at least one reason why they are so fascinating. It is the one thing that we can’t google to find the the answer to, at least not yet.

Also, recently, there seems to be more and more people interested in learning another language. And tools for studying are being created every day. So, it is getting easier and easier to study a language. I can only imagine what people did to study a language just 50 years ago.

It’s Important to Remember Why you Started

To become fluent in a language, you can probably become pretty fluent in a language with intensive study after about 2 years or it might take you 10 or more years of on and off study. My definition of being fluent is being able to have a high level discussion in your target language and use some topic-specific vocabulary to prove your point.

This is a long road to travel, so it is important to keep in mind why you started down the road in the first place. Do you like manga? Japanese video games? Traditional culture? The work ethic? The history? The cute guys or girls? There has to be something that started you down this path.

And that something will keep you going down that path. When you feel exhausted and ready to give up, that is the one thing that rekindle your flame and keep you going. So, don’t forget it and keep it in mind when you are studying.

My Personal Story

To be honest, at first I only had a small curiosity in Japanese. I did have a strong interest in other cultures though. Fresh out of college, I started tutoring Brazilians in English as a volunteer. I found the work to be a lot of fun and it was good to speak with people from another country. I had a lot of fun and I was hooked on language teaching.

But, after that experience I became more and more interested in Japan because I started tutoring more Japanese students and got along well with them, especially people from the Kansai area. If you don’t know, there is a pretty big difference in the culture of Tokyo and Osaka. Osaka tends to be a lot more relaxed than its bigger brother.

I eventually became really interested in the Japanese language because I liked the alphabets. I liked how each kanji represents a meaning. I also enjoyed the complexity and the challenge of learning the language and I wanted to able to communicate with my new-found friends in their native language.

Use your Passion in your Studies

Let’s face it. Nobody thinks dragging yourself through a drill book is barrel of laughs. It’s tough work, but necessary to increase your accuracy to the point that you can past the test. The JLPT forces you to broaden your Japanese abilities so that you become a well-rounded learner, but it can be a little boring sometimes.

That’s why it is important to relate the information to yourself. It will become a lot easier for you to remember and use if the sentences apply to you. So don’t just use the textbooks examples, make up your own, use your own ideas. So don’t just use the textbook examples. Make up your own sample sentences. This will make things a lot easier for you.

What got you Started?

What got you started down the path of learning Japanese? What is your passion? Let me know in the comments.

P.S.  Do you have a passion for learning Japanese? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Is Japanese learning the source of all the good things in your life?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Anthony Easton

Other than that, I am doing some work with the N2 course over at memrise.com. If you haven’t been over there in awhile, you might want to take a look. They are doing some great work, and it looks like it is really going to come together for the Japanese courses in 2012.

Another habit I’ve gotten myself into is exploring a few multilingual kids books on my iPhone. I’ve started a small collection of them and I’ve found them to be pretty useful for language learning. The only problem is, you do have to look out for bad translations. It seems like a handful of them were translated by non-natives which makes them sound a little funny to say the least.

The Japanese Writing System

Japanese is highly unique in the fact that it doesn’t just use one alphabet, but actually 3 alphabets, kanji, hiragana, and katakana. As a matter of fact, you can in theory represent any word in the language in all 3 alphabets, some words would be a bit hard to understand, but it is possible.

Now granted, you probably learned all that stuff on day one of learning Japanese. I actually distinctly remember my Japanese prof mentioning this fact to support his ‘Japanese is one of the hardest languages to learn’ theory. This is something he trotted out to scare away the un-devoted on the first day of class.

Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say Japanese is one of the hardest languages to learn because of the 3 alphabets. However, this unique quality of Japanese is the cause of a few problems and pitfalls for learners, and knowing what to look out for can help aid your comprehension.

Japanese Writing Style

When I first started studying Japanese vocabulary, I always practiced the kanji of the word and I focused on that. Maybe it is because I’m more visual than most or I just had a knack for kanji, but I was able to pick up kanji pretty easily. Or at least I was able to easily attach a meaning to a kanji.

I studied this way because I assumed that in native writing, natives always used the kanji for a word if there was kanji for it and it was commonly used (not overly complex or rare). So, I was perfect at reading words writing in kanji, but not all Japanese writing works that way.

In reality, a lot of kanji in a passage looks too overly formal. If you take a look at any kind of formal notice that you get about, say, a planned water outage in your area for example, you’ll see that it is practically exploding with kanji. They use kanji in every possible nook and cranny on that thing just to drive home the fact that it is a formal notice.

This isn’t the case though for more casual writing. Why? You might ask. Because kanji is a little difficult to read quickly, especially if you are not familiar with some of the kanji. I’ve also heard it just makes people’s eyes/heads hurt with too much kanji. So, writers will actually switch some of the words that are normally written in kanji to kana, just to make the passage easier to read.

So, you need to be careful. That word written in kana that you don’t know, might actually be a word in your vocabulary that you do know, but you don’t recognize it because you are used to reading it in kanji.

How the Test is Organized

Another thing to consider when doing reading is that the tests are organized into 5 separate levels. Each level has a certain amount of kanji assigned to it. For example, for N5 there is 100 kanji. For N4, there is 300 kanji. For N3, there is about 650 kanji. For N2, there is about 1000 kanji. And for N1, there is about 2020 kanji.

Kanji that is from a higher level will not be used at the lower level. Instead of using the kanji for a word, they will use the kana only. This is something that is suppose to help you because you don’t have to study as much kanji. But, this also causes problems.

Why is it a problem? Well, if you studied the vocabulary with only the kanji or the kanji prominently displayed on your flashcard, your brain will only be able to recognize the word in kanji not in kana. This will slow down your reading speed or worse yet, cause you to not recognize the word at all.

It sounds strange, but I’ve had it happen to me a few times. It is actually a bit difficult for me to read N5 and N4 tests because I’m so used to seeing more kanji. This is unfortunately a necessary evil for the test, so be careful and study accordingly.

How can you get both kanji and kana practice?

The moral of the story here is that when you learn and review vocabulary words, you are going to have to not only practice the kanji for a word, but also the kana. A lot of flashcards and learning systems have both of course, but it is easy to fall into a habit of focusing on just the kanji because that can be tricky to remember.

So, you need to pay more attention to the hiragana of a word as well as the kanji. This way you will be able to recognize either when you are reading through the test. There are two tools out there that actually do this automatically when you practice vocab, memrise.com and readthekanji.com. I’ve already mentioned memrise.com a few times on this blog, but readthekanji.com is an alternative that is specifically designed for kanji reading practice. It’s a pay service for the higher levels, but might be worth it if you have a weakness with kanji and kana.

Have you Made Mistake Reading Kanji?

Have you ever had trouble reading a word that is normally written in kanji, but was written in kana (or vice versa). Did it trip you up? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S.  Do you have problems reading Japanese? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Do you wake up in the middle of the night with cold chills because you had a bad dream about kanji?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Are you doing your Anki drills every morning soldier?

I’ve been continuing along at a leisurely pace with my studies. I would say I only do about an hour of studying tops a day at the moment. It is actually a lot of fun, because I’m picking up a lot of idioms out of the book I’m reading, …. It is incredibly easy to read thanks to the fact that each chapter is only about 3 to 4 pages long so it keeps me pretty motivated.

I think I might pick up something a little bit more challenging before I jump on the plane to go home though. I really do need to practice understanding more abstract reading passages. I think I should read more philosophy commentary type books, but I can’t seem to get my hands on one that I find interesting.

Reflecting

I think that during this lull in action, between taking the test and getting our results back, is a perfect time to do some reflecting. It’s good to take a good hard look at what went well in 2011 and what didn’t go so well, so that you can plan out a study strategy for 2012. That starts with taking a good look at your study habits from the last year.

Evaluate

What was effective for you this year? What did you feel helped you the most on the test? What was the most efficient way of studying for you? When did you feel the most motivated and learning new material? These are the types of questions you need to ask yourself about your study habits over the last year.

For me, one thing that I used incredibly efficiently was Anki. Anki really propelled my vocabulary forward. I have complete confidence with most of the N2 vocabulary now. There are arguably a few patchy spots, but not nearly as bad as before.

I think memrise.com is slowly replacing Anki for me though. Especially when my computer crashed. A lost all my progress on my N2 deck because I was too dumb to back it up. But, with memrise.com it is already backed up. Also, they are really making some changes that are making the whole site even more powerful. Hopefully soon, (in early 2012?) they will be attaching recordings of all the words in the Japanese section of the site. This will truly make it an amazing training tool.

Another thing that was really effective for me was doing considerably more reading. This has really increased my reading speed, which in turn has helped me confidently finish the test. It has also increased my overall vocabulary and reading comprehension. Anybody hoping to pass the higher tests, is going to have to do some reading practice, no doubt about it.

Cut the Slackers

Now that you’ve evaluated what your study habits from the last year. It’s time to cut out the slackers. What hasn’t been effective for you? What took more time than what it was worth? What was more demotivating than motivating? If you answered yes, to these questions, it is time to cut the fat.

For me, I gave paper flashcards another time at bat this year, and they were all right, but I felt like I didn’t get as much out of them as I could. I guess they served their purpose in the sense that they were there for me to whip out at a moment’s notice to do some studying, but I didn’t use them as well as I’d hoped.

Another thing that I won’t be doing next year is listening to a lot of native podcasts. This seemed to be a waste of time for me mostly because I wasn’t able to double check my understanding of the podcast. There were no transcripts to help me read back over what I had missed. I will instead be doing a lot more listening to my JapanesePod101 podcast episodes along with going over the .pdfs that go with the lessons.

What Fat are you Cutting?

What didn’t work for you in 2011? What did work for you? Let me know in the comments below.

Tomorrow, I’ll be getting on a plane to go to the States for the holidays, so I might not be able to get online that often. I’ll still keep posting podcasts/blog posts, but I might not be able to respond to comments and emails quickly. Don’t let that stop you from sending and commenting on the blog though! I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

P.S.  Do you have problems cutting the fat? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Are you highly effective studying machine?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by U.S. Navy Imagery

I’m started to revert back to a more relaxed and natural way of studying the language. This involves increasing the amount of reading and listening I’m doing. I’ve picked up a few books that I’m going to start tackling in order to get better at reading.

I also have a long flight across the Pacific ahead of me because I’m heading to the States for the holidays. I think I’m going to make use of that imprisoned time to do as much reading as I can. There is nothing like being stuck on an airplane with just a book to motivate you to do some serious studying.

I’ve also replaced most of my TV watching with Japanese TV shows and dramas. Recently, there has been a new drama that is on TV now called 南極大陸 (Antarctica) that is about the Japanese team of researchers in Antarctica. I also have a student that has a friend that was lucky enough to be chosen to go down and live in Antarctica for 6 months, so it’s interesting to learn about the forgotten continent.

As for the show, it is an all right jDrama as far as jDramas go. I didn’t like it at first, but it is starting to grow on me. Anyway, if you are in Japan, it’s on NHK Sunday at 9pm. If not, well, I’m sure you can find the jDrama if you look around. You might have to wait a little while though.

Put the Book Down and Walk Away

Leading up to the test, it is easy to get carried away with studying. You absolutely have to refine your knowledge of the Japanese language if you want to pass. This especially true at the higher levels where they will torture you with nuances and fine points, so you have to know the finer points like the back of your hand.

But after the test has come and gone, it’s probably a good idea to go back to ‘normal’ studying. This is exactly what I am starting to do now. It basically involves moving away from answering questions about the language to actually using the language by reading, writing, listening and speaking it.

Because I don’t know about you, but actually the short time before I take the test, I get to the point where it is actually difficult for me to speak fluently. I can listen to anything you have to say, I can read just fine, but when I go to produce something, I stop and start and I feel like I did 7 years ago, when I had trouble ordering a Big Mac at the Japanese McDonald’s.

So, just put the book down and walk away, your Kanzen Master or So-Matome will be waiting for you when you decide to start studying for the exam again.

What are some more Natural Ways of Studying?

Well, you can start by doing some reading with materials that are available at your level. When you encounter words that you do not know be sure to write them down and add them to your favorite vocabulary reviewing gizmo.

If you are N3+, it’s good idea to start using grammar books for reference more than something you want to work your way through (until about 3 or 4 months before the exam). You should try to find this grammar ‘in the wild’, and when you have encountered for the first time, then go and look it up. This is what I try to do in this lull between taking the test and getting the results back.

For those at the N5 and N4 level, it’s a good idea to keep working through your Japanese textbooks until you become comfortable enough with the language to start using native materials. But don’t forget about the native materials! The earlier you attack them the better!

One thing I do advise you to study for year around for the JLPT is vocabulary. You should try to be as consistent as possible in order to memorize as much of the words as possible. Repetition really pays off with vocabulary, and some of the higher levels really need a long time to practice all the words.

How about you?

What are some non-JLPT specific ways you like to study? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S.  Do you have problems putting your JLPT study book down? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Are you burning your JLPT study books in celebration?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Caitlin Regan

Oh! So that's what I'm suppose to do there!

I’ve pretty much put down all my JLPT study books for now.  It is a real relief to not have to go through more drill books and take practice tests.  I still excited to take the test, but it is also good to have it over with and be able to relax with some, admittedly less productive but more fun, ways of studying Japanese.

I feel like to really prep for the test and do well, you need to do both drill books and study books and other more ‘natural’ ways of learning the language (e.g. picking up a good book every once in awhile).  You really need both styles of learning to succeed on the test.  One is for learning the natural use of the language and the other is to sharpen the sword (JLPT drill books).

So, I’ve started reading a book a picked up a while ago called 会話がとぎれない話し方６６のルール.  Roughly translated, it means ‘The 66 Rules for Uninterrupted Conversation’.  I find it a really good book to do some reading with for a variety of different reasons.

First, the book is broken up into 66 chapters that are each about 4 to 5 pages long.  Each chapter has a key point or idea that the author is trying to get across.  So, it is easy to understand what the passage is about.  Also, there is a handy cartoony schematic of the key points of the passage in each chapter.

Second, the book is on a topic that is pretty important to language learning.  I see students all the time in class that could benefit from just learning the skill of conversation in any language.  You have to be able to communicate before you can really use a language, any language including your native one.

Fresh Out of the Test

I just posted my first reactions to the exam a few days ago. Already, there have been a lot of comments and reactions from people taking the test all over the world.  It’s great to hear from everybody and all the ups and downs of each individual level.  I’d love to hear from you, so if you haven’t already commented, definitely head on over to that blog post and let me know your reactions.

To summarize though, I’m basically on the fence again with the test.  This is a little disheartening because I spent the last 5 months doing some pretty intensive studying.  Also, I can feel my language ability is a lot better than before.  I have an easier time watching TV shows, reading ads on the train and letters in the mail, as well as just being able to understand conversations people are having a lot better.  But, I still thought this test was just as hard as the July test.

Maintenance Mode

However, no matter what my results, I think I’ll be moving more towards a maintenance mode with my Japanese.  I need to work through a few drill books a few more times, so I’ll be doing that over the next few months slowly as review.  But, the main focus of my studies between now and when I get my results back will be natural studying.

I’ll be trying to work through as many books as I can because I feel like that is a great way to pick up a lot of vocabulary and the very difficult skill of reading quickly and comprehensively.  I’m going to pair that with trying to setup regular conversation practice to try to practice actually using the language and producing it.  My input has really increased, but now it is time to do some output.

I have started getting into more and more jDramas to get a bit of natural exposure to the language that way.  I find them to be pretty good and approachable source for native-level listening.  They aren’t so good for vocabulary building, but great for phrases and expressions as well as the raw skill of listening.

The one thing that I will not be slacking on in 2012 and pretty much forever is vocabulary building.  I think this is a skill that really needs to be baked in, and you have to do consistent practice in order to make it happen.  I really want to be able to have enough words to be able to at least get a faint idea of anything I come across.  I’ve also heard the biggest hurdle for N1 is vocabulary, so I want to get started on it early.

Why I’m going into Maintenance Mode

JLPT Boot Camp has come a long way from its humble beginnings.  I think when I first started I would be lucky to get a few visitors and some comments here and there, but it has since grown to be a pretty big site with a growing community.  It’s great to see such a great group of people gathered together to share ideas, and I’ve been humbled by all your words of encouragement.

So, I’d like to build JLPT Boot Camp into a little something more.  Over the next year, I will be devoting more time to expanding and improving the site with new resources.  This will hopefully include more vocabulary lists, more information about good books/resources, as well as just some general cleaning up here and there.

I’ll also be reshaping the podcast in 2012.  I’m still working out some of the technical details as to how to put it altogether, but it looks like I’ll be doing more nuts and bolts studying tips for specific levels, starting with N5.  That doesn’t mean I’ll be neglecting the other levels though!  I just feel like I can confidently teach grammar, kanji, and vocabulary from that level at this time, so that is what I’ll be starting with.  I hope to go up a level every year until I hit the big N1.

Now is the Time

Are there any resources you’d like to see on the main site?  I’ll be adding a few things in the next few months that should add a few features to the site and make it a valuable JLPT resource for everybody.  So, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

P.S.  Do you think you aced the JLPT? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Do you like all the cool stuff at JLPT Boot Camp?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Oliver Kendall

Are you cleared for take off?

So, it’s been a heart breaking last couple of days for me the computer geek. My hard drive in my new computer for some reason spontaneously imploded upon itself, so here I am writing to you from my old battle horse, a 7 year old Sony Vaio. So instead of doing a lot of high tech Anki/memrise.com studying, I’ve been doing more old-fashioned book studying.

I’ve really been grinding my way through the New Kanzen Master Grammar book for N2. It is an incredibly difficult and merciless book, but I think it will be good for me when I get to the test. I’m in the final section and going over the different types of test questions, and the text grammar is quite grueling. It includes a lot of passages packed with nuances. I think it will be good for not only grammar but reading as well.

The Countdown Continues – 3 days away!

Depending on when you read this and what country you live in, we are only about 3 or 4 days away from the big exam in December. Are you ready for the big day?

You might be thinking to yourself that there isn’t that much you could possible do at this point to get a higher score or bale yourself out if you haven’t been studying. To an extent, you are right. If you have been slacking in your studies, you will still probably fail, but there are a few things you can do to squeak out a few points and maybe just pass.

First and foremost, and you probably know this already, but it is worth repeating, take a practice test! Even if it is one of the ones that are available online. Anything to help you prepare for the test. The mock tests available at bookstores for the N5, N4, N3, N2, and N1 are also very good and include specific advice on different sections of the exam.

After you take a practice test or a mock test, be sure to create some kind of strategy. It doesn’t have to be anything grand or complicated – the simpler the better. If your weakness is reading and you are taking the N2, you might want to tackle that first than move to the kanji and vocabulary. For N5 through N3, strategy is a little more complicated because you have to deal with 3 sections instead of 2, but still try to lay down a strategy that will help you maximize your time with the sections that you are the weakest at.

Other Miscellaneous Tips

Before the test day, you should probably think about investing in a nice mechanical pencil to get you through the day. You should also pick up a decent back up in case your trusty pencil decides to self-destruct on test day (much like my hard drive did a few days ago). You can also have a separate eraser if that is how you roll. They will make you take off the cover in the test though, so don’t get too attached to it.

Remember to bring a wristwatch! This is especially true if you are taking the N2 and N1 levels and have to battle your way through the 105+ minutes of joy that is the reading/grammar/kanji/vocabulary section. They unfortunately give you no warnings or countdowns (at least in Japan).

Try to get there a little early. Testing locations range from highly organized to a giant mess. Be prepared to have to do a little hunting to find your room and/or track down a JLPT staff member to point you to your destination. I’ve seen both clearly printed signs telling everyone where to go, and utter chaos, so just be safe and give yourself some leeway.

For those taking the test in a country that is experiencing winter, it is probably a good idea to dress in layers. The climate control in some of these buildings can either be non-existent or only have two settings: fiery flames of fury or off. In Japan, it seems that in December, some schools turn the heat on and leave it on at the same setting all winter. If you dress in layers you can peel off or put on clothes to adjust the temperature yourself.

Above all, it’s just a test, take it easy and have fun! Good luck to everyone! Let’s do it!

Do you have any last minute advice? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

P.S.  Are you sweating out these last few days? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.P.S. Are you going to ace the test like a champ?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.P.P.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by myyorgda

It has really done wonders for my listening I think. I just took a practice test, and listening was by far the highest score on the test. If you have any issues with listening or just want to pick up a few points, I recommend picking it up. It has been worth while for me. It has especially improved my quick response I think.

For example, I recently went through sequence questions that are of the format of ‘What is the first thing the man has to do after this?’. The textbook goes over several different sequence words like まず and 先に. This really helped me, especially since there are so many exceptions and turns in the conversation with these types of questions.

If you are Gambling, Time to Double Down on Reading

At this time of the year, I tend to get a flood of emails that go something along the lines of ‘I thought I could do N3, but I’m really N4, how can I make up the difference in time for the test?’ I have definitely been there before (heck, I feel that way right now about N2).

So, what do you do in this final stretch? How could you possible pull out a surprise win in this late hour? Well, if you are gambling, double down on reading. Are you a bit confused? Don’t worry I’ll explain.

Reading Combines a Variety of Skills

In order to be successful with reading, you are going to need to be good at grammar, vocabulary, and kanji. This single skill combines all of them. So, if you use all of the skills to be successful at reading, doing reading exercises will uncover your weak points in those skills, so that you can focus on them.

For example, if you are reading along and aren’t entirely sure what the difference between ものか and まいか is you’ll know pretty quick. Also, the grammar will be used in context so you will have a better idea of how it is used and not just it’s meaning. Usage and meaning are both equally important.

It is also more efficient because you just need to work your way through one book and not several books (if you are N3+, the books are separated out). This makes your book bag a lot lighter and gives you a more achievable goal then doing 5 books as fast as you can.

Increased Reading Speed will Help you Score Higher

The faster you can read through the passages the more time you will have to puzzle out the ambiguity of the questions and track down references (like この、これ、etc…) that they typically test you over in the reading. This extra time will allow you to double check your answers to the reading section to make sure you have the right information.

Also, for the higher levels (N2, N1), you WILL have to have a moderate reading pace, close to the pace of someone reading quickly out loud in your native language. If you aren’t up to speed, chances are you won’t finish the test. I’ve heard from several of my friends that this has been the case for them. It’s a common problem so be sure to practice up.

They are just Worth More

Question for question, the reading questions are worth more points on the test. This means that they can really make or break you. On the revised test, you need to score about 1/3 in every category to pass the whole test (previously you just needed to get 60% overall). You will have to score above that in order to pass reading. This can get a little iffy at the higher levels.

If you are taking the N1 or N2 the grammar, vocabulary, and kanji section is combined with the reading section. It might be advisable for you to skip to the reading section first, then go back to the grammar, vocabulary, kanji section. This will allow you to make sure you spend extra time on the questions that are worth the most points.

How do you feel about reading?

Are you doing some last minute reading practice? Do you know of any good sources for reading materials? Let me know in the comments.

P.S. Are you a compulsive gambler? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Do you like Blackjack?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.S.S.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Images of Money

So, I decided to go out and pick up another grammar book to at least get a little bit more practice in before the test. I really don’t want to fail N2 again. I just feel like this is the time to get it passed and get it over with and making a small investment in a book is worth it compared to having to wait another 6 months for the test.

I decided on the New Kanzen Master N2 Grammar book because it was pretty reasonable (only 1200Y) in the book store and seemed pretty through (over 211 grammar points covered). It even has pretty through sections on how to answer the questions for each section of the grammar part of the test. I especially liked the sentence patterns they go over to help you identify how the grammar is actually used.

My initial reaction is that it is an okay book and has good strategies. However, it lacks a lot of through explanations for answers and other things. This seems to be the hallmark of the infamously spartan Kanzen Master series though all the way back to the slim green book they put out for the original 二級 test.

This utter lack of through explanations isn’t a huge problem if you have a tutor or native speaker friend, but for those of you that don’t have that resource (or don’t have a 24h accessible friend), this book can be a little troublesome. I especially don’t like how they don’t give you the entire order for the answer of the scrambled questions, only the answer that goes in the starred space. This means I have to puzzle out the sentence with a native, which is just a waste of time when they could have just as easily printed that in the answers.

Anyway, I’ll be sure to go through the book and give it a through once over with a video review as soon as I can and get that out to everyone.

Distractions – Sometimes you need them

When you are studying, distractions are generally considered a bad idea. Trying to rock out to death metal while doing kanji drills is most likely not going to work out in your favor. Much to your chagrin I’m sure.

I’ve talked before about how multitasking can destroy your concentration because when you multitask you are not actually doing several tasks at once. You are in fact doing little slivers of many things one after another which can in some ways make you ‘dumber’.

But, studying with distractions may actually have some advantages believe it or not. I’m not saying you should try it all the time, but it may increase your score on the test if used in moderation. Let me explain.

The Test – Distraction Central

In the JLPT, you will have distractions galore. There are going to be people sneezing, coughing, shuffling papers, shuffling butts, proctors walking up and down the aisles … The list goes on of all the little things that a might set off a jittery test taker.

Now for some, these distractions are nothing. You eat distractions like this for breakfast. You are the super duper ultra uber focused test taking machine and I personally applaud your great skills. Unfortunately for others (including myself) these distractions could mean a few lost points and a few lost points could mean you not passing the test.

So, it is good to at least practice and be ready for what you might face in the test from time to time. Don’t make this your regular routine, but especially in these last few weeks before the test, you will probably won’t to at least try it out a few times.

Distraction-ful studying

The listening section of the JLPT requires your rapt attention, especially in the quick response section. You only get one listen, so if you miss something that’s it, game over.

You probably do a lot of your listening studying with headphones and some kind of i-thing. I do anyway. This is of course, an incredibly portable and useful way to study, but the listening section of the test will actually be conducted with a stereo system of some kind (sometimes just a simple boombox CD player thing).

Needless to say there is a noticeable step down in quality from headphones to a CD player thing. This difference in quality can be distracting at times, so it might be a good idea to practice with something similar when you are studying.

What I usually do is simply unplug my headphones and use my iPhone’s speaker to play the listening back. You could also use your own CD player thing if you have one handy or even using your cheapy computer speakers will give you the same effect.

I also try to do some of my studying during the busiest part of the day when the trash man is driving around and there are kids playing in the street. This is to help me focus and let go of those annoying little sounds that creep in from time to time because there will be some of this on the test.

Say your Peace

Have you ever gotten distracted during the test? What did you do to stay focused?

P.S. Do you like death metal? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Do you prefer easy-listening instead?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.S.S.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by English106

I don’t know about you, but these particular questions drive me nuts. I’ve developed a bit a love / hate relationship with them. I kind of like the puzzle aspect of them, but find it really annoying to try to find out what goes where sometimes, especially when they deal with specially phrases I’ve never heard of before.

Essentially what it boils down to is that I’m extremely prone to careless mistakes, as I think we all are. My biggest enemy is just being able to stay focused for the test and not wonder off while I’m working my way through the questions and the monolithic 105 minutes of unadulterated test taking that you have to sit through for N2. Losing focus causes me to make a lot of careless mistakes.

Sharpening The Sword

We currently only have about 25 days left before the test in December. And with any luck, you’ve probably spent a good portion of the last year studying Japanese and possibly preparing for the test. You’ve gone through all the lists of kanji, vocabulary, and grammar. You’ve sharpened up your listening and reading skills in preparation for the big day. In other words, you’ve absorbed a lot of stuff.

And to use an analogy, you can say that you ‘built a sword’ of Japanese language knowledge that you can use to ‘slay’ the test. (Forgive me for the somewhat violent reference I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy books lately)

Now, having a sword is all fine and good everything, but a dull sword isn’t something you can kill a lot of things with, much less the mighty and ferocious JLPT. So it is also important to give that finished product a good sharpening and polish. That way you can really kick some serious JLPT butt if you know what I mean.

Now is the Time to Review

If you learn something new now, it might be of much use on the test. This might seem a little contradictory, but it is true. The test can be one of the cruelest, most demented things ever created to test Japanese. The will torture you with sentences that are a bit rare in the wild. It will prey on your weaknesses and trick you into giving the wrong answer.

OK, so maybe I’m being a little over-dramatic, and I guess I am. This is only true for the higher levels N2, N1 and a little bit N3. As for N4 and N5, they are comparatively straightforward, but don’t expect any gimmes.

So it pays to really know what you know, not sort of know what you know if that makes any sense. It’s important to know the difference between ~と and ~たら. Yes, both can mean if ~, but they are not 100% interchangeable. It is important to know more than just the definition in English. You need to know how to actually use it.

Also, if you use this time to really hone your skills and your knowledge you will be more confident with your answers. This might not seem like much, but if you are more confident answering the questions you will A) answer questions faster, giving you more time on more difficult sections of the test and B) stay more focused because your mind won’t be wondering back to that answer that you filled in 10 minutes ago.

Lastly, if you are studying Japanese in a less JLPT-centric way, you will want to switch to being fairly JLPT-centric in this last month. At the very least, walk through a practice test before the real thing in order to get a feel for the questions and how they ask them. Then, you won’t be caught by surprise on test day.

How can you do this?

You can start by going back through your drill books and go over the questions again if you have a drill book. You might think that you’ve already done the questions and that it would be a waste of time, but you’d be surprised how easily you forget specific questions and you’ll surprised when you actually make the same mistakes again.

When you go back through your drill books, make cheat sheets of anything you get wrong. And study those cheat sheets going forward. What is amazing is actually the simple act of writing something down can help you remember it so much more easily, even if you don’t study it that much.

And finally, don’t leave a single stone unturned. If you encounter a question and you don’t know the exact reason why it is wrong, be relentless in tracking down a reason why it is. Whether you have to ask in a forum somewhere or bug your native-speaker friend, or heck ask me, don’t stop until you’ve got the answer and reason.

Let me Know

What do you do in the final month before the exam? Let me know in the comments.

P.S. Were you looking for a real sword? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Do you spend your weekends walking around with a katana in your belt?  Really, me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.S.S.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Robert Couse-Baker

I did manage to recover from all that mess though. I slowly eased myself back on schedule and I’m back at it. It was definitely a bit hard at first to get myself started again, but after a did my routine for a few days it all came back to me, thank goodness.

Lately, I’ve still been busying myself with the old kanzen master N2 grammar. I just finished it and now I’ll probably do a practice test next weekend and see where am at. I hope to be able to do an old pre-2010 practice test and a new post-2010 practice test to see how big of a difference there is in levels. A suspect there will be a bit of a contrast.

Using Dictionaries

Using a language dictionary is a fact-of-life for those learning a language. No matter what you do when learning a language you will inevitably have to look a word up. You will probably have to look up several hundred or thousand words over the course of your language learning.

So language dictionaries are a vital tool for language learning. You may probably think that you are already have the fine art of dictionary looking-up down pat, but there are a few things to keep in mind when you look a word up in the dictionary. Things that totally slipped by me, my first couple of years of language study.

Make Sure the Word you Look Up is the Word you Think it is

Usually, over the course of natural language studying, you come across words you don’t know. They might be in some reading you are doing or something that you are listening to. You may also want to express something, but don’t have the words to do so yet, and want to know how to say something in Japanese.

In all of these cases you need a language dictionary. And, typically, you look up the words in the dictionary, take a few brief moments to read the word in English and then go about your day. It’s fairly straight forward process, or at least I used to think it was.

Now, for common words, like ‘blue’ and ‘car’, this is a perfectly fine way of doing things. But, if you look up something with a slightly more abstract meaning you are going to start to run into trouble.

Take a word like ‘demand’ for example. The noun form of ‘demand’ has at least 3 common words in Japanese: 要請 (yousei), a request or demand, 要求 (youkyuu), a strong demand, and 需要 (jyuyou), economic demand. That’s just for the nouns. There are other words used for the verbs.

How to Combat the Problem

First, be sure to check out the sample sentences if your dictionary has them. If you are still using a paper dictionary you are a bit out of luck here, but almost any kind of electronic dictionary (on the web or otherwise) have a plethora of example sentences for you to read through. Reading through these example sentences briefly can help you see how it is used.

You may also want to do a reverse look up of the word. You can do this by look the word up in reverse to see what other meanings that same word has. For example, if you don’t know the word for blue you can look it up and discover that blue in Japanese is 青い. But, if you look up 青い you’ll find that it means both green and blue. So, the next time someone says 青い in conversation you know that they either mean green or blue (and not just blue).

Lastly, you can ask a native speaker about it. You can try out a few sentences using the word and see if you are using correctly. Usage is important when you learn a word. To truly know a word you must know its meaning and usage. Also, the vocabulary usage section of the JLPT is one of the more difficult sections of the test, so it pays to be prepared for it.

What has tripped you up?

Is there a word that is one word in English, but actually several in Japanese? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S. Do you like getting free stuff and tips delivered right to you? You should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Do you like looking stuff up in dictionaries? Me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.S.S.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by CLF

So, I’ve actually gone back and started studying one of the first books I ever got to study for the N2, my trusty old Kanzen Master book. It is surprisingly still in print and for good reason. It is incredibly comprehensive and has plenty of tricky exercises to sharpen your skills.

I’ve been going back through it and taking the practice tests in it. Then, going back and making cheat sheets with the grammar points that I got wrong. I’ve come to realize that I am familiar with a lot of Japanese grammar but I haven’t really mastered it all yet.

Busy Little Bee

I’ve also been incredibly busy recently because I am teaching an intensive where I have to work 4-12 hour days, which involve 10 hours of being in the classroom and working with students. To say this is exhausting is an understatement. I do this every year and it completely takes over my life for the week.

Everybody gets busy now and then, maybe you have a busy season at work, family commitments, people visiting from out of town, or it’s just simply one of those weeks when you can’t get anything done. You get busy.

Also, we all have disruptions in our lives like moving somewhere new, getting a new job, getting married, or simple shifts in your schedule that can affect how you study. It can be incredibly difficult to stick to the books during these times of disruption.

The Problem of Being Busy and Disrupted

The reason for this is pretty simple – it interrupts your study pattern. I’ve talked before a few times about how after only 21 days a new study habit can cement itself into your daily routine, but if some big change comes along or you get incredibly busy, you can lose that pattern.

I’ve seen good students, who study every day and do their homework, vanish from my class in a matter of a few weeks once they’ve started a new job or even moved somewhere different in the city. It’s a bit heart-breaking to see, because I know how much effort they’ve put into studying the language and now they are going to lose a lot of that by letting it go.

Don’t Walk Away

So, if you find yourself in one of these situations, don’t walk away from studying. At the very least, try to squeeze in a little bit of practice during your breaks or other times. Even if you are just looking over a few flashcards, it’ll be enough to remind you of the language and remind you to get back into a pattern once things have calmed down a bit.

I would also recommend not jumping back in at 100% again. Try to ease back into studying if it has been awhile since you last cracked the books. Also, be a little lenient on the rewards at first, too. If you are able to study for 30 minutes, go watch TV for 30 minutes as a reward. Then, over time, increase your studying time and decrease the rewards.

In the case of SRS, or spaced repetition systems like Anki, you might be coming back to 400+ cards after just a week away from it. This can be intimidating and might lead you to either just walk away or simply flip through the cards without much focus. Neither of these things are going to do you much good.

What I do is set the session limits in Anki to make sure it is something that I can handle. Then, stick to that pattern of studying. This will probably involve you studying a little bit more than you did before. Don’t worry about working your way through those cards, they can wait. Your head on the other hand, can only take so much memorizing in one day.

Leave Your Mark

How do you rebound from a disruption or a break in studying caused by being busy? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S. Do you want to keep from getting distracted from studying? You should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Do you think this podcast is totally awesome? Me too! You should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.S.S.S. Join the party over at the Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Fred Jala

Recent Studying

I’ve been talking about picking up a listening book because I scored lower than my expectations on the listening section on the N2 in July. I thought about picking up the 試験に出る聴解N1/N2 because I recently finished the 試験に出る読解N1/N2 and found it to be a good book that was really on target with how difficult the test was.

Well, I went to the bookstore and did some looking around at all the books available for listening practice at this level. There were basically only two available, the previously mentioned 試験に出る聴解N1/N2 and the 新完全マスター聴解N2 (New Kanzen Master). I took a look through both of these books and decided on the Kanzen Master book.

Why? Well, mostly because it looks like the Kanzen Master book has a lot more bang for your buck. It also goes over numerous listening strategies and general listening practice to help you really improve your listening, not just for the test but also in real life situations. Or at least that’s what it looks like right now. As always, after I’ve gone through the entire book, I’ll be sure to post up a video review going over what it is like.

50 Episodes, Where do I go from here?

I started this podcast about a year ago with the mission of helping others that are studying for the JLPT be more successful. I really want to create something that is useful and benefits the community. So, I need some help from you, the listener.

Right now, there is about 1000ish of you that listen to the podcast on a regular basis. Although, I’d like to have a community more like 10,000ish, this smaller size is a big advantage for you. Why? Because your voice will be heard more clearly.

So, I want to create a podcast that is more in tune with what you want to hear about. What is going to benefit you and help you study Japanese, pass the test, and be excited when the next podcast comes out. And in order to do that, I need just like 1 minute of your time.

Some Ideas for What to have on the Podcast

But, I’m not going to just leave it completely open-ended, I’m going to give you a little help with some ideas that I thought up. However, if you have any other ideas, no matter how crazy, I’d love to hear them.

Updates on what I’m doing to prepare – I’m essentially already trying to do this in the first 2 or 3 minutes of the podcast and I’ll probably continue to do that, but would you like to hear more?

Interviews with test takers – I’ve been trying to contact a few test takers for some interviews for the podcast. Would you like to hear what other test takers have to say? How they study? Does anybody want to volunteer for an interview?

Mnemonics for kanji/vocab/grammar – Mnemonics are incredibly useful for memorizing key grammar, vocab or kanji, but they are a bit of a pain to come up with. Would you appreciate some mnemonics to help with those troublesome points?

What’s it like to live/work/study in Japan – I’ve been in Japan for over 7 years now, so I know the place fairly well. Would you like some insights into life here? Are you interested in the job scene and what it is like?

Japanese culture – Although I think there are numerous blogs out there that cover this topic quite well, would you like to hear about some local culture? ‘behind the scenes’ culture that you can’t really see on the surface. I’ve been tempted to do a few myth busting episodes that bust typical myths about Japan.

Focus on the vocab/kanji/grammar for one level of the test – Until now I’ve shied away from focusing on one particular level because there are people of several levels listening to the podcast, but would you like it if I focused on one particular level every year and did a few podcasts on that? I would probably start with N5 (in 2012) and just move up from there. Hopefully by the time I get to N1 I’ll have passed the test!

Or is there something else I’m missing that you’d like to hear about? I’d love to hear any ideas you have. I like this community of listeners, and you’ve always been really helpful in providing suggestions and ideas, so thanks for that.

Make it Yours

Let me know what you think! Take the quick survey below or leave me a comment. I’d like to know what you think would be useful to you.

P.S. Do you want to be the first to know about new resources for the JLPT? You should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Do you like helping people out? Then, you should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.S.S.S. I just got a Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Wilhei55

I personally find this one pretty funny and memorable.

I have almost completed the 試験に出る読解 that I’ve been talking about over the last couple of weeks. It only took me about 3 or 4 weeks to complete and it has been a really tough book. There is a lot of vocabulary that can’t be found on any N2 vocabulary list that I’ve seen, which makes it more difficult than the So-matome Reading Comprehension book.

Overall, it is a good buy for someone that is studying for the N2 and will eventually study for the N1. I’m still not entirely sure why they have material for both tests in one book, but, oh well.

I’ve also being reading a reader’s digest type magazine called PHP, that you can find in almost any bookstore in Japan. It is full of essays similar to the type that you might see on the test. Some of the essays are incredibly well-written and so are rather difficult to read. Some of the essays are written in simpler language and so are right at the correct level for someone studying for N2.

PHP,  which stands for Peace and Happiness through Prosperity, is a bit a of touchy-feely kind of company, so a lot of the essays are inspirational in nature.  Some of their Japanese publications are sometimes featured in reading comprehension practice books for the N2 and N1.  Some of the essays are thought-provoking opinion pieces which are like what you see on the test from time to time.  They also usually have furigana for anything that is above N2 level.

It can be a bit de-motivating to read it because my progress with it is a lot slower than with my movie novelizations. However, reading native material more difficult than the actual test is really good prep for the test in my opinion.

Mnemonics – Stuff to Keep Words Glued in your Head

The basic definition of mnemonics is anything that helps you remember something. They can be stories, phrases, or images. Anything that will keep that information stuck there in your head.

I personally used to think that using mnemonics was a bunch of hog wash and not worth my time. I guess part of me was lazy and the other part of me just wanted to learn and use the language not make up stories about it.

It took a lot of time for me to come up with a story when I first started studying Japanese and so I abandoned using mnemonics pretty early on. I thought that it would just be easier to shove the words into my head via brute force, or just acquire the words naturally.

But, mnemonics do have their uses, if you use them properly.

To Make a Mnemonic or to not Make a Mnemonic that is the Question

There are more than a few people out there that probably share my old opinion of mnemonics and also think they are a waste of time. And they would probably be right if you look at it on the surface.

It typically takes about 5 to 10 minutes to make up a crazy story to help you remember a word, and then even after all that work it might still fall out of your head anyway. So, why even bother with all that story telling?

Well, with practice, the process of making these mnemonics up gets easier and easier. I started gradually using them about 6 months ago and I’ve increased my use of them over the last couple of months. I use them now to help me remember those long complicated words that I have been picking up out of my native reading materials.

And, I haven’t been making up a mnemonic for every new word I encountered either. What I usually do is try to pick it up first through regular memorization. Then, if on a subsequent review my mind goes blank for the word’s meaning, I’ll make up a mnemonic then.

At an intermediate to advanced level, a lot of the time, you simply need to be exposed to word in order to learn it because, for example, you already know the kanji that make up the word, so you can guess at the meaning. Or the sentence is so clear that you see it in, you can easily remember the meaning. But more abstract words, or words that are one word in English and several words in Japanese and vice versa can get a bit troublesome. That’s where using a mnemonic can really help out.

Take Action

How about you? Do you use mnemonics? What are some funny ones that you’ve heard of recently?

P.S. Are you a memory master? Then, you should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Did this podcast improve your memory? Then, you should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.S.S.S. I just got a new Facebook Page. Join me there to hear about all the latest news and join in on some conversations about the test.

Music by Kevin MacLeod

I’ve also started timing myself. I used to think my reading speed was pretty good, but since I ran out of time on the last test, I’ve been rethinking that a bit. So, I’ve started doing a lot of timing and a lot of reading. I have been falling behind on numerous occasions, but I’ve also been doing it on the train where there are plenty of distractions.

Different Forms of Language

Anyone that has studied Japanese probably knows that there a few different forms or levels to the language. You were probably taught (even before you really needed to know) that there is casual, polite, humble, and respectful, etc… forms of the language.

But, there are other things to be aware of about a language. Something that I didn’t really notice until later, was the difference between spoken and written Japanese (or any language really). When I first started studying for N3+ it didn’t really occur to me that a majority of the new grammar was for the written language only and not for the spoken language.

If you think about it, we have this same thing going on in English, too. Because reading is a more prepared and thought out way of communicating it tends to lend itself to more complicated forms of grammar and vocabulary. Spoken language is more spontaneous, so the language is generally more simple and to the point.

N3 is the Dividing Line

In the lower levels of the test (N5 and N4) the grammar that is tested over is usually present throughout the test in the reading and listening sections. So you can’t really see that big of separation between the two forms.

However, starting at N3 the grammar becomes more written grammar. There is still some more complex spoken grammar added in, but I’d dare to say that a lot of the new grammar is used more in the written form of the language than in the spoken.

So when I first started studying for the upper levels, I erroneously assumed the grammar I was studying would be in both the listening and the reading. But, it isn’t. The simpler and short grammar tends to be more in the listening and the longer, stiffer grammar tends to be more in the reading. Those are some broad generalizations, and there are exceptions to that rule, but that is the basic idea.

Reading Section vs. Listening Section

In the reading section you will find a lot of the grammar you typically see in a grammar prep book like the So-matome series or New Kanzen Master series. These textbooks not only cover what is going to be in the ‘grammar’ section of the exam, but also the reading section. Especially any kind of linking words like それでも、それに、そのうちに, etc… These linking words are crucial for quick comprehension.

But in the listening section, you will find that they use more phrases and vocabulary that is used in nuanced ways. They won’t test you over the obvious meaning, but try to trick you with negative questions and hypothetical situations.

Also, they will test you on your raw skill of listening and being able to focus on main points. This is where anyone with ADD is going to have issues with the test. You can’t let yourself get distracted as they discuss topics or decisions. You have to follow the entire conversation because one word could change the whole meaning of it.

Be on the look out for hypothetical situations or quotes, too. Something that has caught me off guard before is the use of ～け and だって. The first is used when the speaker is trying to recall information and the latter is used when someone is reporting what someone else is saying. If you aren’t listening carefully, you might mistake these as something the speaker is saying which can change the answer to the question.

Train your Ears

How do you train for the listening section? Do you have any tips? Please share them in the comments below.

P.S. Do you like listening? Awesome! You should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Do you like reading? Then, you should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Official U.S. Navy Imagery

The book is basically broken out into 40 days of activities. The first 10 days of the book focuses on some fundamental training, and then the remaining 30 days contains reading exercises of different types. Take note though that the last 30 days are split pretty much 50/50 N1/N2. So, about 15 of the days are for only N2 and the other 15 days are for only N1.

This makes the book a great buy because you have your reading comprehension book for both N1 and N2. However, It doesn’t have all that many exercises to practice with. I recommend doing this book after you do the So-matome Reading Comprehension Book for N2 because the So-matome book is easier than this one, but 試験に出る is a lot closer to the real level of the test.

The book also contains two 模擬試験 or mock tests, one for N1, and one for N2. They contain a complete set of questions like what you would see on the reading comprehension section of the actual exam.

Anyway, if you are having trouble with the reading comprehension section of the N2 or N1 exams it might be worth picking up. I’m getting my money’s worth at least.

Learning Japanese from Video Games

I’m always on a constant quest to increase my exposure to Japanese. I find the more exposure you have with the language the more comfortable you become and more things seem to just come naturally to you.

Exposure doesn’t exactly increase your vocabulary or make you speak better, but it does help reinforce and strengthen what you already know. It’s helped clarify a lot of different meanings of words and grammar when I see it in several different contexts.

One easy way to increase the amount of Japanese exposure you are getting is to replace all the things you normally consume in your life with Japanese versions. So, if you watch a lot of TV shows in English, just swap them out for TV shows in Japanese. If you listen to a lot of music, start listening to Japanese music and so forth.

I happen to like to play video games from time to time. One game that I’ve grown up with my whole life is Civilization, now in its 5^th incarnation, Civilization 5. So, I figured I’d try to play my favorite game in my favorite language to learn and see what happened.

Just to give you a brief description of what the heck Civilization 5 is, it’s a civilization building strategy game. In the game, you must build cities, research new technologies, and build armies. You can eventually win the game by dominating the other nations, doing a lot of research, or having a great culture. It’s a bit of a cerebral game to say the least, with a lot of reading to do, which I figured would make it a great candidate for learning Japanese.

Motivation to Learn Baked Right In

Another reason why I thought video games would be an excellent way to practice Japanese is that motivation to do well is baked right into the game. In order to play the game properly, you have to understand what your advisers and heads of nations are telling you in the game.

At certain times you have to negotiate carefully with other leaders or risk going to war. So, it’s important to figure out what the heck they are saying otherwise you will meander carelessly through the game and that isn’t all that fun.

On top of that, you need advise from your advisers as to what to do with your nation. This, too, is written in all Japanese.

That’s all Good but, …

The game uses a lot of obscure kanji, especially for a lot of the different kinds of military units. I’ve spent a lot of time looking these characters up stroke by stroke, which can be a real drag, as it slows down game play.

Also, you might have already guessed this but, it’s not exactly packed with JLPT type material. Although there is a lot of good vocabulary practice, I had a hard time finding anything that would be valuable for the test.

The voices in the game are still in English, which tends to be a common trait in most Japanese video games. I guess they don’t want to pay for an extra set of voice actors.

Anyway, overall I found it was a good way to blow a few hours a week with some exposure to the language here and there. As long as you aren’t incredibly busy and don’t care that you aren’t doing ‘maximum’ efficiency studying, it can be a good relaxer that increases your exposure.

Make a Statement

Have you played any import games or Japanese games? Are they any good ones out there that have a good amount of reading to them? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S. Do you like to play video games all day? Awesome! You should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Did you become a gaming addict? Then, you should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Also, due to the odd nature of the grading system they use for the test, it is hard to know exactly how many questions I got wrong. They use a system called IRT, which is an incredibly complex way to grade a test, but in theory it provides everyone with a fair score.

The N2 consists of 3 sections, language knowledge, reading, and listening. Each of them get their separate scores and in order to pass the test you have to score at least 19 in each section. I did succeed in scoring above 19 in every section, but unfortunately didn’t have the overall score to pass.

Language Knowledge – 27/60

This was my strongest section and I feel the easiest to prepare for. With a lot of Anki drilling and grammar study you can pretty much breeze through a few of these sections. Having the ability to quickly recall vocab and recognize kanji is big plus, because the quicker you get through this section, the more time you have for the reading section.

In this section I scored an A in the vocabulary, again probably due to Anki drilling. I also got a B in grammar. I felt like I was able to answer the grammar questions pretty well, but what probably kept me from getting an A and scoring higher were the scrambled sentences. Those things sent me in circles.

If you are not familiar with the scrambled sentences section of the test, you should be, because it can cause major headaches. Essentially, in this section you are given a sentence that has 4 blanks in the middle of it somewhere. Below it are 4 pieces of the sentences, these can be one word, a clause, or a particle. You must put these pieces in order in the blanks of the sentences, then mark the number of the piece that you put in the space with the star on your answer sheet.

These types of questions really require a good sense of sentence structure, which is something that I guess I don’t really pay attention to that much in Japanese. I guess I need to start paying more attention to it, so I’ll be doing a lot more intentional reading where I try to pick out the structure of sentences as much as possible.

Reading – 23/60

If you have been following my blog for any length of time, you’ll know that I always say that the reading section for N2 and N1 are the most difficult part of the test. And, I’m repeatedly reminded of that whenever I take a mock test or this real test. The reading is no joke.

On the July test, I didn’t have enough time to finish the second to last question on the test, which is the longest (~1000 characters) and probably most difficult passage on the test. I had to skim this passage and make some educated guesses which probably cost me a few points.

I have been doing a lot more reading practice lately. I recently picked up a really good and tough book called 試験に出る読解N1・N2, which is absolutely fantastic book, but make sure you know N2 vocabulary really well because the textbook definitely uses N2+ vocab.

I’ve also started reading a lot of native materials from a variety of different sources. I started reading PHP, which is kind of reader’s digest here in Japan. It is cheap and is full of the type of essays that you typically see in the reading section of the JLPT. Some of the essays are significantly more difficult than others, but you can usually find a few in each edition that could qualify as N2 level.

Listening 25/60

Ok, so, to be perfectly honest, I’ve never spent all that much time on listening. I figure I pick up enough listening being around friends and family and just overhearing the occasional conversation on the train or at work. I also watch a little bit of Japanese TV and movies from time to time as well and pick up some listening practice there.

But, alas, that isn’t enough anymore. So it is time to bite the bullet and focus a little bit on improving my listening skills needed specifically for the test. I’m going to be doing a lot more purposeful listening to increase my skill in this area.

One thing that tripped me up was the quick response section. A lot of people say that this section is easier because you only have 3 choices, but I find it to be a bit difficult and also mentally exhausting. The questions come at you pretty fast and if you linger to long on a particular question you’ve already missed the next question.

Another type of question I need to work on are the last 3 questions of the listening section. For these 3 questions, you must listen to a passage and take notes and then they will ask you a question about it. So, you have to take really good notes about what is being discussed. I’ve got to practice my mental focus for this section. I felt myself drifting off a little bit.

I’m thinking I’ll end up picking up 試験に出る読解‘s doppleganger 試験に出る聴解, which is the listening book for the N2/N1. I’ll let you know if it is worth picking up or not.

Overall

For the next 3 months I’ll be in a holding pattern with my vocab. I’ve finished off my Anki deck that covers most of the vocabulary for the N2 and now I’m just going to review until the December test. I might later on start gradually adding some N1 vocabulary at a pace of about 5 a day or so, but for now I’m going to try to beat down my ~150 card a day habit.

I’ll also be continuing to read a variety native materials including a new reader’s digest type magazine called PHP. Any new vocabulary that I get from there I’ll be slowly adding to my deck over at memrise.com.

I’ll also be doing a lot more purposeful listening. By that I mean, listening to a dialog several times to pick up all the details and language used, being sure to write down or ask about anything I don’t completely understand. Before I was doing a lot more casual native listening to podcasts and the like.

What about You?

Did you take the July test? What were your results? What would you do differently? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S. Are you studying for the December JLPT? You should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Did you get an awesome score on the July JLPT? Then, you should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod

The principle behind this is that the less you have to remember the better, so I reduced the number of cards and hopefully made it so they are easier to remember. If there are any problems with the cards though let me know. Or if you have any suggestions on how to make them easier to work with also let me know. I’d like to hear about it.

Starting Out with Japanese

Whenever you start learning any language it is easy to stay motivated at first. You can see your progress very easily. It seems like every day, you can look back and remember some new phrase or group of phrases that you learned and can be proud of.

I remembered when I first starting learning Japanese I could at the end of the day tell you what kana or kanji I learned, what kind of situation I practiced, or some new phrase that I could use. I was excited to try to use my Japanese (very poorly) with native speakers. I could barely make 2 or 3 sentences, but still wanted to go out and use it just because I had it.

At the Intermediate Level

Now, I can probably comfortably say that I’m at an intermediate level of Japanese. This is where studying becomes more difficult. It’s incredibly easy to get de-motivated at this level for a variety of reasons.

First, you are no longer starting out, so the small things that you learn every day don’t seem like much in comparison to the large body of knowledge you already have of the language. So, you can’t see a whole lot of progress.

Second, you still aren’t fluent. I can watch most movies and TV shows and understand major plot points (except maybe period pieces with classical Japanese), but I can only really understand the main idea of a news story, usually none of the details. I can read books meant for elementary school kids, but not the newspaper.

I recently bought a copy of Civilization 5 in Japanese, thinking that it was just a game and wouldn’t have all that difficult of kanji in it. I was completely wrong, I’m not even sure if some of the kanji in the game is N1 kanji. It’s still a good challenge though.

I personally study for about 2 or more hours a day along with exposure to Japanese at work and chatting with family and friends. Still, even with all this studying, it is hard to see solid proof of my progress.

Take a Leap

However, I’ve begun to realize I’m a lot more capable then I think I am. It’s easy to fall into a rut of just thinking you are a certain level with the language when really you are much higher (or in some cases much lower).

The important thing is to believe in yourself and make it happen. Nobody ever learns anything if they don’t challenge themselves. You have to push yourself out of your comfort zone and make mistakes.

There have been plenty of times I’ve made foolish mistakes with my Japanese and people laugh at me or look at me strange. I think it is moments like that where you learn the most. The JLPT is definitely something that can test you and bring you out of your comfort zone, but there are other ways to do that to.

Journey out of your Comfort Zone

If you haven’t already started, I highly recommend using native materials of some kind in your studying. Even if it is just for a small portion of studying, it will really help you see how the language is actually used. The sooner the better with this.

Web resources are especially useful because you can use rikai-chan (or rikai-kun for Chrome) to help you read the Japanese before you’ve learned it. So, there is no excuse really to start studying right away.

You can also strike up a conversation even if you don’t have to. I’ve lived in Japan for awhile and it seems like from the start I always avoided store staff. I was too afraid to ask them questions for some reason, but now I’ve taken on a completely different approach. I try to talk to them as much as possible, even if I know exactly where the tofu is, I always try to ask anyway.

If you aren’t in Japan, you can find a Skype partner to chat with. It might seem a little odd at first to chat with people you hardly know on the Internet, but my experience has always been that people that want to learn a language are generally very charismatic and friendly. They want to communicate, so it can be a lot of fun to meet people through Skype.

Whatever you do, don’t be shy and don’t say to yourself “I’m not that level yet.” because who knows, maybe you are.

Take a Leap of Faith

Push yourself out of your comfort zone and make it happen. I’d love to hear about it in the comments, too!

P.S. Do you like to leap around like you just don’t care? Awesome! You should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Did you take a leap of faith? Then, you should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Sabrina’s Stash

Any suggestions on comments on the deck would be greatly appreciated. So many people study so many different ways and it is good to hear some differing opinions about how a good standard deck should look, so please contact me if you have any ideas.

Blended Grammar Approach

In the last two podcast episodes, I took a anti-grammar and a pro-grammar stance on how to study a language. Obviously, these are both extremes, but they can work for some people. I think if you are very gregarious and attentive person, a no grammar book way of studying might right for you.

On the other hand, if you are a bit shy and want to be very correct (for example, if you are in business and want to make a good impression) then studying a grammar book religiously might be the way to go.

But, you might have guessed by now that there is a middle road on this path to learning a language. One that maybe most of you follow right now. That is a hybrid grammar textbook and immersion technique.

Because in my opinion, if you don’t balance out your studies you’ll become a bit lopsided in your Japanese. Just to give you an example, when I was studying for the ３級 test (equivalent to N4), all I did was study exercise and grammar books for about 3 months before the test. What resulted was an utter inability to speak the language, but I could answer questions about it.

I ended up passing the test, which was my short term goal at the time, but I learned that I needed to round my studies out or else my Japanese wouldn’t really be of any use to me. Now I include speaking practice as much as I can.

Grammar Textbooks are Useful

A good grammar textbook is useful. I often mention the Minna No Nihongo series, which are a good set of books. Also, the Genki series is pretty good to. These are both great for beginners (N5, N4). After that, the So-Matome series is pretty good for the grammar points of each level.

Studying these grammar books at the very least helps you to know that these grammar structures exist. What do I mean by this? I mean that you might not have a perfectly clear understanding after practicing a particular grammar textbook, but when you go to use native materials, you’ll be able to recognize the grammar structures and can later go back and look it up if you need to.

When you first learn any language it is difficult to recognize what are words you can look up in a dictionary and what is the stuff that is ‘grammar’ or sometimes called ‘grammatical structures’. For example, if you look up つもり in the dictionary, it will tell you that it means ‘intention, plan’. That doesn’t really give it full justice though. If you look it up in a grammar book, you’ll learn that it is the rough equivalent of ‘I’m going to…’ and takes a verb in plain form before it.

Simply knowing that つもり is a bit strange and not your typical word will help you understand the language more. Granted studying the grammar and being perfectly clear what つもり is will also be of great help, but at the very least if you know it is a grammar term you won’t be caught off guard. Does that make sense?

But, you can study grammar textbooks all you want and still not be able to use the language well. You need to be able to use the grammar points with your own ideas. That’s why it is also important to go out there and produce something with the target grammar you are trying to learn. This can be writing; this can be speaking, but it has to be something.

How to Use Grammar Points

You can use the grammar points you learn by writing out examples using the grammar in your words. Then, have the writing checked by a native speaker friend or cruise on over to lang-8.com where you can get it checked by native speaker via the internet.

Another way to practice the grammar is a little more passive – you can read. You can pick up some native materials at your local recycle shop if you are here in Japan, or if you aren’t you can find some blogs to read. Blogs are generally a lot easier to read because they are written in a casual tone.

It may however be useful to read something more formal. For that I would recommend JapanesePod101.com‘s audio blog series. Although it is technically not reading (it’s in podcast format) the transcript is posted as the first comment on their website, so you don’t even need to have a subscription to read the blog. Be sure to download it and save it though, because they only make the last 3 weeks of the podcast available.

Another way to practice grammar that you’ve learned is through listening. You can get dramas fairly easily or native podcasts to listen to. There are also Japanese-learning podcasts like JapanesePod101 that will give you all the nice things like a transcript and lesson notes with a subscription.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

Everyone is different when it comes to studying. There is no one perfect way to do things. I’ve talked about this before several times, but it is worth repeating. Like everything I ever recommend, try out a blended approach and tell me what you think. Does it work for you? Great, keep it. Is it not effective? I’m sorry, give something else I try.

Let it Out

How do you study grammar? Is it effective? Let me know in the comments below!

P.S. Do you like to blend things together? Awesome! You should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Do you take the path less taken? Then, you should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by joelk75

I’ve started to play test the deck and have to say it is really useful. I’m looking forward to the changes they are planning on making to Memrise.com over the next couple of weeks in order to implement all of the new features. I’m also still interested in hearing any feedback you have on the decks, so that we can make the best decks possible to study.

Grammar is Absolutely Necessary

In last week’s episode, I argued against using Japanese grammar to learn the language. I went over how grammar textbooks are a waste of time and instead you should be learning all of your grammar from complete immersion in the language.

That is one opinion on how to best learn a language, but today, I’m going to argue the other side of that argument. Today, I’ll be firmly in the pro-grammar camp, which is sometimes considered a bit of a traditional way to study a language, but it has its merits. Doing grammar drills or completing grammar exercises in your workbook might not be your idea of fun, but it can help you learn and use a language well.

Adults Learn Differently than a Baby

The argument for not studying grammar specifically is usually that babies don’t learn grammar explicitly, so why should you? But, this is a bit flawed because as adults, we learn things completely differently. Since we have a lot of previous knowledge with us already about our language as well as the ability to already speak a language, we can use those as tools to learn another language.

Recent studies actually demonstrate that babies might learn how to use a language not by tons of exposure, but actually just one clear example of the use of the grammar or vocabulary word. This makes a lot more sense than the alternative that babies are actually using lots of examples of the particular grammar point or vocabulary word to make an educate guess at its meaning.

So, if babies learn a new word or grammar point from one clear example of its usage, then why can’t you shortcut that process by just reading and using a lot of clear examples along with a set of rules to help you when you encounter the grammar in the future? Wouldn’t this be simpler?

You CAN Pick up Grammar through Textbooks

Yes, it is indeed possible to learn how to use and understand grammar from a textbook. Granted most textbooks give you very generic ‘safe’ examples, but these will prepare you for more difficult examples of the grammar point in the future. You just have to extrapolate the grammar rules.

If you have issues with a particular grammar point, you can still go and ask your teacher or tutor to clarify what is going on in the sentence. Also you can try your own ideas with the grammar point as well. The important thing is to not just drill through the textbook, but instead get out and use the grammar that you’ve learned that day.

Drilling might be a little boring and dull, but it’ll give you the confidence you need to use the grammar when you need it. Also, you’ll be a lot more confident answering test questions after you’ve drilled it enough to be confident in it. This will help you speed through the test and answer the questions quicker.

Go Ahead and Say It

Do you love grammar? Do you think studying grammar from a grammar textbook is the way to go? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S. Can’t get enough Japanese grammar? Then, sign up the newsletter to get more info on how to study effectively sent free to your mailbox.

P.S.S. Are you a grammar fanatic? Great, go tell iTunes about it.  Or if you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod

It is pretty challenging sometimes to puzzle out what the computer is asking and it can slow you down a bit if you aren’t familiar with how windows works. This is my first time using Windows 7, so at first I was a bit lost, but I’m starting to get a handle on it now. I would only recommend it if you are about N2 or above though.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress, in the meantime, let’s get to the feature segment.

Japanese Grammar Who Needs it?

There is an argument put forth by a few language learning gurus that learning grammar is a waste of time. Or, I should say studying grammar specifically in a grammar textbook is a waste of time. The argument goes something like, babies don’t have to learn grammar so why do you?

Instead of studying a grammar book, you should be able to get your grammar from native materials. You can just absorb the grammar from the materials and eventually, over time, you’ll begin to learn what sounds right in the language automagically.

Although I’m personally a bit skeptical of this method, I thought I would take the time to present both sides of the argument. I’ll be playing the role of devil’s advocate if you will. Next week in episode 43, I’ll present the pro-grammar argument, but for this episode let’s just pretend I’m completely against studying grammar.

Studying Japanese Grammar Wastes Time

Time is precious. Everyone has something to do these days it seems, maybe you have work, family obligations, or maybe you raise prize-winning chinchillas in your free time. Whatever the case my be, chances are you probably don’t have a whole lot of time on your hands. So, you always want to make the most out of your studying time.

Studying grammar rules and doing drills is pretty inefficient way to spend your studying time because you aren’t using the language in a realistic way. What good does it do you to form sentences out of a book and write them out or say them out loud in class if you are never going to use them in real life. Those words in the textbook are not your ideas, they are the textbook writer’s ideas, so why are you just parroting what he says?

Those grammar books are stuffed full of proper out-dated uses of the language, too. Real Japanese is full of mistakes and shortcuts, blurring of sounds, dialectal differences, and slang. So what is the point of spending all that time studying the grammar when the native speakers don’t even us it properly themselves?

Not to mention the fact that grammar textbooks are typically bland tasteless pieces of literature anyway. Most them just have tons of text and a few pictures. It can be incredibly demotivating to try to hammer your way through chapter after chapter of grammar that you aren’t using and may never use.

You can Pick Up Japanese Grammar from Immersion

By immersing yourself in Japanese movies and dramas, you’ll be able to extract tons of vocabulary and grammar. For things you have trouble figuring out, you can ask a native speaker friend to help explain them to you. In this way, you’ll be learning and using grammar and vocabulary that is important to you not just important to the textbook writer.

With total immersion in the language, you’ll be hearing and using tons of examples of how the language is really used, and get a good feeling for what the language is like. In this way, you’ll be able to use the language a lot more fluently because you won’t be bogged down thinking about grammar rules when you are making sentences.

If you have the opportunity to speak to native speakers, you’ll be able to get instant feedback on whether you are using the language correctly or not. If they don’t understand something you said, you can try again using another phrase or word, or you can simply ask how to say it if your native speaking friend knows your language.

The point of learning a language is to use it and use it to communicate with someone else. As long as you are getting your point across, who cares whether it’s in correct grammar or not? You achieved your goal didn’t you?

Besides grammar reminds me too much of high school and memorizing those large charts of conjugations and genders for Spanish class. I don’t want to stick my nose in a book, I want to use the language already!

Stand Up and Be Heard

What do you think of grammar? Is it time to throw your grammar textbook out the window? Let your voice be heard in the comments.

P.S. If you are a secret grammar lover, and need some support, join my newsletter and get a free guide, discounts and tips.

P.S.S. Are you fed up with grammar? Great, go tell iTunes about it.  Or if you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod

I did get a new computer to tide me over in the meantime. I hope to do some more video editing and just doing videos in general because I can do it a lot faster than before. I’ll finally be retiring the dinosaur after 7 years of service.

Anyway, let’s get into the meat of it.

Japanese Parts of Speech

Ok, so just reading that title is enough to do induce insomnia, but bear with me. Before you get the pillows out for a snooze, there are some important things to be aware of about parts of speech that caught me off guard when I was studying Japanese.

In most languages, there are a standard set of parts of speech, noun, verb, adverb, etc… The same holds true for Japanese, but they are generally used a little differently. One example of this is transitive and intransitive verbs.

If you remember what your high school teacher taught you, you’ll remember that intransitive verbs don’t take an object and transitive verbs take an object. So for example, in the sentence “I ate the apple.” ‘eat’ is a transitive verb. You are eating an object (the apple). And in the sentence “I arrived at the station.” ‘arrive’ is an intransitive verb. You can’t say ‘I arrived the station.’

Ok, got all that?

What is Unique about Japanese Transitive and Intransitive verbs

In English, we can often use the same verb transitively and intransitively. For example, ‘I dried the shirt’ (transitive) and ‘My shirt dried.’ (intransitive). This makes life pretty easy in English.

However, in Japanese, life isn’t so easy. You see in Japanese, transitive and intransitive verbs are often two different verbs that have similar definitions. This makes it rather confusing when you go to practice vocabulary. Let’s look at a classic example that I always get hung up on: 乾く and 乾かす as in:

私はシャツを乾かした。[I dried my shirt (with a blow dryer)]

シャツが乾いた。 [My shirt dried (by itself)]

Now, both of these words have very similar definitions. Quoting the WWWJDIC, we have 乾く　meaning ‘to get dry’ and 乾かす meaning ‘to dry (clothes, etc.), to desiccate’. To me at least, the difference between the two isn’t immediately apparent.

How can you Apply this to your Studying?

First of all, there are no standard rules for forming transitive and intransitive verbs. You can tell if a verb is transitive or intransitive just by looking at it. This makes it all the more difficult to practice and remember these words.

So, if you encounter a new word that has a similar meaning to a word that you have learned before, but is spelled slightly differently, you should look it up in the dictionary to check whether it is transitive or intransitive. They will usually have the same kanji, but have an extra mora or kana added on.

In a Japanese dictionary meant for learner’s of Japanese, like WWWJDIC, transitive and intransitive verbs are usually marked with the codes vt and vi, respectively. In a ‘real’ Japanese dictionary, transitive and intransitive verbs are labeled 他 short for 他動詞 (tadoushi) and 自 short for 自動詞 (jidoushi) respectively.

Often times, flashcards don’t have parts of speech on them, which in my opinion is a real shame. So, if your cards real or digital lack parts of speech, it might pay off to at least label the transitive and intransitive verbs in your deck.

This kind of thing typically comes up on the test in the vocab usage sections as well as in the grammar section, so it does pay off to make absolutely sure that you can clearly tell the difference between these two types of verbs.

So, don’t be fooled by transitive and intransitive verbs, put this stuff to work on your flashcards today.

P.S. Can you not get enough transitive and intransitive verbs in your life? Fabulous! Join my newsletter for more tips and special deals not shared on the blog.

P.S.S. Do you, now, have no problems with transitive and intransitive verbs? Great go tell iTunes about it.  Or if you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Also, it’s summer time and with it comes the usual going out and hanging out on the beach, hiking, and simply getting out and having fun in the blistering heat.  Combine this with being in limbo about whether I passed N2 or not, it’s hard to stay motivated and find time to study sometimes.  So I’ve been looking for other places to study.

Studying on the Sly

I should start off by saying that what I’m about talk about is for entertainment purposes.  Doing some of things might get you yelled out by your boss, punished in some way, fired or shot in some countries.  In other words, don’t follow this advice at all, it’s unsafe and potentially dangerous.  Consult your lawyer before acting on any of the suggestions below too.

Now that all the legal stuff is out of the way, let’s go over how to study while doing some other activity.

It can be incredibly useful to squeeze in a few vocabulary or kanji here and there throughout the day.  You’ll be amazed at how you can, over the course of day, learn a decent chunk of information if you need to.   Some of you work 40 hours a week, or even more, have a commute, have errands to run, and possibly even a family.  So time is incredibly valuable.

That’s why making use of some ‘lost’ time can really help you make progress with your studying.  This is a bit extreme, but some people are extremely busy (myself included).

Work (Study) Opportunities

Now I’m not advocating to simply not work at work and go off into a corner somewhere and study.  You still have a job, and chances are pretty good that you might like to do your job, and that is totally fine, but there are those times at work that you actually aren’t working, you know what I mean?

One obvious place that you aren’t really working is on bathroom breaks.  Whenever nature calls, you can potentially whip out some handy flashcards that you have stashed in your back pocket and go over one real quick.  Repeat them over and over as much as you can and on your way back from the bathroom (and after you wash your hands) give the flashcard one last look to check if you are right.

Another small technique is studying a few cards before work starts and writing something on your hand to remind you of the words or kanji that you were practicing.  Then periodically throughout the day, if you have a bit of free time (waiting for someone, falling asleep in a meeting, taking a sip of coffee) you can take a peek at your hand and see if you can recall the word or kanji that you wrote down.

It will be a struggle to come up with the word, but that’s actually a good thing.  The more you struggle to recall a word and the more ‘rewiring’ of your brain you do, the easier it will be to recall that information in the future.  You can even try to tax your brain by coming with stories or mnemonics for some key words you keep forgetting.  Nobody can see into your brain (yet), so there is no harm in spending some time being imaginative.

If you can’t come up with the word or kanji from the hint you have on your hand, still keep it in your head until you can check the card.  I’ve found this makes it very memorable because you struggled so hard to come up with the word or kanji.

Some Tips

• Don’t try to do too much.  5 vocabulary words, kanji, or grammar terms is a good goal.  You don’t want to get too distracted from work.
• Don’t make it too obvious.  Still do your job, but as we all know there are those times when you don’t really need to be doing anything at work.  Those are great times to do a little bit of studying.
• Practice makes perfect.  Even if you are just mentally going over new grammar, vocab, and kanji at work (without any flashcards).  This is still a big help because you are reviewing the material and reminding your brain that it is important stuff to keep in there.

Make It Happen

I also just got off the phone, or Skype?, with the good people at memrise.com.  We spent the morning talking about some exciting new things that are going on with that site.  I don’t want to give away too much at the moment, but they will be making some great changes to that site and I’ve been playing a small role in that, so I’m excited to see that site grow.

Why? – The World’s Most Difficult Question

I’m currently teaching English about 6 days a week.  Needless to say, I get a lot of teaching experience this way and of the most dreaded questions I encounter is ‘why?’  For example, why is this wrong?  Why can’t I say this?  And students will often times look at me as if I should instantly now the answer to this question. As if I can spout forth a string of clearly defined rules that they will be able to later apply to the grammar or phrase to be absolutely sure they are speaking or writing the correct English.

But, if you are a native speaker of English, you probably can’t really answer that question very quickly.  If someone asked you why do we use the past perfect in this sentence?  You’d probably answer, ‘because it sounds right’.  That’s because we’ve learned from experimenting and listening to other speakers of the language and have gradually accumulated a consensus in our head of how to use a particular phrase or grammar point.

We don’t know grammar rules.  We didn’t study the proper use of the past participle in school.  Chances are you don’t even know what a past participle is.  And that’s fine!  Your still able to read and function in the language right?

But, as a learner of another language we always seek rules for that other language.  We’d like to tie it up and put a neat little bow on it to make sure it’s correct.  Especially, if we are going to be tested on it!  I don’t know about you, but I want to be really sure of how to use the phrases and grammar so I can A) ace the JLPT and B) use it quickly and smoothly without hesitation in conversation.

In other words, I want to be so confident in that grammar/phrase that I can use it at a moment’s notice, no thinking, no hee-ing and haw-ing, just spit it out with utmost confidence.

Test Out the Grammar Point or Phrase

So, in order to get this confidence you need to experiment with the language.  Instead, asking why? to a native speaker, try out a few sentences with your own ideas and see if they sound right to a native speaker or not.  Make the sentences your own and not some sentences from a grammar textbook.

Let me give you an example, I seem to have problems with that wacky わけ.  There are two phrases/grammar points in particular that used to always cause me fits – わけがない and わけではない.  To me, initially, these pretty much sounded like the same thing.  Both start with わけ and both end in ない.  But, the particle in the middle changes the meaning completely.

~わけがない means there is no way that ~.  Whereas ～わけではない means something like that doesn’t necessarily mean ~.  So instead of pouring over some example sentences that didn’t really apply to me or asking why can’t I say this?  I tried out a few sentences:

毎日ナットを食べるだけど、なっとが好きなわけではない。
(I eat natto every day, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I like it.)

そんな車を買えるわけがない。
(There is no way I can buy a car like that.)

Now, both of these sentences actually apply to me.  I do eat natto every day, but I wouldn’t exactly call it dessert.  And there are a lot of cars, which I simply can’t afford.  This makes the grammar more personal and more for me and not some lifeless sentence on the page.  Also, I can check my understanding by simply asking my native friend – 正しいの？or  if you are feeling polite –  正しいですか？

This is a lot simpler than trying to get someone to explain to you why you can’t use a particular phrase in a particular way.  Also, I believe, the language processing center in your brain is forming the rules naturally so you don’t have to check a laundry list of rules every time you make a sentence.  This will help you speak faster and more importantly answer questions on the test faster, too.

Are you ready to take action?

Next time you stumble upon a grammar point that you don’t quite understand.  Don’t ask why, instead try to puzzle out the rules for yourself.  Experiment making sentences until you are comfortable with the grammar point.

P.S.  Are you tired of asking why?  Then, Sign up for the newsletter for all the latest tips and tricks.

P.S.S.  Do you know why this podcast is so awesome? Great! Go tell iTunes about it.  Or if you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod, photo by Karyn Christner

Part of my day involves walking out in the scorching sun for a good 30 minutes each way to work. It’s gotten so bad that my wife made me a towel with pockets to put ice packs in that I can put around my neck. It really is that bad. If you move to Japan, you might want to avoid Kyoto if you are not a big fan of the weather.

Language Learning Myth #1 – You’ll just absorb the language naturally

When I first arrived in Japan, I was quickly surrounded by Japanese. It was everywhere, signs, announcements in the store or on the bus, the people I talked to. I thought to myself, wow, in no time, I’ll just automatically absorb the language. I had the naïve notion that the language would just funnel into my head automatically because I was living in the country.

And, I did pick up things here and there. Mostly I picked up exclamations like すげっ！ and うまい！, but nothing really substantial. I also didn’t really hear any of the words I learned in my one year of Japanese classes I took to prepare for moving to Japan.

In general, I had the philosophy that the language would just passively flow into my brain. That I could clean house and listen to a Japanese podcast at the same time and some how automagically the words and grammar would flow into my brain as long as I kept trying to shove all that stuff in there.

On top of that, it seemed like the things I was learning were falling out of my head. I would learn a few words and then *poof* they were gone the next day never to return again. This simply amounted to a waste of time for me because I would spend some time learning and then have to re-learn the same stuff again later.

Studying Efficiency

In other words, I wasn’t being very efficient with my study time. I kept on thinking though that I could just slog along and eventually I would get to my goal. Well, I slogged along for about 5 years. That didn’t quite work out as well as I thought it would.

So, the moral of my story is to be efficient with your study time. Otherwise you might find yourself a few years down the road and realize you only took a few steps.

Relate New Information

One big key to increasing your studying efficiency is to try to relate every new item to information that you already know. This can be by connecting the new word or grammar point to an image (if that’s possible) or a situation you remember, or even a song.

These new connections you make are kind of like the glue that helps new information stick a lot easier. Now some items will definitely need more glue than others, so the more connections you make the better. This will keep the new item from falling out of your head.

It seems like a really simple concept, but it actually in fact works. The next time you encounter something new in Japanese, take a few moments to ‘glue’ it in your head. Think about how it relates to what you know already and build those bonds. It will definitely help you be able to recall the item a lot more easily in the future.

What are you waiting for?

Make learning as active as you can, when you see a new item try to relate it to thing you know now. Don’t let it pass by without at least spending a little time to glue it in place.  

P.S.  Do you want to work on your vocabulary and grammar memorizing muscles?  Sign up for the newsletter for all the latest tips and tricks.

P.S.S.  Did this podcast make you go out and start actively learning Japanese? Go tell iTunes about it.  Or if you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod, photo by Steven Depolo

音読　ROCKS!

This time between when you took the test and when you get the results back can be absolutely agonizing.  You are not quite sure how well you did, what you did well in, and what you didn’t do well in.  So, at least for me, it is easy to get a bit lazy especially with the infamous hot and humid summers that we in Japan have come to love.

But, this is a perfect time to patch up holes in your Japanese, review some of that grammar you didn’t quite get right and go back over those books again.  If you come back to some of your grammar, reading, listening, or vocabulary books after an absence of a few months, you’ll be surprised how the hardly look familiar at all anymore.   I’m currently going back through an old reading book and it’s like I never saw it before, so it’s good review.

I am also during this season going to get into more natural and fun studying methods like I mentioned a few weeks ago.  Still need to decide on the drama I’m going to watch though, does anyone have any suggestions?

How to Get over the Fear of Speaking

Lalophobia is a pretty big word, but it is the Mr. Smarty Pants way of saying ‘fear of speaking’, which is a common issue among first time language learners.  I know I definitely had it when I first started speaking and using Japanese.  For some reason, I was deathly afraid that if I said the wrong words I might get arrested or something.  Actually I don’t know what I thought, I just knew that I was afraid of speaking.

And as most people by now know, one of the best ways to learn a language is by using it, preferably by speaking it.  Some people will tell you to just go out and speak!  But, what if you aren’t the gregarious type that can strike up a conversation with any passerby? What if, even in your own native language, you get some jitters speaking to strangers?

I know I’m not the most outgoing guy in the world.  I wouldn’t say I’m shut-in either, but maybe somewhere in between.  And, it was a bit difficult for me at first to strike up conversations with shopkeepers, or to even just ask for some ketchup at McDonald’s (Shouldn’t they know by now to give all foreigners ketchup for their fries?).

I was also stuck with common misconception of “I’m not good enough to speak yet.”  I thought “I’ll study really hard, and then magically one day in the future, I will be an amazing speaker, just, magically.”  Well, that day never came even after a few straight months of hardcore book studying.

One Way that I used to Get Over my Fear of Speaking

To get over this seemingly overwhelming fear of speaking, I started doing rapid ondoku (reading aloud in Japanese).  There are a lot of ways of doing ondoku, but I had a really simple method that got me confidently speaking quickly.

First, I listened to the dialog that I wanted to practice.  I paid attention to the intonation and the emotion and their voices as they were performing the dialog.  Then, I tried to read the dialog out loud (all parts of the conversation) as fast as I could with correct pronunciation.  I also timed myself when I read the dialog out loud.  I then tried to read the dialog out loud faster and faster.  I kept trying to increase my speaking speed to the point that I was faster than the CD or Mp3.

I found this to be both challenging and also a big confidence builder.  Mostly because I didn’t have to think about the words coming out of my mouth.  The whole thing just became automatic.  So when I went to talk to people in Japanese afterwards, the words just rolled off my tongue some much more easily.

The words that I wanted to say stopped getting stuck in my throat, they just came out.  It’s like I broke off that little part of my brain that kept saying “Wait! Are you sure that’s correct?”.  It was incredibly liberating and helped me improve my Japanese by leaps and bounds.

It also eliminates what I like to call ‘William Shatner disease’.  William Shatner has a very unique way of speaking that involves a lot of dramatic pauses in his speech.  Although this is useful sometimes, sometimes it’s more useful to just say what you want to say smoothly before the other person falls asleep.

How about you?

So, I encourage you to give it a try and tell me what you think.  I’d interested to hear how it worked out for you.  Leave me a comment below with the details.

P.S. Do you think this is the best Japanese studying tip ever?  Sign up for the newsletter for all the latest tips and tricks.

P.S.S.  Do you think my voice is funny? Go tell iTunes about it.  Or if you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod, photo by JRosenfield

I’d like to know what you’d like to learn about and hear about on the podcast.  I have a lot of things planned for the next couple of weeks, but I’d like to customize the podcast as much as possible.  So, if you have some time (just a few minutes), could you fill out a little survey for me.  Thanks for your time and your support over the last 6+ months.

Starting from Scratch

This week, I want to say a few words about starting from scratch.  I think a lot of people have trouble starting out in a language.  It can be tricky to get a handle on the language.  Especially when we’ve been taught incorrectly how to learn a language in high school.

I especially had a rocky start.  I took a year of Japanese at a city college before I came to Japan.  I did my best to study and practice the sentences and words that we were going over in class and generally got good grades.  However, when I got to Japan, I felt like I could just barely speak the language.  I could hardly order something at McDonald’s.  I was a bit hopeless to say the least.

So, I kept up my studies of the language.  I diligently did my homework and listened to Japanese conversations.  I went through a silent period, which is what everyone is suppose to do right?  Well, that silent period just kept continuing despite being in Japan for 6 months.  And, I could still hardly make a hotel reservation.

My co-worker recommended a tutor and I immediately started my tutor sessions with her.  It really started opening things up for me.  I started getting conversation practice and being able to test out the new vocabulary and grammar that I learned.  It really helped.

Note that I said tutor and not a class.  Classes are good for some people, they are social; you can get a lot of practice with a lot of different people; there are other students that ask questions that you don’t think about.  But, classes may not be for everybody.  You might make solid progress just with a tutor instead.

How to Hit the Ground Running

If I had to start all over again, I would probably learn kana as soon as I could.  Knowing how to read the language natively (the way it is suppose to be read) is invaluable.  It can help you do more reading and will give you a jump start because you’ll be able to read some things in Japanese.

A good book to help you learn kana in about 3 hours (yes, it actually only takes about 3 hours) is Remembering the Kana (US Amazon).  I used this book and completely eliminated the need for boring drills.  Between this and Kanji Pict-o-Graphix (US Amazon) I mastered all the kana pretty quickly.

After learning kana, I would get three things, a grammar book of some kind, a phrase book, and some listening material.  The grammar book, I would use as a reference and learning tool.  I’d work through it slowly and not make it my primary thing to study from.  You need grammar, but you don’t need to overdo it.  Also it’ll be handy if it has an index of some kind so that you can easily look up grammar points that you encounter.

For a plain vanilla grammar book, I recommend Minna no Nihongo’s shokyu book.   It is a bit pricey, but it packs the right grammar into one solid book.  There are CDs that go with it, as well as a workbook.  I never got the workbook or CDs, I practiced the conversations with my tutor.  I think they would be handy if you have the time to study with them though.  Please note, that this book uses exclusively kana, so be sure you are good at kana before starting this series.  You may want to get the Translation and Grammar Notes for explanations of the grammar (in your native language) as well.

The second thing to get is a phrase book.  This is useful if you are in country and you want to get started speaking to natives as soon as you can.  There are two phrasebooks that are on the top of the heap.  The Lonely Planet Japanese Phrasebook (US Amazon) and the Berlitz Phrasebook (US Amazon).  The Lonely Planet guide seems to be more popular, but has mistakes.  The Berlitz guide is bigger but has more correct phrases.

Will they have romaji?  Yes, probably.  Are they going to teach you any grammar? No, not really.  The reason why I recommend a phrase book is so that you can jump headlong into the language without getting bogged down in grammar and vocab details.  With a phrase book and you can simply open it up and say something out of it and you are in a conversation.  Yes, it is a little embarrassing to do so, but the sooner you get hands on experience with the language the better.

The last thing I would recommend getting is some listening material to help you get used to hearing the language.  I’ve been listening to Japanesepod101 for awhile now (3+ years).  They have a lot of different levels and even if I listen to the beginner series I can learn new stuff.  TIP: sign up for the mailing list and try it out for awhile.  About every 3 months they have a sale.  If you like it, you can buy a subscription then and usually save around 25%.

And the last thing to do is to ‘go native’ as soon as you can.  This can either be reading online blog articles with Rikaichan (for Firefox) or Rikaikun (for Chrome) or watching JDramas, JMovies, talking to some native speakers.  Anything will do, but having native-level exposure to the language from the beginning is a key to quick learning.

Action Steps

What advice would you give to someone just starting out?  What are some of the mistakes you made?

P.S. I’m now in iTunes.  If you like the podcast, please be sure to visit iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod, photo by Steven Depolo

Awww! My brain hurts!

I’m just fresh out of the test, and to tell you the truth, it was exhausting.  For the N2 level, there are only two sections, a 105 minute language knowledge section and a 50 minute listening section.  The first section can be a bit daunting because you are given all that time to finish it and you really have to manage your time well.

I can say that the facilities were quite a lot nicer this time though.  I took the test at 京大 (kyodai), or Kyoto University.  If you are not familiar with Kyoto University, it is one of the Ivy League schools of Japan, so it is a very  big school that has a ton of buildings.  It was a bit of maze and absolutely nothing was clearly marked which is completely different to all of my previous experiences with the JLPT.

Other than that, the rooms themselves were actually quite nice.  I’m use to taking the test on uncomfortable wooden seats with barely adequate heating and cooling, so I was relieved to see cushioned seats and reliable climate control.  They also had a speaker system instead of the lovely CD-boombox they had at my N3 test.  I guess I’m moving up in the world.

What went well

I think studying vocabulary and kanji with Anki really boosted my vocabulary and kanji scores.  But, I do think it is key to have good example sentences and clear definitive definitions of the words you are studying.  Make sure there isn’t any ambiguity between a couple of words in your deck.  There has been a few times when I knew the ‘meaning’ of the word, but wasn’t able to choose the right sentence in the usage section because I didn’t know how to use it.  If you have a good example sentence and a clear definition then you can avoid this problem.

What didn’t go so well

I felt the scrambled sentences were really tricky this time around.  I can usually sort out how a sentence comes together by just looking at the particles and making a few educated guesses, but that was not the case this time.  There were some torturous sentences.  I think it is best to do some more reading in order to see more sentence patterns and get more familiar with them.

Another problem I ran into was that I ran out of time in the reading.  I wasn’t able to properly read the thematic comprehension question (second to last passage).  This was a bit of first for me.  I’ve been really practicing reading exercises and even doing 20~30 minutes of reading on the train, but because of some difficult phrasing, vocab I didn’t know, and being a little exhausted, I couldn’t get through it in time.  I guess I need to keep up the reading and try to bump up my speed a bit.

The listening section also seems to be the easiest section of the test for those living in Japan.  I thought it was actually just N2 level this time.  The speakers seem to be speaking incredibly fast, but it might just be that I haven’t actually ever studied for the listening section because it is usually my strength.  I can’t really say it was my strength this time though.  The quick response section gave me a bit of trouble.  It’s just a bit hard for me to think that fast I think.  Definitely something I will have to practice for future tests.

Going Forward

I feel like I either just passed, or just failed.  Either way, I think I’ll be spending the next few months patching up holes in my grammar and vocabulary that I need work on.  I’m also going to move toward more ‘natural’ ways of studying Japanese with books, movies, and jDramas and things like that.  I’ll be experimenting with a couple of different study methods over the next few months and letting everyone know how/if they help.

I’ll, of course, be coupling natural studying with a lot of Anki work to remember new words that I pick up from reading, dramas, and just chitchat.  I feel like if you just study for the test, and don’t expand your Japanese into other areas, you start sounding a bit bookish and I personally get a bit demotivated.  So, I’ll be spreading out and doing more fun studying.

How about you?

Did you take the test in July?  How was it?  What was easy and what was difficult?  Would you do anything differently to prepare for the test?

P.S. Did you miss out on the big test in July?  Need some weekly tips to help you for the December test?  Sign up for the newsletter for all the latest tips and tricks.

P.S.S. Do you think you aced the listening section of the test? Go tell iTunes about how much JLPT Boot Camp helped you.  Or if you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod, photo by Daehyun Park

Anyway, after taking the test, I went over every wrong answer and then circled it in my grammar book that I’ve been using, the N2 So-Matome Grammar Book.  This is part of test prep is one of the most difficult for me, as it can get really frustrating to realize how many things you actually aren’t that clear on.  But, I’m using the past test to help me focus in review for the last few remaining days.

I was finally able to finish off the N2 So-Matome Reading Comprehension book as well.  The main thing I learned from going through this book is to pay attention to details as much as possible.  You really need two things to pass the reading section of the exam, speed and comprehension. But, if you go too fast you miss the details, so be sure to be on the look out for small little details that could completely change a question.

Some Test Day Advice

If you are taking the test in July, I have a few last minute tips for you:

1) Try to stay calm and focused.  If you have taken a practice test, taken the test before, or simply just test well.  You won’t really have a problem in this department, but if you do you might want to try deep breathing or even quick mediation of some kind.

2) Try to get your brain into a calm state.  Research has shown that the best recall comes when the brain is in theta wave state.  This is when the brain is less active and calmer (another reason to stay calm).  So, don’t jam out to heavy metal or drink a can of red bull before the exam.  It might make you too jumpy to recall anything.

3) Arrive early.  This is for two reasons:  First of all you want to orient yourself and find where you are taking the test.  Some of these testing centers have several thousand people taking the test and will take over an entire branch or section of a university.  It might take a little time to find your room.  The second reason is that some of these testing centers have, shall we say, climate control issues.  The room might be too hot or too cold.  It’s best to get there a little early and adjust to the temp and take off/add clothes as necessary.

4) Dress in Layers.  Okay, so this might start sounding like you are going on a hike, but seriously, you don’t want to be uncomfortable when you are taking the test.  So be sure to dress in layers so that you can adjust your body temp according to the air conditioning (or lack there of).

5) Treat it like a normal day as much as you can.  The first time I took the test, I put a lot of pressure on myself to pass, but in the end it’s just a test, and you can take it again in 5 months if you don’t make it this time.

That’s it folks!  Good luck on the July test if you are taking it, I’d like to hear from you about how you did, so be sure to comment or send me an email.

Action Steps

What are some of your test day rituals?  I’d like to hear them in the comments below.

P.S. I’m now in iTunes.  If you like the podcast, please be sure to visit iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod, photo by Brian Walsh

Instead of grinding away in the same old fashion, I’m trying to switch things up a little and go with the flow.  For one thing, I’ve recently dusted off my box of White Rabbit Flashcards and started using them a lot more.  I’ve always been a fan of electronic flashcards for multiple reasons, but having the good ole fashion paper ones is also handy too.  For one thing, I don’t have to switch to the app and wait for it to open (I’m on an ancient iPhone 3G).

Making Studying a Priority

Life is crazy.  There is so many things that get squished into 24 hours it’s ridiculous.  So, it is often pretty easy to let your studies slip by the wayside.

We’ve all been there at least once.  You get sick, you get busy, or more often there is just a slow gradual decline in the amount of time you devote to studying a language.

Well, this may sound a little rough, but in my opinion “I don’t have enough time to study.” actually means “I’m not making studying a priority.”  Studying a language is a lot like owning a puppy, it’s a lot of fun, but you have to make sure you feed the little guy every once in awhile or he might just run away.

I personally blame my schooling.  We’re never taught such important things as scheduling or prioritizing  or even how to study in school.  So, no wonder we get lost.  But, the important thing to think about when studying a language is consistency.  5 minutes a day is just fine if that’s all you can fit in.

If you are anything like me, you are probably working 8 hours a day or more or have class and other studying to do.  But, it’s important to spend that time every day to give yourself a little something before going into work and giving someone else some of your time.

One small trick that I make use of to do a lot of my studying is tackling the most difficult stuff first thing in the morning.  We all know that sometimes we have to eat our vegetables when it comes to studying Japanese, and if you eat your vegetables in the morning you can get it over with and get on with your day.  I personally review my Anki deck in the morning before I do anything else.  Just so it is out of the way.

Measure your Progress

It’s important to have some kind of metric, so you can see your progress.  Anki has built in graphs to show you how well you are doing, but it can be a little more difficult with other types of studying.  Make sure to test yourself over the grammar points and vocabulary that you have learned.

I personally grab the closest native speaker I can find and try out a few new grammar points that I’ve learned that day, just to make sure I’ve got them down.  If you are outside of Japan and a native speaker is a little too hard to come by, you can use a website like lang-8.com to help you practice producing the language.

Although the test technically only covers the receiving of the language, I don’t think it is possible to pass N2 (or maybe even N3) without being able to at least have a short conversation.  Producing the language (speaking or writing) helps give you feedback and also allows to learn through making mistakes.

Action Steps

Re-prioritize your studying, take a look at what you are studying now and decide what is the most important thing for you to be studying.  Do you need to work on grammar? kanji?  Then, choose a time of day to make that your studying time and stick with it.  Now is the time to make those habits stick.

P.S. I’m now in iTunes.  If you like the podcast, please be sure to visit iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

Music by Kevin MacLeod, photo by Samael Kreutz