Learning Japanese From Zero

[golyplot]

Last Saturday, I finished listening to 4989 This American Life and started catching up on Nihongo con Teppei before deciding on a new podcast to follow. However, I discovered that starting with episode 515, Teppei put really obnoxious background music over his entire podcast, so I decided to just skip all the remaining NhT episodes and instead start listening to a new podcast called Learn Japanese with Noriko. It's at a lower level than This American Life, so I wish I'd done it first.

Today, I listened to fermata~Akkord:fortissimo~ by Fripside on Youtube. The top Youtube comment has the lyrics to the song (in Japanese). I of course can't understand the lyrics yet, written or spoken, but I did notice that the parts listed in the lyrics as 2つの and 2人の didn't sound anything like the readings I learned for those words. I wonder what that's about.

[vonPeterhof]

I of course can't understand the lyrics yet, written or spoken, but I did notice that the parts listed in the lyrics as 2つの and 2人の didn't sound anything like the readings I learned for those words. I wonder what that's about.

There's nothing unusual about the way those words are pronounced in the song. What readings did you learn for them?

[白田龍]

I did notice that the parts listed in the lyrics as 2つの and 2人の didn't sound anything like the readings I learned for those words.

If you still don't know futatsu and futari, you need to learn some textbook Japanese urgently. This is really basic stuff any beginner learns on the first few weeks.

I don't mean to be critical, but it seems to me that having a firmer grasp of the basics would really help you to understand the advanced stuff you are getting lots of exposure to.

https://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/le ... /7_01.html
https://www.punipunijapan.com/counting-people/

[golyplot]

If you still don't know futatsu and futari, you need to learn some textbook Japanese urgently. This is really basic stuff any beginner learns on the first few weeks.

I do know those of course, but I heard something completely different. Given everyone's reactions, I probably just misheard. Oh well.

[David27]

I see where you’re coming from. It’s because the “fu” Is drawn out in both to follow the rhythm as opposed to very short or chopped off “u” that is normally heard in speech.

[golyplot]

Four months ago, I took a practice N5 test. I decided to take it again to see how much I've improved, since it's been long enough that I won't remember the answers. Overall, it felt easier, but it was still brain meltingly difficult, and that's just the N5 exam!

Back in May, I got raw scores of 30/35 vocab, 20.5/32 grammar + reading, and 14/24 listening. This time around, my scores were 32/35, 28.2/32, and 13.7/24 respectively.

I was very surprised that my improvements came on the vocab, grammar, and reading sections and I actually did slightly worse on listening, since I've spent so much time watching anime, listening to podcasts, etc. Oh well. I think that part of it is that I just got luckier with my random guessing the first time around, since I was pretty much guessing on most of the listening section both times. Part of the problem is that on the later questions, even a momentary lapse in concentration makes it impossible, and there's no second chances or time to think. There were questions where I felt like I understood most of the dialogue but still had no idea what the answer was.

When it comes to the vocab and grammar/reading sections, every question I missed was one I missed the first time as well (i.e. I did strictly better than last time). There were two cases where I put a different wrong answer back in May, and four questions where I put the same wrong answer both times.


Anyway, I was planning to take the N4 practice test next, but now I'm wondering whether there's even any point when I can't handle the N5 practice test when it comes to listening.

[golyplot]

Despite failing sections 2-4 of the N5 listening test, I've been feeling ebullient in regards to Japanese for the last day or so.

I rewatched the Fripside song, and apart from the words being drawn out and not pronounced in the usual manner, it still seems to me like the "fu" in futari sounds more like a "gu". Maybe it's just the usual effect of mishearing ambiguous speech sounds. I can definitely see why I'd get confused when I was struggling to keep up with the lyrics as it was.

Over in Sakura-land, ep67 features a montage of Sakura sleeping in class on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, ... Saturday? Do Japanese kids really have to go to school on Saturdays too?

[devilyoudont]

It used to be that Japanese school children went six days a week. This was phased down to 5 days a week a while ago, but some children do still optionally go on Saturday, or they go certain Saturdays each month. I believe Cardcaptor Sakura is old enough that it would take place during the time period where all children went to school 6 days a week.

[DaveAgain]

Over in Sakura-land, ep67 features a montage of Sakura sleeping in class on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, ... Saturday? Do Japanese kids really have to go to school on Saturdays too?

The British secondary school I went to used to have classes on Saturday morning too.

[golyplot]

I decided to take the N4 practice test yesterday. If I thought the N5 test was mind melting, the N4 test was utterly brutal.

The vocab section was tough and I wasn't able to finish it in time, but I did pretty well in the end. The grammar+reading section on the other hand was pure torture. I basically kept waiting for the alarm to sound time's up to put me out of my misery. As for listening, I wasn't expecting much since I failed even the N5 test. I counted it as a success that there were a few questions I wasn't completely guessing on.

My overall scores on the N4 were vocab: 29.7/35, grammar+reading: 17.2/35, listening: 13.4/28 (as usual, I gave myself partial credit for questions left blank - on the actual test I'd obviously fill in the blanks with random answers but there's no point in testing that now).

Anyway, the fact that even after nine months of study, I still can't even pass a N5 listening test or a N4 grammar test has really made me question what I'm doing. I feel like I may be doing everything wrong and wasting my time.

P.S. I've been thinking recently of buying Genki just to see what it's like, since it's so commonly recommended. But I'm not sure whether it will be of much use to me since I've already been studying Japanese for so long through other means, and I don't want to buy something I'm not going to use. Any suggestions?