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| *Travel Tips>>>Japan Travel Tips |
As a non native speaker of Japanese, how exactly did you learn it? |
Travel Info Only people with JLPT level 2 or 1 knowledges please. How have you gotten so far to this point? Which resources did you use, and how did you study to pass the tests? Thanks a lot in advance: I am eager to study Japanese and have been for more than a year. So far, I have proceeded little past the point of saying a few words which would get me food from a shop. I plan to take a University course in it, yet I wish to get as much a head start as possible in my school years as well so I have more time to do my Commerce degree at the same time. Any study methods, good resources, etc. would be useful. How did you practice reading and writing? Any recommended textbooks? I've currently got Pimsleur's Japanese CDs - so until I finish those, I'm fine with listening and speaking. Travel Tips First of all, I had to find out which are my weak points. In my case, it was to learn the vocabulary and the Kanji, as well as the usage of some grammar constructions. Everyone has their own method of studying words and kanji, in my case it was writing. I used the words in sentences and it was easier to remember the meaning. Besides, I made by myself exercises of "fill in the brackets" type, with the new word written in hiragana below, and I had to write it in Kanji next day.Also I did a lot of translations, which purpose was to remember the meaning of a single word or a phrase , idiom and grammatical construction. Every day I made about 10 different types of exercises for different elements of the language (otherwise I'll get bored and won't remember).I write the tasks down, but make them on the next day, check them and every mistaken task is done again and again, until I do it right. And I bought Kanji kentei and preparatory tasks in kokugo for high school students and did them for my 1st kyu exam.It works great! Others Your verbal skills will develop long before your writing and reading. You could study Japanese for years and never learn all of the kanji. Most Japanese do not know kanji in it's entirety; It is a very deep study. I studied oral/aural for 2 years before I moved on to reading and writing. I studied with Berlitz, as a business person, because I believe in total immersion. I would recommend their kanji flashcards to get started in reading. Berlitz is geared towards a business person, so they do not focus on reading/writing until much later, and only if requested. Are you planning to open a business in Japan eventually? I would recommend that you also take a business culture course. Experience tells me that proper relationships and etiquette are often more important in Japan than language skills. Well, living in Japan for over 15 years helps a lot. First, I played with kids at the kindergarten and elementary school I taught at. The kids are great teachers, and everything was practical so I used it a lot and it stuck. I have no use for those tests. If you can talk to people and have them not patronize you with the "slow" response, that is good enough for me. I am very happy to be able to fool people into thinking I am Japanese. That gives me the greatest satisfaction. A lot more than some piece of paper with a number on it. But I guess it helps in Japan if you want a job other than teaching English. For reading, I love Hiragana Times Magazine. Great articles and really good for Kanji ed. For listening, I'd just talk to friends. Good luck to you! I started off just reading and memorizing phrases. Then I practiced with my friends. I lived in Japan for 3 years so that helped. If you want to be fluent, I don't see any other options. Move there and totally emerge yourself. Well my high school offered it and then it was cancelled. So I had the hiragana and katakana and the enunciation still embedded in my head. About 4years later I still remembered it and realized that I love Japanese too much to not continue, what I did though was learn from childrens books and interactive games (best way to go I say, learn from the beginning and build a foundation!). Then I just went about finding as much Japanese current music (http://www.sonymusic.co.jp) and tv shows to watch . You easily pick up common phrases and you can really hear how real Japanese talk instead of off those book/cd packs bought from the stores. To learn the sentence structure and such, I have basic sentence structure knowledge, that is why I plan to attend language school in japan. So I feel in all the best way to learn the japanese language and utilize it to its fullest is to just pick up and go to Japan to learn the language (either at a university or at a language school), I say its worth it! me! |
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