Curious as to what all those different sound effects mean? What the difference between ‘a’ and ‘aa!’ is? Check out this list here: http://www.oop-ack.com/manga/soundfx.html.

New Wiki site Memorizable.org allows you to create custom flashcards and quiz yourself right in your browser. Best of all, you don’t even need to register to use it! Also, in typical Wiki style, you can create your own sets to share with everyone! There is already a Spanish wiki, so it’s just a matter of time before somebody (*ahem*) creates one for Japanese.

Signups are in September!

The JLPT is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, and happens only once a year. It has four levels with 4 being the easiest and 1 being the most difficult. Though each test is meant to double in difficulty from the next lowest level, the gaps between levels are not evenly spaced. The level 1 test, I’ve heard, might be a challenge to a native Japanese speaker (Tae kim says not likely). Level 2 is far and away more difficult than Level 3. And level 4 is a dawdle for even those who’ve been studying (albeit intensively) for a couple months. Sample questions for the previous year are available online.

So where to place yourself? Take the easy route and get a guaranteed ‘Pass’, or challenge and see how far you get it with a harder level. What level are you signing up for this year?

My teacher, who I go to once a week, thinks I could manage the Level 3… but I’m not so sure. I would like to go for the Level 4, get the confidence-building ‘Pass’ and try for level 3 next year.

Or I could really buckle down in these next couple of months and study for the JLPT specifically with test-prep resources and useful flash cards specific to the JLPT levels: Speedanki. Or how about a screensaver with JLPT Kanji?

There are useful study guides online, like this Study Guide regarding the Level 1 and 2 tests. Also reading other’s experiences about taking the tests is very helpful, for example “Hmmn…” who wrote about taking level 3.

JLPT Kanji will keep you going each day with JLPT-specific kanji.

Even if you don’t pass the harder JLPT level, it might be worth it to challenge yourself.

Maybe I’ll go for the 3?!

While this video actually turns out to be very informative for a beginner, even your intermediate and advanced students will enjoy a laugh or two:

(This is the part where I actually talk about learning kanji).
I have been studying Japanese for many years. My listening comprehension is fine, I can manage in conversation, and my reading comprehension is quite good. But kanji? I am a total wapuro-baka (i.e., someone who becomes overdependent on IME kanji conversion, and doesn’t actually know how to write them). There were 3rd-grade kanji that I wouldn’t be able to write. Now…for the last 4-5 years, I’ve been utterly unconcerned about this. I want to be able to read Japanese literature for pleasure; to read Japanese nonfiction and get information from it; and to conduct my daily life in Japanese. The only time I’ve actually had to write kanji, for those basic goals, is to write down my address. When you consider that I’ve become able to read Soseki and Mori Ogai while knowing about 400 kanji, kanji don’t quite seem like the unslayable foe that they’re sometimes portrayed as. But I didn’t want to ignore them forever.

I’ve tried many times to improve my kanji ability, writing kanji over and over, and it just doesn’t work. How come? Well, mostly all it teaches you to do is copy kanji. This is rather useful until you get some sense for stroke order and kanji composition, but it doesn’t so much help you to remember the kanji forms. And it doesn’t help you learn which sei you’re supposed to use in せいさい（制裁）　or せいふ（政府）.What you really need to be able to do is hear a word, or read a set of hiragana, and figure out the appropriate kanji, and write them. This is the main part of the 漢字検定　exam, and for good reason; it’s pretty close to what you do in daily life when you’re writing a test or writing a memo, assuming you’ve got enough vocabulary to know what word you want to write. So what I really needed was an exercise that could replicate that.

Continue reading ‘On Not Learning Kanji Pt. II’

I know one thing about learning Japanese, and it’s this: don’t study kanji. Study words. Trying to learn Japanese by studying kanji is a little bit like trying to learn English by learning how to spell all the words in the dictionary. Okay, that may be a little extreme. And I’ll fully admit that what worked for me may not work for anyone else. But I’ll explain.

Continue reading ‘On Not Learning Kanji Pt. I’