日本語だけ (Just Japanese)

[Xelian]

It has been a little while, but I have decided to come back to try and keep myself accountable for my language learning pursuits!

I am a polyglot and I have a tendency to study more than one language at once, but I am deciding to focus on JUST Japanese for the next while. There are so many delicious languages out there that I really want to learn, but I think my relationship and pull to Japanese is requiring some undivided attention at this time.

I am also planning to start a Master's degree program to pursue clinical mental health counseling, which will start in about a month, so I have about a month to spend some undivided attention on Japanese, and then also figure out how I'm going to incorporate my language studies into a potentially very busy schedule.

I feel the need to buckle down and *really* study Japanese again after a few years of being quite unsure of my abilities (because of my draining 3 year university experience and failing the JLPT N2 the following year). The pandemic put me through a lot of things I didn't think I'd experience, but the healing process has given me more strength than ever. I feel ready to resume my dedication to Japanese alongside my chosen career path of becoming a clinical mental health counselor. It will be a lot of work, but I think that I should continue to give respect to my interests and see where I can go with them.

I will post again soon to detail what I'm planning to do to increase my Japanese skills. They say that as you get closer and closer to proficient, the more difficult it is to see how much progress you've made, so I am hoping that I will stop focusing so much on the progress and start focusing on enjoying the process once more.

Thank you to everyone who follows or who came from my last language log to follow this one. I hope to be more active!

Here is a link to my previous language log in which I only posted twice: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 4dd6a049c4

Here is a link which can link you to all of my previous language learning (even back to the HTLAL website): https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 94255f60a8

[Xelian]

Hello, I'm back to list some things I plan to do over the next month at least.

Kanji
Even though I love kanji and accelerated when I was younger at learning them, I have come to a bit of a stand-still. This is partly because I hadn't studied in general for a while, but also because I lost motivation for it as they got more and more difficult. I am going to try and go back to my original methods of learning them, because I haven't had much success trying to straight up learn them by "kanji compound" as I don't often feel too solid on the components of the words. So I will be using flashcards first and try to get through some of those tough upper level (but still common) kanji individually. I think I'll be able to catch on to the kanji compound words much more easily once I get back into the swing of things with learning kanji. We'll see.

This will include:
-Paper flashcards and/or Quizlet, depending how I feel
-Some kanji renshuu drilling for the really tough ones
-Review kanji in Memrise sets and with the Kotoba Discord bot for more laid back study

Reading & Vocabulary
I'm definitely a fan of Steve Kaufmann's "LinQ" method, so I'll be reading as much materials as I can and keeping track of words I don't know. When I find a repeat, I will search it and take note of it (I'm planning to build a huge word bank of repeated unknown words to make flashcards from). So far I haven't gotten too far with this method, despite how many times I have mentioned it, but this time I'm serious. With intentional efforts to focus on commonly sighted words, I believe I will be able to see some improvement in my reading and vocabulary.

This will include:
-Reading materials such as Tobira, News Web Easy (hopefully I'll get to the real articles eventually), various books I have
-Making Quizlets of the most often seen unknown words
-Using pre-made Memrise sets for Tobira and other sets with "common words" for more laid back study

Grammar
This is nearly the most daunting part which I haven't done a whole lot with since the JLPT. I failed the grammar section on the JLPT N2, so I am pretty unconfident in my abilities, but I've also just had a hard time continuing to learn complex grammar structures for a long time now. I hope to find a good advanced Japanese grammar dictionary, if anyone knows of some let me know. I have a couple bookmarked on my computer but I haven't been able to use them too easily even so. (for example, I want to be able to search a grammar structure and find it, but it seems like this is often impossible).

This will include:
-Studying grammar found in the textbooks I have (Tobira, 新完全マスター文法N2)
-Watching the Nihongo no Mori N3-N2 (grammar points) on Youtube

Writing Output
I have used Lang-8 for a very long time for getting corrections on my Japanese and other languages. I hope to write and about some of my interests on Lang-8, but for all other practice I'll be using the journal I keep in Japanese as often as possible (on vacations I try to write everyday).

This will include:
-Lang-8 and/or a blog
-Personal journal

Speaking Output
This is kind of something I need the most work on that I also dislike the most. I have a lot of anxiety and perfectionism when it comes to speaking in Japanese, so I end up either just talking to myself, or not talking at all in Japanese. But I am hoping that this will change with time. A friend of mine suggested that I try VR Chat to talk with other people in Japanese, and so far it has been an interesting experience. I am very nervous to talk to people and there are a lot of people who require being blocked as they do not behave, but I hope that in time I can use the platform to find some people to language exchange with.

This will include:
-Finding a language exchange partner
-Using VR Chat to find people who speak Japanese to practice with for more laid back study (though it isn't laid back to me, it should be more laid back than finding an official language exchange partner, since it's just for fun and can be sort of like a coincidental thing)

I am hoping that this list will help me stay on track with what I want to do to study Japanese. Please let me know if there's anything that you found works for you if you are a studier of advanced Japanese. I am not sure when or if I will try to take the JLPT N2 again, but, if anyone has any tips for passing that please let me know. It would be cool if I eventually was able to pass it. Thank you!

[gsbod]

Good luck preparing for N2! I passed it back in 2012, although I'm not entirely sure how I managed it now.

I think the way that advanced grammar is approached in Japanese is quite different to the way it is approached in other languages I've studied, so I always struggled a bit to figure out how to deal with it too. I'm sure there's a better way to systematise things than is currently done in Japanese teaching, but it's going to take a cleverer person than me to figure that one out.

In terms of grammar dictionaries, the three volume set published by Japan Times is usually recommended, however I found them really hard to work with and ended up giving my copies away to a charity shop as they weren't being used. They're also really expensive... What I did find useful was どんな時どう使う日本語表現文型辞典 which gives a no nonsense explanation of all the main sentence patterns you'd expect to come up in the JLPT.

I'd also strongly recommend getting the 新完全マスター文法 book if you haven't already. Also get the one for reading.

Once you are fully in exam preparation mode, if you think exam technique is a factor in your performance in the grammar section, take a look at 日本語パワードリルN2文法. It's basically just pages and pages of JLPT style grammar questions. It doesn't really have any explanations, so if you need to understand why you got something wrong, you'll need to have somebody to ask, but it's great for exam practice nevertheless.

[Xelian]

...In terms of grammar dictionaries, the three volume set published by Japan Times is usually recommended, however I found them really hard to work with and ended up giving my copies away to a charity shop as they weren't being used. They're also really expensive... What I did find useful was どんな時どう使う日本語表現文型辞典 which gives a no nonsense explanation of all the main sentence patterns you'd expect to come up in the JLPT.

I'd also strongly recommend getting the 新完全マスター文法 book if you haven't already. Also get the one for reading.

Once you are fully in exam preparation mode, if you think exam technique is a factor in your performance in the grammar section, take a look at 日本語パワードリルN2文法. It's basically just pages and pages of JLPT style grammar questions. It doesn't really have any explanations, so if you need to understand why you got something wrong, you'll need to have somebody to ask, but it's great for exam practice nevertheless.

Thank you for the advice. Luckily I do have the 新完全マスター文法 but don't have the one for reading. I'll be sure to get a copy of that when I can. The other two books you recommended look great, especially the どんな時どう使う日本語表現文型辞典 , I feel like I need that immediately. But I don't know if I can order it because it is on Amazon.co.jp, do I need to make another account to get this book? Not to mention the shipping cost...

Thanks again for the recommendations though!!!

[gsbod]

Yes, getting hold of the books is the next challenge. I can't remember what the deal is with the Amazon accounts, I set mine up several years ago. The shipping from Japan is expensive, although ordering several books at once can be a bit more cost effective. The alternative for me is to order from JP Books in London, but the unit prices of their books are much higher (presumably absorbing their own shipping costs) and they don't have the same range of stock. I'm not sure if there are any specialist booksellers in your part of the world? Or you could just start writing the shopping list now for your next trip to Japan...

[Xelian]

Yes, getting hold of the books is the next challenge. I can't remember what the deal is with the Amazon accounts, I set mine up several years ago. The shipping from Japan is expensive, although ordering several books at once can be a bit more cost effective. The alternative for me is to order from JP Books in London, but the unit prices of their books are much higher (presumably absorbing their own shipping costs) and they don't have the same range of stock. I'm not sure if there are any specialist booksellers in your part of the world? Or you could just start writing the shopping list now for your next trip to Japan...

I do live near a Kinokuniya, so I can take a look there. I often prefer used books, since they're cheaper and usually just as good! BookOff in Japan is one of my favorite places to buy books (so cheap and usually still in perfect condition), but a trip to Japan could be several years from now. Since the pandemic I haven't been making travel plans, but it's still a possibility depending on how much spare money and time I have. I looked up how to create a amazon.co.jp account and it is pretty straight forward, so I will consider buying several books at once as you suggested, if I'm unable to go to Japan soon. Thank you so much for these ideas!

[Xelian]

Hello again!

It's been nearly 3 weeks and so far the pursuit of my language learning goals has not gone as I had hoped. Time really flew by! I haven't been able to dedicate much time to Japanese at all, I only did around 13 minutes of listening and that was a week or two ago. I also did gather some old vocabulary lists and noted the words that I see the most but can't quite remember. I'll be turning those into flash cards when I'm ready.

As for why I haven't done as much as I'd hoped, for one, I didn't really set up a plan or schedule yet, so that's gotten me off to a bad start. I'll hopefully change that today or tomorrow by making a bit more of a plan for a routine. I think that when I mentioned the N2, it kind of made me feel a bit less motivated. I think that studying Japanese for the sake of the exam doesn't work for me at all right now, but I do think some of the materials for the N2 will be very useful to me, so I keep them in my resources but I don't intend on taking the exam anytime soon. I thought that it would be helpful to try and prepare for it, but I wonder if I am still just too sour about how I had failed it the first time around. And lastly, I found out yesterday that I am officially accepted into the Masters degree program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, and it's looking like it could be a lot of work, so I've been spending most of my focused time on the orientation so that I'll be prepared for when my classes start in about 1 and a half weeks from now.

Once I set up a good study routine, I have no doubt that I'll be able to fit in at least a little bit of Japanese daily. After all, I play a mobile game every day and I've been making a lot of progress there, time which could be equally spent reviewing flash cards! Of course, flash cards aren't quite as fun, so I haven't done that and it may still take a little while for me to do those. But I'll be trying harder for my language studies this week.

I'll report back soon on what I planned for my routine.

[Xelian]

Hello again,

After I submitted my last post, I decided to do a JLPT "level check" because I found that I had done one back in 2017 and wanted to compare. Unfortunately, the level checker I did in 2017 no longer was available (it's the http://www.tanos.co.uk one, if anyone else can access the actual level checkers, please let me know how you did it!!!) but I did find a new one which is located at http://mlcjapanese.co.jp/level_check.html . This one did have a typo I found in the N5 grammar portion (it is suppose to be ～で～にのります NOT ～で～ののります). If anyone knows of a better resource for checking your approximate JLPT level (ideally one which has multiple versions of grammar, kanji, vocab, etc) please let me know! Anyway, even though I get a little sour thinking in terms of preparing for the N2 exam since I failed it, I'd still like to use the JLPT study materials and level checkers to give me a general sense of what materials I should be using. Since my grammar, kanji, vocabulary, and reading skills seem to be at different levels, I think that this will help me supplement the areas I'm less advanced in.

So, according to the tests I took (though I know this website isn't quite ideal) I will need to focus on vocabulary (and thus also kanji compounds) the most. Next, grammar and reading. And finally, kanji. It seems I knew a bit more grammar back in 2017, and I can recognize some forms, but have tragically forgotten what a lot of them mean or how to use them. This also could be the fact that I used two different level checkers, but, I still know without the checkers that I need to review and solidify my intermediate and advanced grammar (N3 and up).

What I intend to do is focus on vocabulary the most. There are some Memrise flashcard decks which I cherry picked to have kanji where it should and includes audio and I intend to go through as much as I have time for each day that it is possible. I also noted some of the vocabulary and kanji compounds from the level checkers that I recognize but haven't solidified, as well as some I had seen for the first time, which I will turn into flashcards that would be acceptable to use instead of the ones on Memrise. Ideally, I will be using both Memrise decks for review and my own decks (with the really tough words I can't remember). I know Memrise premium allows users to review the cards you have the most trouble with, but I don't mind making my own cards for more intensive study. If it gets to be too much, maybe I'll consider the subscription. So vocabulary flashcards will hopefully be almost every day. Somewhat embarrassingly, this will need to be N3 and up as well. A strategy I am thinking of using to keep up with this daily is to review flashcards each time I notice I've been playing my phone app too long. I think this is going to work well for me.

My next thing is grammar, and so far I am still very deterred by trying to review them. They do have some Memrise decks for this which I found tolerable, but I'm not sure how helpful or efficient it was to use them (it was so long ago I can't remember). So for the most part, I'll likely listen to Nihongo no Mori N3-N2 on YouTube, and review the points in my Tobira textbook, since I know a lot of the ones I recognize but can't remember the meaning or usage of are explained decently in there. I am still working on gathering more comprehensive resources for grammar but for now I'll be trying to look at a couple grammar points from my current resources each week and see how it goes. Once I have more of an idea how to study these, I'll hopefully have a better idea of how I'll incorporate it into my studies.

In my vocabulary and reading practice, I am hoping to read as much as possible and gather extra vocabulary which I see often but don't yet know. I am hoping to do this once a week (or more, I'll try to do it everyday if possible) as well. I have a feeling the amount of time I spend doing this will vary depending on how busy I am.

I have a really great book which includes all of the kanji I need to know to read in Japanese which I plan to pick up where I left off. I don't have it on me right now but I've used it since the beginning of my Japanese studies and I absolutely adore it. This book was where I learned most of the kanji I currently know. I had just made flashcards of each kanji and reviewed them until I remembered all of the readings and meanings. I credit this book and my flash cards for why I can recognize a lot of kanji. I am thinking if I make physical cards like I use to that it will bring nostalgia and inspire me to use them more often because it had really helped me learn before. I'll probably start doing this in about a week, but once I do start, I'll try to use them as frequent as possible, hopefully once a day but otherwise it'll be maybe 3x per week. I might also alternate this with the vocabulary flashcards. I feel confident that I can mostly focus on N2 and up for this, but there's some that appear on the N3 I'm still missing so I hope to solidify those too. We'll see how everything goes.

I do believe that my learning will benefit from actually applying my Japanese, and there are some things that you won't learn in grammar textbooks or by drilling new vocabulary words and kanji, so I do plan to find ways to interact in Japanese. I am thinking I would try to go for twice a month making an attempt to talk to someone in Japanese for now. I'm guessing I might have to go down to once a month if I find the experience too stressful. I hope that in time I will get past my anxieties around speaking, but I don't want to ruin my experience either so I don't want to push myself too hard. I am also planning on making a Lang-8 entry about some life updates. I am hoping to finish that at my own pace, but a clear deadline could be by Christmas. If I can't find anyone to talk to in Japanese or don't feel like it, I hope to work on this journal entry instead until I am able to do more speaking. The only sectional pass I had on the JLPT N2 was listening, but I can guarantee if they had made me speak or reply appropriately, I would have failed. I struggled a lot in college doing the "oral exams", firstly because of my anxiety and perfectionism around speaking and secondly because I felt a bit clueless what to respond with a lot of the time. So I feel like I can't really measure what level I am in having conversations using the JLPT, but I think by just having conversations with people in Japanese I should be able to slowly improve.

After thinking and writing it out like this, now I have a general routine!

1x per day:
-Vocabulary flashcards (Memrise and personal decks) N3 and up
-Reading where time permits (to find supplemental vocabulary)

3x per week (starting by Sept 15th):
-Kanji flashcards (from my kanji book) N2 and up

1x per week:
-Grammar (Nihongo no Mori N3-N2 on YouTube for new grammar, and the Tobira textbook for review) N3 and up

2x per month (if possible):
-Interacting in Japanese (having a conversation with someone)

By Christmas:
-Lang-8 entry

I'll let you know how this goes. I'm not sure if I want to record time spent doing each thing, or if I will just measure it by whether I completed the goals I set, but I might do both at first and see what I prefer. Until next post!

[AllSubNoDub]

1x per day:
-Vocabulary flashcards (Memrise and personal decks) N3 and up
-Reading where time permits (to find supplemental vocabulary)

What do you plan on reading? Are you able to read light novels yet?

I'm curious, because for my first language I used an instructional/teaching materials heavy approach and was afraid to shake off the training wheels and just enjoy the language. I was influenced a lot by AJATT and Antimoon (sorry to mention the "A" words for anyone that doesn't like that approach), or MIA/Migaku/Refold or whatever it's called now, and I used more of an immersion heavy approach for my second language and had a much better experience and made quicker progress in my opinion. Tools like Language Reactor and Migaku are really game changing in my opinion and have refined the mass immersion approach; especially effective for learners of Japanese who typically consume Japanese media in their native language anyway.

I may not be telling you anything new here, so sorry for any annoyance. But if one is so inclined:

0 to JLPT N1 in 1.5 Years

I also found it really inspirational that Matt (the one mentioned in the video) was basically able to read novels in Japanese after less than 2 years of immersion learning and experience them as effortlessly and indistinguishably as he could in his native language #languagegoals (but he had an unreal amount of determination, definitely not for everybody).

Matt's Channel

Just something (new hopefully) to chew on, 頑張れ！

[Xelian]

What do you plan on reading? Are you able to read light novels yet?

...

Just something (new hopefully) to chew on, 頑張れ！

Thank you for your response and encouragement. I plan to read news articles for the most part. I have had a tough time finding novels at my level, I'm typically looking up a whole lot of the vocabulary and it makes my progress pretty slow. If you have any recommendations for that, I'd love to hear it. I like fantasy/sci-fi content but I would assume that the vocab in that genre tends to be more obscure, so I think maybe slice of life would be pretty cool and more easy to read. I have a "Read Real Japanese" book I have barely touched, when I first saw it I thought it would be my gateway to advancing my reading but I unfortunately found it pretty boring.

Thanks for the video, it is definitely encouraging. I use to watch a whole lot of anime as a kid, but now a days it's a lot less. I have watched a few J-Dramas, but I tend to prefer K-Dramas as there's a lot more in HD that I've found, and they seem to be generally well made. I've seen great J-Dramas too but because of their strict copyright laws they're often harder to get ahold of and if I do it's typically bad quality.

Thanks again for your suggestions!