Learning Japanese From Zero

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golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Wed May 20, 2020 2:43 pm

For the first time in a while, I actually managed to get some serious Japanese study done yesterday evening and this morning. I read two more N4 articles on Watanoc. I'm still disappointed about how some things don't have definitions available. Also of course, the translations are sometimes obviously incomplete, but that's nothing new with Watanoc.

I also reread the graded readers that I struggled with back in early February when ロータス posted them here. It's pretty cool to see how much more I can understand now. I remember that back in February, I was stumped even by common words like chotto matte.


I have also now completed the Anki Core 2K deck. I skipped all the words with kanji, but it still took quite a while. Of course, that just means I've gone through each card at least once. It will still take a while to really learn them. I have been frustrated by the number of relapses though, even after I adjusted the learning intervals to 3h, 7h, 23h last weekend, and I often feel like I'm memorizing the example sentences rather than actually learning anything. But I have learned a number of words from it so far.
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golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Thu May 21, 2020 5:07 am

I tried watching another Let's Play video. I still couldn't understand any of it, but at least it was in Japanese this time. This seems like it might be a cool channel to check out once my Japanese is much more advanced (ah, the eternal chicken and egg paradox of listening practice).

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golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Sat May 23, 2020 3:30 am

Last night I finished watching Hilda (in Japanese). Tonight, I started watching Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online (without subtitles). I'd previously watched it with English subtitles, so I already know the story and remember the gist of the dialog. As usual, I couldn't understand much. I did notice that 敵, one of my most recent words on Wanikani, came up an awful lot.

I've also continued reading Watanoc, now up to a total of 9 articles. The latest one had very few popup definitions available, so I quickly gave up on trying to understand it. The article was about Vietnamese food, and the whole thing made me wish I could stop Japanese and study Vietnamese or the like instead. And that's despite the fact that I've never had any interest in Vietnamese or any Vietnamese culture or food.

P.S. On Wanikani tonight, I missed the Enlightenment review for 仕事. That was pretty embarrassing. I also missed 福島, but that's just because for some reason, I have it stuck in my head that it's Fukashima, rather than Fukushima. It's interesting how sometimes incorrect mental models of words can get burned into your brain. It's not just a matter of foreign languages - I've actually noticed a lot of examples with English words. I'll internalize some spelling or pronunciation that's slightly off from the actual word, and then never change no matter how many times I see it across the decades. Often, that leads me to consistently misspell the affected words. In some cases, doing stuff like Duolingo or Wanikani has actually forced me to learn how to correctly spell the corresponding English words so I can get the drills right!
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golyplot
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Sat May 23, 2020 5:24 pm

This morning, I installed MyTest, the app with full length JLPT practice tests that kelvin recommended here a while back, and did a practice N5 test.

I expected to pass it easily thanks to all the studying I've been doing and how simple N5 seems, but instead it was brutally difficult, with lots of guessing required. However, I still somehow managed to pass, so I guess the grading is pretty lenient. It was a bit demoralizing to see how much I still have to learn even at the N5 level. On the other hand, "officially" passing N5 was a great confidence booster.

It's also a bit ironic that Vocab/Grammar was considered my weakest section. I expected to ace that section, but there were quite a few words I'd never seen before despite being level 22 on Wanikani (which covers all the "n5 kanji" in the first 16 levels) and going through the entire Core 2k Anki deck. Plus, it's not enough to just "know" a word. It feels like you really have to internalize it to be able to reliably answer questions about it in all the different contexts. And of course, grammar is still a huge challenge, despite all the studying I did.

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Last edited by golyplot on Sun Apr 30, 2023 8:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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kelvin921019
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16306
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby kelvin921019 » Mon May 25, 2020 11:59 am

golyplot wrote:This morning, I installed MyTest, the app with full length JLPT practice tests that kelvin recommended here a while back, and did a practice N5 test.

I expected to pass it easily thanks to all the studying I've been doing and how simple N5 seems, but instead it was brutally difficult, with lots of guessing required. However, I still somehow managed to pass, so I guess the grading is pretty lenient. It was a bit demoralizing to see how much I still have to learn even at the N5 level. On the other hand, "officially" passing N5 was a great confidence booster.

It's also a bit ironic that Vocab/Grammar was considered my weakest section. I expected to ace that section, but there were quite a few words I'd never seen before despite being level 22 on Wanikani (which covers all the "n5 kanji" in the first 16 levels) and going through the entire Core 2k Anki deck. Plus, it's not enough to just "know" a word. It feels like you really have to internalize it to be able to reliably answer questions about it in all the different contexts. And of course, grammar is still a huge challenge, despite all the studying I did.


As to marking, it's just 1 mark of each correct answer. If you wish to try the official papers, there are 2 sets of official mock papers (with answer key) on their official website for free (hard copy can be purchased from amazon, but it's the same thing):
https://www.jlpt.jp/e/samples/sampleindex.html
If you're going take the exam, I guess it's better to do it as the final training before the official exam.
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golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Mon May 25, 2020 11:09 pm

kelvin921019 wrote:As to marking, it's just 1 mark of each correct answer. If you wish to try the official papers, there are 2 sets of official mock papers (with answer key) on their official website for free (hard copy can be purchased from amazon, but it's the same thing):
https://www.jlpt.jp/e/samples/sampleindex.html
If you're going take the exam, I guess it's better to do it as the final training before the official exam.


I took the N5 "vol 2" practice test you linked. Unsurprisingly, I raced through the kanji reading section, though the rest of the test was still very difficult. I ended up with raw scores of 30/35 vocab, 20.5/32 grammar + reading, and 14/24 listening. Unfortunately, the sample test doesn't provide any way to scale the raw scores so it is impossible to know if this represents a passing performance or not. Either way, it's obvious that the MyTest practice tests are not representative of the actual test material.

I wish there was an easier and more reliable way to judge my level. Oh well.

In other news, I haven't done any Japanese study this weekend beyond keeping up with WK and passively listening to NCT sometimes. Taking the practice N5 exams was pretty grueling by itself! Anyway, I finished my fourth playthrough of Nihongo con Teppei (for beginners) and started my fifth. This will be the last time through, since I plan to try out different podcasts after this.
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kelvin921019
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16306
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby kelvin921019 » Tue May 26, 2020 2:49 am

golyplot wrote:
kelvin921019 wrote:As to marking, it's just 1 mark of each correct answer. If you wish to try the official papers, there are 2 sets of official mock papers (with answer key) on their official website for free (hard copy can be purchased from amazon, but it's the same thing):
https://www.jlpt.jp/e/samples/sampleindex.html
If you're going take the exam, I guess it's better to do it as the final training before the official exam.


I took the N5 "vol 2" practice test you linked. Unsurprisingly, I raced through the kanji reading section, though the rest of the test was still very difficult. I ended up with raw scores of 30/35 vocab, 20.5/32 grammar + reading, and 14/24 listening. Unfortunately, the sample test doesn't provide any way to scale the raw scores so it is impossible to know if this represents a passing performance or not. Either way, it's obvious that the MyTest practice tests are not representative of the actual test material.

I wish there was an easier and more reliable way to judge my level. Oh well.

The actual calculation of the marks is rather convoluted with something related to the normal distribution of the general performance of each question.

The official practice test is the average level N5 test and the MyTest one is a more difficult N5 level test (I guess 80-90% of the vocab and grammar contents are within N5 level and listening should be 100% N5 level). So an educated guess would be getting an overall 60% in the sample test and 50% in the MyTest one should almost guarantee a pass in the actual exam. Congratulations!
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golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Sun May 31, 2020 1:09 am

Not much to report lately. I haven't done much in the way of Japanese study lately. If anything, I've been kind of discouraged about the whole thing again. On the other hand, I did much better on my Wanikani reviews over the last two days than I usually do. And yesterday, I tried reading an NHK News Easy article for the first time in months. I was pleased to realize that I knew almost every word and kanji in the article, although I still wasn't able to actually understand it. :(

Edit: This morning, I did very badly on my WK reviews. I guess my streak couldn't last forever.
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golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby golyplot » Mon Jun 01, 2020 4:50 am

Overall, my Japanese learning continues pretty much on autopilot, just doing WK and listening to NHC in the background and sometimes watching an anime episode each night. I haven't done any reading practice or anything else beyond the basic routine lately.

I finished my fifth and final playthrough of Nihongo con Teppei (for beginners) and started listening to the intermediate level Nihongo con Teppei podcast instead. I'm annoyed by how he spends a minute singing (badly) at the beginning of every episode in the intermediate podcast. On the bright side, the episodes are much longer than the beginner episodes, so it's a lower fraction of the time overall.

On my continuing rewatch of SAO Alternative: GGO without subtitles, I reached episode 6 tonight. I noticed that one of the Rhythmic Gymnastics Club members referred to herself as "boku", which I suspect is one of those anime-isms people like to talk so much about. I also discovered by accident that some of the episodes have post-credit scenes, so I'll have to watch out for those.

Also, another Kanji frequency chart now that I've unlocked the second half of level 23. This'll probably be the last for a while, since reaching level 23 means I've filled out all the high frequency kanji. I've now learned 267 of the top 268 kanji and 304 of the top 307 kanji. It's kind of crazy to think about.

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Last edited by golyplot on Sun Apr 30, 2023 8:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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eido
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Re: Japanese listening from nothing: 2020 Log

Postby eido » Mon Jun 01, 2020 3:11 pm

golyplot wrote:Not much to report lately. I haven't done much in the way of Japanese study lately. If anything, I've been kind of discouraged about the whole thing again. On the other hand, I did much better on my Wanikani reviews over the last two days than I usually do. And yesterday, I tried reading an NHK News Easy article for the first time in months. I was pleased to realize that I knew almost every word and kanji in the article, although I still wasn't able to actually understand it. :(

Wow! Look at you! You're doing great :D We all have days where we feel down and things don't work out the way we planned. But that's okay, because there's always another day. And if there isn't, you just have to know that you're always trying your best. Your brain is giving you the best it can do.

However, sometimes you have to pound it with yourself. Just take your two fists and bump 'em together and say, "I got this!" You can't give up. Never quit.

Japanese is beautiful. The language would be so worth it to learn; that's why you can never give up.

I can see how much you want to speak it.

That's why you can't let go just yet. Give it just a little while longer and see where you go.

I believe in you, @golyplot!

(By the way, great username. Very clever.)
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