As is becoming standard, I had a quick drink with one of my ALT friends after work today, and he gave me a link to an incredible free site for studying Japanese. It has worksheets and info about the new test this year, as well as audio and flash files. The really cool thing about this is that I don't need to access the internet to use the audio or flash files: my Cowon "mp3" player handles flash files, and of course it can handle audio files, so I can use this cool device to study Japanese, in addition to listening to music and watching movies.
I may try to shoot for level two this July, but that means studying 6 hours every day from Monday to Friday: I'd need to acquire another 600 kanji, as well as about 4000 additional words in order to stand a chance of passing. Put another way, at that rate I could pass level 1 at the end of the year, or study only 3 hours each day Monday through Friday, and still pass level 2 in December. In the ten months I've been here, I've learned about 300 kanji, and maybe 1500 words or so. So in the next ten months, I'd need to triple the number of kanji and words that I currently know in order to pass level 2. Considering the amount of time I spent reading books instead of studying Japanese, I think this might actually be possible. Michi thinks I should take the level 2 in July, but the 6 hours each day really makes me doubt that I can sustain that rate over the 6 months until the test.
My own personal methods for studying Japanese:
- write each kanji about 20 times
- drill myself with flashcards
- use flashcards to make sentences using the word on each flashcard (e.g. two sentences per vocab. item)
- practice verb conjugation by creating 5 sentences using different forms of the verb in each
- use materials designed for native Japanese people to learn English (e.g. the English textbooks for my junior high school)
- use materials designed for native Japanese people to learn Japanese (e.g. the kanji puzzle books designed for elementary school children)
Cheers,
