Kraemder's attempt at JLPT N1 (Japanese)

[kraemder]

I don't feel like I'm studying Japanese anymore but I guess that's not really true. I am focusing on Korean for sure, but it's not all out where I ignore my other languages. I am using Japanese and I've even made a flash card deck for production that I'm studying a little. It's not too ambitious however. More of a side thought. It's mostly to (maybe) improve my speaking. I'm using Japanese for watching anime and sometimes reading books but also to talk to people online. It's fun to talk to foreigners I think and especially cool when you can do that in their language. I think my Japanese is ok but here's a vlog of me talking about my Korean studying. I added English subs (yay, it was a pain in the butt!) so you can take a look even if you don't know any Japanese. You can see that I slow down when I want to use a less common grammar pattern or maybe describe something with a little more depth and maybe even use a big word or two. I didn't really use any big words though.

https://youtu.be/onR9sYVpBfY

[kraemder]

I went to a Japanese language meetup last night. It's actually focused on MIA. It's the Tucson MIA Club. If you hadn't heard about it on YouTube or the forums, MIA is a method for studying foreign languages and more specifically Japanese.

https://massimmersionapproach.com/table-of-contents/stage-1/jp-quickstart-guide/

I YouTube thought I would like one of the videos and it was right. I liked it. It's mostly AJATT tweaked a bit and watching Matt enthusiastically talk about studying Japanese is inspiring I think. Apparently one of the Japanese meetup members here in Tucson was so taken with the ideas that he started another meetup group specifically for people who want to try putting it to use. They've been doing it for about a month or so now and the people at the meeting seemed really positive about it. Most of the members have tried self studying Japanese for a year or two with mixed success and frustration. I would say more frustration than success but hey.. it's Japanese. I think that can't be helped. Most of the members are attacking RTK (Remembering the Kanji) full on. They are keeping track of how many kanji they know etc and just made a group website to post about it. I'm wondering where this group was when -I- was a beginner at Japanese and had just discovered RTK. oh well.

I was inspired a bit so I am reading a Japanese novel today: Book 2 of 1Q84. It's a little slow going (three long books) but I like the writing style, characters, and plot etc. I started 1Q84 years ago but gave it up after finishing most of Book 1 and went on to other Japanese books. It was just really long. I've always felt bad about not reading it. I'm using text to speech to read it and Voice Dream app on my iPhone. Text to Speech is a miracle I think for reading non roman alphabet texts. Sure I have studied tons of Japanese and know enough kanji to read a book. But it's tiring. This is so much easier.