dampingwire's JP & DE

[dampingwire]

W/E 2017-10-01 40h15m

Audio:	14:22
Vocab:	0:17
Reading:	19:46
Grammar:	4:13
Video:	1:37

W/E 2017-10-08 40h21m

Audio:	17:29
Vocab:	0:32
Reading:	17:21
Grammar:	2:03
Video:	2:56

Following on from my update two weeks ago, I've paused my work with 新完全マスター N2 読解. Instead I've started to work through all the N2 mock 聴解 tests I have. In addition I have a set of not terribly brilliant quality that are (possibly) from the old 2級 tests in the 1990s and early 2000s. So I'm going to work through those in detail backwards (i.e. 2009 going back in time) while listening to some of the early ones during my commute (say 1990-1999 or so). Hopefully that will give me a fair few tests to work through while also giving me plenty of listening practice to the sorts of questions that might come up.

I'm also going to make an effort to work through the same mock tests and possible-actual tests, looking at the 読解 papers. They changed more significantly than the 聴解 ones when the new style tests started in ~2010, so the older papers might be less useful there. However, it will all be good reading practice, even if the style of question has changed a little.

Apart from that, my usual activities are continuing. RTK and Anki are up to date. I've started a new series, スーパーサラリーマン左江内氏, which is a little silly, and I've made a very brief start on intensive listening with 嘘の戦争. I'll probably continue スーパーサラリーマン左江内氏 when I need a break from 聴解, but I suspect that 嘘の戦争 will be on the back burner until after the first Sunday in December.

[dampingwire]

Grand Total for W/E 2017-10-15 to 2017-10-22: 73:49

Audio:	43:01
Vocab:	00:52
Reading:	21:07
Grammar:	05:07
Video:	03:42

(Rather than putting in a table of times for each week, in future I'll just include a total since my last update).

I'm still watching the occasional episode of スーパーサラリーマン左江内氏, but mostly just when I'm too tired to do any serious work. Although I'm keeping Anki and RTK up to date, my main focus now is past papers or exercise books for the reading test and the listening test.

My tutor is in Japan for 3 weeks, so I have plenty of time to work through the various tests, and then analyse them and look for bits I still don't understand even when I use a dictionary during the review phase. I'm also slowly working through the Udemy N2 course again, as I think it is both a valuable review whilst also providing good listening practice. I've also switched my homeward bound commute listening from German to Japanese. With only just over a month until the JLPT I think I need to put all my efforts in this one direction.

The only other thing I'm doing is reading at least one NHK-News article each day.

[dampingwire]

I did say that I'd put in total study times since my last update, but actually I think I'm going to drop the times entirely. I'm still going to track my activity in my spreadsheet, but turning it into a table is a bit tedious, so I'm not going to bother.

So, since my last update my studies have been focussing on the upcoming December JLPT N2.

I found a website where someone had typed in a bunch of JLPT 2級 papers from the 1990s onwards, so I've been working through some of those. I think what I need most is practice with 聴解 (listening comprehension) but the recordings for those are rather poor quality and also there's the occasional missing graph or diagram. So although I've tried one or two of the listening exams, I've mostly concentrated on 読 解・文法. I've done about 6 of them so far, along with a mock one from a text book. I'll take some time out over the next few days to mark them, and analyse where my mistakes mostly are. I've been tracking my time per question and at some point I'll try to come up with some kind of strategy for the order in which to tackle the questions and how much time to allow for each section.

Overall, even though I've not marked the papers yet, I think it's gone a little better than expected and for about half of the long passages I (think I) have had a decent idea of what the text says. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that I've picked the right answer even in those cases! Still, it's quite encouraging.

I've yet to try any of the 文字・語彙 tests as that's what I consider to be my least weak area at the moment. I will try some out over the next week or so, as they are relatively short (35 minutes allowed compared to 70 minutes for the ones I have been doing).

For 聴解 I've stopped listening to JPOD101 blogs and started to listen to みんなの日本語中級 CDs and 新完全マスター N2 聴解. I do have the 日本語総まとめ N2 聴解 CDs, so I'll probably throw those onto the phone too. I will use the mock tests in the back of 新完全マスター and 日本語総まとめ some time soon too. I've also tried a couple of the N2 mock tests that I've found on youtube. I've been going over the Udemy N2 course again on an occasional basis, mostly as a listening exercise, but the grammar repetition and vocabulary explanation is useful too.

With all the past paper reading work, reading NHK News has dropped by the wayside a little. I try to fit it in when I can but as I'm doing plenty of other reading, it's not my primary focus right now.

I've been keeping my anki decks up to date but RTK has also dropped by the wayside.

[dampingwire]

I've run into a whole bunch of Japanese related items lately that I've found pretty useful.

This set of Nihongo no mori youtube videos I've found to be very easy to watch. It's 36 lessons of N2 grammar and is supposed to cover a significant chunk of N2 grammar in one month. I've found her generally easy to understand, so I've been getting through 3 or 4 a day and I'm currently halfway through.

The grammar explanations are good but I think what I'm getting most benefit from is the listening practice.

[dampingwire]

So yesterday was the JLPT N2 exam.

The language knowledge section (kanji plus grammar) was probably the best part for me. Last time I got 24/60 but this time I hope to have done quite a bit better than that. The reading section was where things started to go downhill: last time it was 19/60. This time I hope it's better than that but it's probably not very good. Last time the listening section was 28/60 but this time it was awful.

So overall I don't expect to pass and I may not even reach the total score that I did last time. We'll see in February.

Anyway, I've learned that I really do need to read much, much more. As usual I ran out of time and had to rush the last three questions in about 8 minutes, which just isn't enough (for me). If I could read and comprehend at double my current speed then that would leave much more time for the questions that I could manage if only there was more time available. In addition, if I read more widely then my vocabulary should naturally improve, which should help with those passages where I get terribly stuck.

As for listening, I'm currently picking up NHK News podcasts daily, so I'll start to listen to those in detail and see if that helps.

[dampingwire]

I had a bad cold last week and so not a lot of language learning got done.

Since then I've started to plan out what I'm going to do to kick start my Japanese again.

I'd dropped RTK in the run up to the JLPT and I'm going to leave it alone for a while. My anki kanji deck has been neglected and has piled up a bunch of reviews, but for now I'm not going to kick start it again.

I have entered the Udemy N2 sentences into anki and I'm slowly activating them as I have a few spare moments. I'm still working through the iKnow sentences too and moving them to the main Sentences deck in blocks.

I've started to work slowly on 新完全マスター N1 文法. I've been through chapter 1. I've made notes and activated the relevant sentences in Anki. I'll start on Chapter 2 next week and then I'll try the exercises for Chapter 1. I do have the Udemy N1 course but the order of the grammar points is entirely different, so I'm going to leave the Udemy course mostly alone for now. However, once I have activated the Udemy N2 sentences I'll start on the Udemy N1 sentences. At that point I'll probably jump to whatever 新完全マスター N1 文法 chapter I need to cover the next Udemy grammar point. That way I should be able to progress through both courses in a reasonable way. Of course there are also some 日本語の森 N1 courses on youtube ...

I've found another drama, 明日の約束, which seems fairly straightforward. I watched the first episode without subtitles and, although there was lots I missed, I did at least follow the main plot line. I have some Japanese and English subtitles for it, so I'm now going through the first episode with Japanese subtitles, pausing and rewinding as necessary.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do about reading yet. I had started another pass through エルマーのぼうけん, so I will finish that off soon. Then I'll pick one of my Japanese novels and read that as a background activity. I also plan to work through 新完全マスター N2 読解 one more time.

Since I put a good deal of time into JLPT 2級 past papers, I'm going to work through those in more depth. I'll add the sentences to Anki and also make sure that I work through all the reading passages (and properly understand them, not just understand enough to get the right answer!)

In my tutorials we've agreed to finish off the final chapters of みんなの日本語中級 and then work though 新完全マスター N1 読解 (unless something better crops up by then).

[dampingwire]

I used to set monthly targets for myself so I think I'm going to start doing that in 2018.

However, for the moment I'll just stick to some general goals and I'll come up with some specific targets in the next day or two.

Although I think I've failed the December N2 exam, I'm going to move on and start to work towards N1. With that in mind I want to work my way through 新完全マスター N1 文法 at a reasonably brisk pace. I've already started to look at it, but I hope to get through part I before the summer. In the past I've found that studying the grammar and making notes isn't enough for me: I really need to see it regularly, so as I work though each chapter I'll also activate the sentences in Anki and I'll circle back a week later to complete the exercises.

I never properly worked through 新完全マスター N2 読解 so I'm going to try to work through that properly before I start on the N1 version. Hopefully that means I'll have covered a good chunk of the grammar by then.

I'm also going to have to up my reading speed considerably. A daily dose of NHK News should help but I'm also going to aim to do a set amount of reading of novels each week. It will probably be a mixture of intensive and extensive reading, but I'll have to see how it goes.

I've found that watching each episode of 明日の約束 without any subtitles and then working through the same episode slowly with Japanese subs (and using the English subs sparingly, via a text view rather than as actual subs) seems to be helping. Or maybe it's just an easy series Anyway I plan to continue with some variant of that.

It's also time to try to get serious about German. For all of December I've been listening to German on both commutes (to make up for dropping German before the JLPT). So now I need to hit the text book and get a bit more serious about using Anki on my phone to drill some vocab. I did notice last Saturday that the Oxford Central Library is now open again, and there are about four shelves of German novels. I want to get to the point where I can do something useful with those (especially as there are only two shelves of Italian novels ...).

[rdearman]

Molto bene. I keep thinking about Japanese, but looks like too much hard work.

[gsbod]

I never properly worked through 新完全マスター N2 読解 so I'm going to try to work through that properly before I start on the N1 version. Hopefully that means I'll have covered a good chunk of the grammar by then.

I'm also going to have to up my reading speed considerably.

I found that the 新完全マスター N2 読解 book was really the best for developing the reading skills needed for the N2 exam (i.e. picking the right answer quickly enough). So working with that book sounds like a good option if reading was the area holding you back for N2.

[dampingwire]

Molto bene. I keep thinking about Japanese, but looks like too much hard work.

Well some days it is hard work. Other days it's good.

Today I managed to kid myself that I understood more than usual on my first pass through 明日の約束 episode 9, so I'm going to arbitrarily decide that today is a good day

I found that the 新完全マスター N2 読解 book was really the best for developing the reading skills needed for the N2 exam (i.e. picking the right answer quickly enough). So working with that book sounds like a good option if reading was the area holding you back for N2.

I don't like the idea of that book sitting on my shelf largely unused when my reading needs work. I'm definitely going to make use of it properly before I move on to the N1 version (which has been on my shelf for a year now, unopened).