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Right.....here it goes.

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  • Registered Users Posts: 273 ✭✭hibby


    Tristram wrote: »
    Should ace the listening section[...].

    Just making sure, have you done JLPT exams before? If so, you'll already know that the listening questions can be deliberately tricky*.

    If not, you might want to get hold of a practice N3 listening section and go through it to familiarise yourself with the style of the questions.

    Either way, I don't think you'll have any problems but I wanted to warn you just in case you didn't know what to expect and some of the questions might catch you out.


    *What I mean by tricky is, often the three wrong answers are things that are mentioned in the audio, while the correct answer is not mentioned but is implied. Also, the correct answer often changes during the audio; for example the person is going to do one thing but then decides to do something else. So don't select an answer as soon as you hear it - keep listening.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,589 ✭✭✭Tristram


    hibby wrote: »
    Just making sure, have you done JLPT exams before? If so, you'll already know that the listening questions can be deliberately tricky*.

    If not, you might want to get hold of a practice N3 listening section and go through it to familiarise yourself with the style of the questions.

    Either way, I don't think you'll have any problems but I wanted to warn you just in case you didn't know what to expect and some of the questions might catch you out.


    *What I mean by tricky is, often the three wrong answers are things that are mentioned in the audio, while the correct answer is not mentioned but is implied. Also, the correct answer often changes during the audio; for example the person is going to do one thing but then decides to do something else. So don't select an answer as soon as you hear it - keep listening.

    Yeah, I've listened to a few of the practice listening tests driving to work. I'm living in Japan so my listening comprehension is light-years ahead of my reading. I must throw some N2 listening on my phone and see what it's like!


  • Registered Users Posts: 273 ✭✭hibby


    Tristram wrote: »
    Yeah, I've listened to a few of the practice listening tests driving to work. I'm living in Japan so my listening comprehension is light-years ahead of my reading. I must throw some N2 listening on my phone and see what it's like!

    Good stuff! I'm living in Japan too and my listening comprehension is crap. :(

    I never thought I would get to the point where I can understand written Japanese better than spoken, but there it is.

    Just one more word of advice IF you haven't done a JLPT before: as discussed above the exam is a race against time. Do a little bit of time planning before you go in (how long you can afford to spend on each question, each section) and during the exam don't spend too long thinking about questions - if there's one you don't know, choose an answer at random and move on quickly.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,589 ✭✭✭Tristram


    hibby wrote: »
    Just one more word of advice IF you haven't done a JLPT before: as discussed above the exam is a race against time. Do a little bit of time planning before you go in (how long you can afford to spend on each question, each section) and during the exam don't spend too long thinking about questions - if there's one you don't know, choose an answer at random and move on quickly.

    I think is very important alright. Every year I hear people complaining about how they failed because there wasn't enough time. For a test like this time-management is vital. I've set aside some time at the end of the week to do two or three proper practice runs to get in the right mode for the test. I was working on some reading comprehension exercises earlier and felt pretty good about them which was a big surprise. Haven't checked the answers yet! ;)


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,589 ✭✭✭Tristram


    hibby wrote: »
    Good stuff! I'm living in Japan too and my listening comprehension is crap. :(

    I never thought I would get to the point where I can understand written Japanese better than spoken, but there it is.

    Not saying my listening in general is hot **** but in my opinion the N3 listening is not difficult for someone with prolonged exposure to Japanese. I guess it makes sense as N3 is still only what, upper beginner level?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 273 ✭✭hibby


    Hey Tristam, best of luck on Sunday!


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,589 ✭✭✭Tristram


    Cheers, you too!


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,589 ✭✭✭Tristram


    Grammar section will be my undoing :(


  • Registered Users Posts: 273 ✭✭hibby


    Tristram wrote: »
    Grammar section will be my undoing :(

    Don't worry too much about the grammar. It's combined in the same scoring section as the vocab, so you'll be fine.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,589 ✭✭✭Tristram


    Well, it's all over here. I reckon I'll be seeing N3 again come the summer. I wish they offered it more than twice a year.

    Reading speed and time management were my undoing for the reading comprehension section. There were a lot of questions I wanted to go back to and think about some more but I ended up coloring in almost random boxes quicksmart. Kicked the listening section in the face. Expecting almost full marks in it. Have a whole winter's worth of study to look forward now.

    Should make oodles of progress! :)


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  • Registered Users Posts: 273 ✭✭hibby


    N2 was a bit of a disaster for me. By yesterday morning, I was almost starting to feel confident, thought with a reasonable amount of luck I might have a chance of passing. But I wasn't lucky with the vocab questions, and really struggled with the reading.

    There were only one or two questions I felt okay about: the "information retrieval" question in the reading section and the first part of the listening section.

    So, I'll study some more and try again next year.


  • Registered Users Posts: 679 ✭✭✭just-joe


    Hibby, maybe it was ok! Listening was probably ok for ya, and if you gave the kanji/grammar questions a shot then the chances aren't bad. I was sure I was fairly sure I failed last time around but pleasantly surprised by my pass. It was definitely a scraped pass, but still!

    It's a bit late now, and not worth that much, but I think my strong point was my answering speed. It definitely counts for a lot, as you need all the time you can get for the long reading sections. I practiced answering quickly and it helped on the day.

    Anyways hope it was ok and you too Tristram.


    Seems like we'll all be taking a jlpt in july though, I think I will try the N1. I suggest we make an unbreakable pact to study like crazy and kick the JLPT's ass.


    Having said that I'm not a hundred percent sure! :) I don't know if I'll have time to study properly with other committments, but at the moment my thinking is if I sign up to it, I will try harder, and I really want to improve my Japanese by July!!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 129 ✭✭fanki na pengin


    *小さい咳*

    皆さん、メッチャ久しぶりだね!ほんとに失礼します!仕事はすごい忙しいでした!多分、八月から先週まで勉強しなかった!>_<

    ばかね?!

    ANKIデックはメッチャいっぱいで、1,389漢字カードでした。わあああああああ!

    でも、今大丈夫です!すべて終わったよ!そして、1,785カードあります。

    Sorry I just jumped ship, but I had pressing things at work and I needed no distractions. Unfortunately I seem unable to kick start my old account....oh well! I stopped studying and reached a god awful amount of reviews that just took every bit of will power I had just to get through. But get through I did, in two grueling days! Now I've added, and almost a year since I started, the end feels in sight.

    1,785

    PS Apologies for the awful Japanese.

    PPS Anki 2.0 is quite good so far.


  • Registered Users Posts: 679 ✭✭✭just-joe


    また頑張ってください! 僕も仕事が忙しくなるときもあるね。頑張ろう!

    not that i can be a judge but your japanese seems wicked! (the only thing i noticed was isogashii de****a should be isogashikatta desu but ya probably know that anyways!)

    so now you have all of the heisig kanji in your anki deck? have you finished it, or just starting the complete number?

    how is your kanji recognition/reading going lately?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 129 ✭✭fanki na pengin


    Cheers joe, honestly I just put a stab at it! :D I'm sure there's a good few things wrong with it.

    I appreciate the correction! I honestly with more people would do it, and as a small note: if anyone sees me writing incorrect Japanese, please correct me! I'll always be grateful. :)

    I'm just on 1,785, so about 250 to go. Can't believe how close I am to finishing. I'd say I'll have it finished sometime in the new year. Coming home again for Xmas, so that might put a damper on things :p

    Honestly, I think I've definitely come on without realizing it. I read a manga the other day that I hadnt seen in a while and recognized a lot more than before. (maybe 5% now! Ha!)

    How about yourself?


  • Registered Users Posts: 273 ✭✭hibby


    I've decided to try taking classes. Or private lessons. Self-study just isn't working well enough or fast enough for me. Now I can put aside JLPT study for a while and work on conversational Japanese (speaking and understanding).

    One step in the right direction: my colleagues, who were previously kind enough to speak to me in English, are now being kind enough to speak to me in Japanese at lunchtime and social events (because I asked them to). It's not always easy, and sometimes we'll drop back into English if I'm struggling, but it should help a bit.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 129 ✭✭fanki na pengin


    That's great that your co-workers are doing that for you Hibby. :) sometimes I've noticed a trend for people to use you as a free English lesson if they get the opportunity. がんばって‼

    グループレッスンとプライベートレッスンの中で、プライベートレッスンは一番がいい思いってんけど。

    But I whatever suits you best, good luck with it! :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 679 ✭✭✭just-joe


    Ah, that's good, I wasn't sure if ya wanted to be corrected, and I don't want to come across as some douce just being negative. but if you want, i will help with whatever i can. (in your last sentence it seems like it it is a small mistake? maybe it should be と思っているんだけど or と思っているけど or also と思ってるんだけど which skips the い and is more casual)

    em, sometimes I feel like I can read things, I read a newsletter on my desk this week about quick and easy microwave meals which was ok! but then other times i can't even start a passage. I got a book about coffee and couldn't read a single kanji from the first page! So in general still much improvement is needed. Going back to the kanzen master N2 list which I never covered so that will be a start for improving things.



    Yeah, I kinda want to get some type of lessons too, or at least start a regular conversation practice, as I haven't done it in a while. It's too easy to plateau and stop improving. Especially when you don't know what you should be doing.

    どうしよう?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 129 ✭✭fanki na pengin


    You're completely right with that one (just confirmed with a Japanese friend of mine!) XD

    I go to lessons, and the teacher speaks 90% Japanese to me, and we study from a 100% Japanese book. It definitely helps, and is great because she will always correct me.

    Conversation classes can help I suppose, as they can be quite casual. I teach (well...taught) music and I never accepted group lessons as I felt they are detrimental to all involved. I suppose that's rubbed off in my opinion of language classes, but I have no doubt that people have their own views on it and what works for them.

    I also dunno if I ever mentioned I'm in a rugby club here? It's a great opportunity to speak Japanese and learn a few phrases (as repetition is key in training....also, as small as it sounds, it quickly cemented my 左 from my 右 :P). It's relaxed and social (飲み会 are a plenty). Of course....eh, also it keeps you fit. :P

    For those still in Ireland, see if you can grab a Japanese language partner somewhere. Speaking it has been extremely beneficial of late.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 129 ✭✭fanki na pengin


    1,827

    The end is in sight! Then maybe the real beginning starts...?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 129 ✭✭fanki na pengin


    1,852.


  • Registered Users Posts: 273 ✭✭hibby


    That's great that your co-workers are doing that for you Hibby. :) sometimes I've noticed a trend for people to use you as a free English lesson if they get the opportunity. がんばって‼

    グループレッスンとプライベートレッスンの中で、プライベートレッスンは一番がいい思いってんけど。

    But I whatever suits you best, good luck with it! :)

    Funnily enough, I've never had the experience of people trying to use me for free English practice. Apart from my colleagues, I find it rare to meet someone who could string an English sentence together.

    Last night we had our work 忘年会 and it was Japanese all evening. It's very good for immersion but what I find is that I understand less and less as the conversation continues. I don't know why that is, but I've experienced it a lot.

    For example, last week I flew back to Ireland, and I was seated beside a nice middle-aged couple on the flight from Osaka to Frankfurt. Conversation starts out with pleasantries; where are you from, where are you working, your Japanese is 上手, that sort of thing. No problem there. Next the man starts talking about energy companies, power generation, and so on. I'm still coping okay, because I happen to know that vocabulary (it's my line of work). A few minutes later he's talking about politicians and civil servants and I can't understand a single thing; I'm just staring in incomprehension.

    I find pretty much any conversation that lasts more than 5-10 minutes follows this trajectory - the subject matter gets more complicated, the sentences get longer, the person speaks faster and less clearly as they get into their stride... - and I quickly end up out of my depth.

    Anyway, I will try private lessons. I guess there is an element of luck as to whether you get a good teacher. I will try to get someone who is a qualified Japanese teacher.

    Thanks for the advice!


  • Registered Users Posts: 273 ✭✭hibby


    just-joe wrote: »
    em, sometimes I feel like I can read things, I read a newsletter on my desk this week about quick and easy microwave meals which was ok! but then other times i can't even start a passage. I got a book about coffee and couldn't read a single kanji from the first page!

    That happens to me too, and it can be really random. Sometimes I'll see an article and start reading the first few lines and realise "Hey, I can understand this". Sometimes there is just a blizzard of unfamiliar kanji. Most frustrating is when I can read every single word but can't make head nor tail of what the sentence means.

    The one thing I've discovered I can cope with is manga. They put the little kana characters (yomigana? furigana?) beside every single kanji. Not just the hard ones, every single one. It's brilliant for learning. And it's cheap; the little books cost maybe 400 or 500 yen. The one I'm reading now is called Hayate the Combat Butler! I'm not sure who the target audience is but I'm guessing it's for children (girls?) of maybe 12?

    However I struggle sometimes with the conventions of manga. Who's speaking now (speech bubbles continuing into a frame with no people in it)? Is that the same person, drawn in a highly stylised way to indicate some emotion? Or is it a different character?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 129 ✭✭fanki na pengin


    I'd plus one the reading comment.

    Far too many times I jump up beaming......I CAN READ THIS SENTENCE!!....only to realise it's only one out of 100 that I can read.... >_<

    BUT, I do think it's important to do two things in this situation:

    1. Force yourself to read at the very very least one more sentence, using a dictionary or whatever means. (I'll then throw it into my anki sentence deck).

    2. Just remember that one sentence is better than none. (honestly, I believe this is the more important point).


    I love reading manga too hibby, and it's funny because I have similar problems as you regarding the speech bubbles etc. I mean, it's hard enough trying to understand it.....but trying to grasp who is saying what, and why just makes it that more difficult. Another thing I find frustrating with manga is the mimetic カタカナ that appears on almost every page. On one hand it's cute, and so Japanese....but on the other, they have so many 'words' for so many sounds.

    So, sometimes I use this site to find out the meanings. My other friends that read manga tend to brush the mimetics aside, but I'm really anal about reading everything on the page.

    1,879


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,164 ✭✭✭Konata



    So, sometimes I use this site to find out the meanings. My other friends that read manga tend to brush the mimetics aside, but I'm really anal about reading everything on the page.

    Oooo, that's a useful site! I haven't tried reading much manga in Japanese yet but I read a lot in English and many of them don't translate the mimetics (since most of time changing them would involve editing the actual art). So yea, now I can find out what they mean AND practice Japanese at the same time wooo :P


  • Registered Users Posts: 273 ✭✭hibby


    the mimetic カタカナ that appears on almost every page. On one hand it's cute, and so Japanese....but on the other, they have so many 'words' for so many sounds.

    One little bit of trivia:

    As you probably know, lots of numbers (e.g. telephone numbers) in Japan actually "spell out" the sound of words, and various dates are considered significant for that reason.

    Well, a very popular registration number for cars in Japan is 888 or 8888. Why? Because it suggests pachi pachi which is the sound of clapping or applause.


  • Registered Users Posts: 273 ✭✭hibby


    So, I put up an "application" on the website of an agency called labochi, to find a teacher. I said "my main goal is to understand spoken Japanese and to be able to take part in conversation".

    Pretty much immediately I had two replies, both of which sound promising. One lady is willing to teach me here at home at the weekend. The hourly fee is 2500 yen and she will pay her own travel costs. The other lady will teach me at my office or at a cafe (probably not ideal) in the evening after work for 2000 yen per hour + 400 yen travel expenses.

    I'm going to arrange a trial lesson with one or both and then hopefully go ahead with a weekly lesson with one of them. I'll post here to let you know how I get on.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 129 ✭✭fanki na pengin


    That's cheap enough, hope one of them works out for you.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,589 ✭✭✭Tristram


    Twenty days away from anki over the break has one hell of a battle over the last few days. Finally regaining control over my decks.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 129 ✭✭fanki na pengin


    Snap!!

    1,900 done with 500 cards to review. Luckily it's a bank holiday Monday weekend here....


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