I haven’t been reading that much Manga as of late this year. I think I should really spend more time reading and listening to more content in Japanese, especially since I am about to at least finished all the new N2 grammar items and Wanikani is pretty much done, although I should probably do a whole review session on already burned items.
Own an iPhone, iPad, or a Mac. Apparently, Monokakido is having a spring sale until April 24th on dictionaries, some that are very useful for those learning Japanese.
In particular:
Kenkyuusha’s New Japanese-English (Expensive, but it has more and betterdefinitions.)
Wisdom E-J/J-E Dictionary - Affordable alternative to Kenkyuusha dictionaries
After reading about Irina’s experiences of not learning Japanese, some people wonder how I learned Japanese correctly. While I can relate to a few experiences. Things such as picking up word immersion and some I can agree with, such as a language learning partner.
However, I disagree with some methods. Yep, it’s Duolingo, as it’s very […]
Another helpful resource I found that is now purchasable from the Dicitionary app is the Nihongo Bunkei Ziten: English. It’s basically a dictionary that has all the Japanese grammar with English explanations. It can be a helpful resource, if you use an iOS device or a Mac.
I finally looked at the JLPT N2 scores, and they are really bad (but there are a few bright spots)
But time to be Umika, I guess. (I'm writing an editorial about my experiences on my blog, soon, don't want to spoil the surprise).
The short version is, I didn't do enough immersion, especially reading longer stuff like visual novels, light novels, essays, and news articles. Pretty much shot myself in the foot only reading Manga. Also, listening is surprisingly not as bad, but still not good enough. Also, not being fully familiar with the format of the exam didn't help either.
Some trivia: Japan actually uses both the 旧字体 (old character form, which are the original traditional Chinese characters) and 新字体 (new character forms used after 1946 in Japan) of Dragon.
If you are learning Japanese and reading Japanese content, you will come across both 龍 and 竜. The former is the traditional form, which is usually refers to Chinese dragons while 竜 is usually used for western dragons.
We know that 龍 looks cooler, though. :sylveonsmug:
But yes, I bought a bunch of JLPT prep books for N2 and also, N1. Yes, the goal is to also learn the remaining 144 kanji and of course improve reading speed and my listening abilities.
Wait, there was a new version of AIVoice, AIVoice 2 that I didn't know about, and it works on Mac now. Useful for creating audio for listening compression? Well…
Believe it or not, these Japanese TTS programs are pretty useful for listening practice, and surprisingly accurate due to advancements in TTS. Since there is a sale on them, it may be worth sharing my thoughts on which one is the best for those who need more listening practice or want to create content, in Japanese. Also, voice banks from well known Seiyuus as well.
I'm back from taking the JLPT at Georgetown University. Trying to get there was a thing of it's own although trying to find the parking garage and the building itself. I made it within 10 minutes before the test started.
As for the first part, which focuses on vocabulary, grammar, and reading comprehension. The vocab section should be easy except two trick questions. Grammar is so and so, and reading comprehension is a mixed bag. Maybe it's because I don't read enough long form text like news articles and essays and the like and only read dialogue in manga. Somehow, I can understand most of the words. I just guess on some of the reading comprehension questions since I read a bit too slow, but I did answer all the questions.
As for the listening, you only get one chance for each question. Part of it I can make out and the other half sounds like gibberish while I can make out the other half. I probably didn't do that well in the listening section.
It's obvious what I need to focus on immersion wise, and probably focus on creating stuff in Japanese to make the grammar and vocabulary stick more.
No matter how bad I do, I find out in March, I'll plan on taking it again, and maybe with more preparation next time.
Hello everyone, this is my #introduction. I'm a 30 something software/tech worker. Pixel art and 1980s animation are my comfort foods and VHS tapes and synth pop are always on the menu. I'm an anime enjoyer and a retro gamer. I'm hoping to meet some cool people, so I'm going to be actively posting instead of lurking.
Also, I've been studying Japanese for a while but it's a struggle.
Now I have a beefy GPU, I'm thinking about using Seiyuu radio podcasts as immersion practice (and use OpenAI Wisper large model to generate the subtitles with an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX).
I wonder, how does one go about to download those podcasts (willing to pay, and I have a Japanese VPN) :neocat_think: I know there is a good number of them on Youtube.
While people say to use Anime for immersion (with Japanese subtitles of course), while seiyuu says lines clearly, I feel there is a benefit of watching JDrama as it's pretty close to real life interactions and how they say things in Japanese without sounding like an Anime character.
So far, the JDramas I’m watching, which are adaptations from the Anime versions, which are at least enjoyable.