I was recently put in my place this last December with the JLPT 4 test. I wrote it about it in “Why my JLPT Fail was Still a Win“. It was a very eye opening experience and a great motivational experience.

The biggest problem with it is not being able to convey my how I felt afterward to others in my class. It really is one of those things you have to experience to understand. It isn’t completely a bad feeling just one of disappointment in yourself, and the wanting to do better next time. Today friends and classmates in our local college Japanese Language club got to feel the same thing, finally.

I don’t say this to be mean at all, but our class lives in a bubble in the middle of the United States. Not a lot of opportunity to speak and practice Japanese. If you want to figure out what level you are at it probably wont happen easily unless you actively seek it out. Most people in my class don’t. What happened today burst that bubble for many and let them see the bigger one they were inside of. So I guess you are curios what happened.

On Monday I went to The Tulsa Japanese Language and Culture Meetup. It was an awesome experience since there are a couple of fluent speakers some middle of the road and me, at the bottom. Anyway, I mentioned the college club and invited the others to come if they wanted to. Well one of the fluent speakers showed up, lets call her Sarah. I was excited she showed up because she could really contribute to the group with her speaking ability. My teacher seemed excited about this too and they held a few conversations at breakneck speed in front of everyone.

While I was listening to the conversations I saw the exact expression showing up which was showing up on my face during the JLPT. The “what in the world have I gotten myself into” look. It was also awesome for Sarah to be fluent as an extra motivator to show it can be done for sure.

After the meeting I asked several people how they felt about what they just experienced, and all of them basically told me they felt like someone destroyed their brain. The best way I know to put it is they now know their place in side this bubble that is Japanese language, with me along with them.

Fortunately not one person was defeated and everyone is motivated to learn more now that they realize truly how far there is still left to go, which means good things are going to happen this year with the club.

So in conclusion to all this if you are learning try to find a couple of people that are fluent and listen to them talk in person if at all possible. It is totally different to listen to 2 people talk in person than from a computer now matter how much I or you might want to argue to the contrary. Never be discouraged by what you don’t know just realize there is something else to learn and next time you will know it.

Kanji and Japanese aren’t the same. At least that is how I see it in my head, for better or worse. It is very odd to see it that way so it takes some explaining.

One day I plan to learn Chinese after I learn Japanese. Since kanji is from China originally and the Japanese incorporated into their culture way back a long time ago many of the kanji seem to still be about the same. So it is actually helping with both languages to learn kanji therefore, to me, Japanese is not synonymous to kanji.

If you want to go SAT test with it. Japanese is kanji, but kanji is not necessarily Japanese. So the two are kind of separate, well at least enough that it can help make Japanese easier.

For simplicity sake we will say Japanese is made up of 3 alphabets.

• Hiragana which is phonetic sound for native Japanese words
• Katakana which is the phonetic sound for foreign words, most of the time
• Kanji which is a character that associates a meaning to it

Generally we see kanji as this hard nut to crack because it can have several readings to the meaning. When you combine the kanji in certain orders the original meanings might have almost nothing to do with the word, but the reading is what matters. Basically lots of circular logic that kills your head when learning. While it can be a pain there is hope.

The article title says Kanji Makes Japanese Easy, but all I have described are the complications. So what I want to say is its not really that bad. Learning the meaning of the kanji can go a long way which is why Hesig’s book Remembering the Kanji is so popular and used so much. Because at the end of the day those kanji mean something.

The best way for Kanji to make life easy is to realize that Kanji have a meaning and when you are lost and confused you can use that to your advantage. Lets look at some examples.

私は魚を好きです

The above is a sentence that is kanji and hirigana. The kanji are 私, 魚, and 好. Roughly I, fish, and like. So we can probably infer that the sentence means I like fish, right. Well yes. That is what that sentence is.

Now the next thought is, well not all sentences are going to be that easy and short. I know, but that doesn’t mean you cant try to infer meanings of sentences and pick out parts of sentences to try to better understand things.

One sentence that helped me realize this was this one.

アンは詩を書くのが好きだ。

I still don’t have any idea how to read this sentence properly I always seem to mess it up. However, I know that there is poem, write and like. Along with those plus さん I know that someone likes to write poetry.

And here is another example of looking at kanji meanings and getting the sentence.

秋が好き。

秋 is autumn and 好 is like so the inference is liking autumn.

Another great thing about kanji is it helps shrink the size of what you read and get words in an easier understanding way. Look at the following both the hiragana and the kanji.

Hiragana: わたしのはははえいごはなしません。

Kanji: 私の母は英語を話しません。

The first thing I see is a ton of kana and it kills my eyes for a moment. After that I see the 3 は. After that I have to sound out the sentence and try to figure out the words and manually separate them since there are no spaces like in English. The kanji is what allows you to have those “spaces” because the kanji can be your words so there aren’t any need for spaces per se.

Also notice that the only things that aren’t kanji are particles and conjugations. This lets you be able to break the sentence into words easily and is the true power of kanji which makes reading Japanese a lot easier.

There is one final thing to look at and take note of. While the above is true there are times where picking things out isn’t so easy. Lets see why.

彼の自転車は青い。

This sentence says the bicycle is blue. However, without knowing that 自転車 means bike then this sentence will leave you stuck until learn what it is. So kanji is not a silver bullet to Japanese, but it can help a lot especially as a beginner.

Finally, there are many words that have the same “spellings” in hiragana but mean completely different things when seeing it in kanji. Take kanji for example here are two meanings.

Sentence Hiragana: いいかんじ
Sentence Kanji 1: いい感じ
Sentence Kanji 2:　いい漢字

The hiragana sentence is the same as the others, but without content you don’t know which. Kanji 1 is “Good feeling”. Kanji 2 is “Good kanji(Chinese character)”. So kanji is definitely beneficial when trying to figure out what is being said. As you learn more vocab kanji helps you keep it straight. Plus the more kanji meanings you know there are quite a few kanji readings which will miraculously fall into place all of a sudden. 誰 (だれ) or who was one of those which just fell into place.

Conclusion

Basically when it comes down to it learning Japanese is all about approach. Learning Kanji separate from grammar and vocab can have different outcomes. I like to think it makes things easier. Since starting to focus more and more on kanji it has sped up my learning Japanese to the point some of the manga I have is getting easier to read without looking everything up.

So remember the 4 key components to kanji making Japanese easier are:

• Meanings of Kanji can help you to figure out sentence meanings
• Kanji helps you to find ends of words and beginning of new ones for an easier time reading
• A lot of times kanji is only used for words whereas particles and conjugation are in hiragana; and katakana is foreign words or pop-culture spellings.
• Kanji is used to distingiush words to help figure out context since many words can have same spelling/phonetic sounds

keeping those in mind learning kanji is a very beneficial thing to do from the get-go. Also of note is that the AJATT method has you learn kanji meanings first using Remembering the Kanji. So this definitely isn’t an idea out of left field.

As a note these are my observations from my learning Japanese for the last year and half along with thoughts from others discussing this very thing. So please give your opinion too about your experiences in learning kanji along with Japanese

Yesterday was JLPT day and I did fail it. Whether it is graded that way or not I am not sure. However, I failed it in my opinion. That being said I would not trade the experience for anything in the world. I am going to include some picture of the trip too so not so much reading all at once.

My World of Japanese
Lets look at my world of Japanese first. I take a class at local community college and am president of the Japanese Language Club there. On the side I go to our local city Japanese Language Club meetings once in a while. As for study I watch hours of J-Drama and anime along with trying to follow ajatt with SRS and generally having fun with learning. Also if you read here much you know I blog about the Japanese Language too, like grammar for example. I realize now how small my world is.

My JLPT Experience

Kanji Section
This I found was more of a misnomer because only about 2/3 of the section was actually kanji, which I rocked it hard, it was my best section. The last 1/3 of that section was more vocab than kanji, which is why I call it a misnomer. My biggest problem was I didn’t understand the instructions to well so I had to guess at what was going on. Since I sat in front of the classroom I could watch while they organized all the test answers sheets and saw I guessed mostly right on the instructions. Unfortunately my old nemesis vocabulary stepped in and struck me down, I have a huge problem remembering words. At the end this was my best section and I didn’t do so hot on it I think.

Listening Section
I utterly failed this section. I have a problem because of my ADD when I hear too many words in a conversation I get bored and my mind drifts. Well while that didn’t happen per se. The listening section had WAY to many words.

Essentially the listening section was a recording and the instructions before they started the CD said “We are now going to start the test”. Well to me that means staring at number one. It took me about 2 minutes to realize they were starting on example 1. All words on the CD where in Japanese and probably only half of the CD by the end pertained to actual questions. So 3/4 of the way through that section I had heard to many words and couldn’t concentrate anymore. I now know a new problem to overcome.

I think this was an important section because it really re-enforces that there is a lot of Japanese to pay attention to listening wise.

Grammar Section
Grammar part was the second hardest part for me. What I found quite interesting was the grammar that I knew I am 90% sure I got right. However, there was a LOT of grammar I had never even seen before so it left some to be desired on my ability to answer these questions. I had to go with the best educated guess I could make.

What I learned

As I said before I failed this the JLPT in my opinion. However, it doesn’t bother because I had a great experience taking it. In my post “The JLPT CAN be Used to Measure Proficiency” I mentioned that it is all about the approach. I went in and didn’t take the test to pass it because it needed passing. I took it to measure skill passing didn’t matter all that much to me, would be nice though.

The biggest thing I learned is what I have been trying to avoid admitting to myself for a year now. That is I am using my Japanese class as a crutch to learning Japanese. I should be using it to compliment my learning Japanese. Instead I am putting my efforts into the class as my primary study method. I need to get back to AJATT and have class be secondary, but still pass the class.

I now realize more that I have a LONG way to go. In my little world I have seen a lot of Japanese, but have had no real effective gauge of exactly how much there is to learn. The book I use isn’t exactly the best at helping to show how dumbed down it is. Taking the JLPT has provided me a way to breakout of the normal day life and into another world of the Japanese language and prove to me I have a long ways to go still yet.

Final Thoughts and the Future

One thing I really enjoyed about the trip was getting to meet other people, in person, outside of my area that are learning Japanese too. It was a lot of fun to hear about there experiences, study techniques, and backgrounds. It was really cool to hear how many people were excited about Japanese, and to see how many nerds were there too, I include myself in that one.

I recommend everyone take the JLPT if you are learning no matter what level you take, just remember how you approach it. I’ll take the JLPT next year too, except i’ll go up one or 2 levels. My study habits need to change and will. And overall that is why the JLPT was a win for me because now I know how low on the skill level I really am where and what I need to improve. All is not lost and there is a bright future ahead in learning I am actually more energized after yesterday than anything else.

Have you taken the JLPT before and what was your experience like?

There are many sayings and most have some “truth” to them, but none, to me, are as powerful as this one.

Consistent action over a long period of time leads to amazing results.

I am not sure I am even saying it completely or where I heard it. However, that is the saying I remember. What it means to me is:

Consistently doing small things over a long period of time leads to something big.

Take blogging as an example posting 3 times a week leads to 150 blog posts in a year. That is some pretty good results compared to the average blog. Each blog post is also an easy small achievable thing you can do.

However, the opposite can take place leading to have to DO extraordinary things to catch up. Take my Discrete Math class. If I would have stuck with my

plan of at least 30 minute every other day of study. I would have done a lot better over the long haul. Now as it stands I have spent the last 2 weeks cramming and cramming trying to pull of a miracle of studying to pass the class. (thus I am not doing a whole lot of anything else, like blogging)

This can also come into play when studying Japanese. I find I do better when I study a bit every day and push myself a little harder everyday rather than GIANT spurts of study where it is hours on end for a few days or week then 2 weeks or 3 weeks off.

If you think about it the math kind of adds up and leads to a lot less stress. There are 2046 kanji to learn out of “Remembering the Kanji“. If you take on 30 a day, which is manageable, then in a little over 2 months you will know 2046 kanji. “Consistent action over a long period of time leads to amazing results”. The kanji is just one great example.

So the question is what are your goals and how can you break them down into small consistent things you can do to create your amazing results.

Learning words through context has the benefit of showing you when and how to use the word from the beginning, but it can take a lot of time to learn the words this way since you are learning more than one thing at a time.

Flash cards are a quick way to gain a lot of vocabulary, but…

Above is an excerpt from my guest post over at Wide Island View check out their site and I recommend subscribing. They started as a e-zine and have recently moved to more of a blog. It is mostly for JET’s in Hiroshima. However it is in Japan and written in English so is a perfect candidate for subscribing to and reading. So seriously go visit Wide Island View.

For my post here it is:
Building Japanese vocabulary — the fun way

Doing a panel at a con can be a bit stressful if it is your first one, heck anywhere if it is your first. So here are a few tips to help with doing a panel on Japanese language if you have never done one before or just want to improve.

1) Plan – This is fairly straight forward you need to plan. A good idea is for say a 50 minute format plan 4 items you can bloviate for about 10 minutes on leave the last 15 minutes for discussion and Q&A. Yes that math doesn’t hold up, but you will usually talk faster than in your prep and will usually get done quicker so there is extra time.

2) Bring materials – Bring books you have or friends have trying to bring several things you can pass around that show ways of practicing the language. Bring some fun stuff too.

3) Teach something, usually basic introductions are enough – Teach some Japanese so people are able to say at least something. Explain the significance of the introduction along with how to properly say it. Also get them to say it too.

4) Teach a few common anime words – your at a con so lets face most people watch anime. Try to break down a few common phrases and words that you hear a lot, but don’t necessarily catch the meaning of easily. ex: kowai vs kawaii

5) Speak Some Japanese – Lets face it you need some authority, unless you are Japanese, so start out the thing by saying a few sentences in Japanese then translate it.

6) Have a Japanese person present – This one is more difficult than the rest, but can really add to it if you can nab one, importing japanese people is usually hard fair warning. However, they can answer a lot of questions since they are fluent by living the language than most fluent by learning the language.

7) Discussion/Q&A – This can be awesome or fail. If you have an enganged audience you can answer question for hours. However, you can also have a dead audence that is just there to listen and won’t ask a thing or say a thing unless prompted. So, have some questions ready and try to get the audience moving a little.
Handout with lots of resources – Usually there are going to be a couple of serious learners present or serious to be learners. Most people are there because they want to learn the language quick or are intrigued. Always aim for the serious learners so come up with a handout that has bunches links and description of why they should go there.

9) Give an untranslated book away – I know personally when i started I was constantly looking for untranslated stuff to consume and get an idea of what is going on with this crazy language. Giving away an untranslated manga or book can really have a boosting effect in helping people to learn because now the have genuine Japanese material. Plus, it is fun to get free stuff.

10) DO NOT talk about Japan – Heresy right? Well the quickest way to derail a good conversation about learning the Japanese language is to start talking about japan. Remember most people there aren’t truly concerned about learning the language and those are the ones that will incessantly ask about japan if you start talking about your travels there. While learning culture and about Japan is important you are in a language panel.

What are some things you can suggest to help others with doing panels at conventions?

Burning out happens, but it is a good time to get going again. Recently, a commenter left a comment about how they are learning and some of the problems. Here is the comment:

Comment by: Kirlanda

Hi, I actually just stumbled on to your site. Because I’m not in any type of college course for japanese(my college doesn’t offer it) I’ve been trying to self teach my self japanese for the past 2 years to no avail. I didn’t and still don’t know where I should focus. And I’m burning out. Can’t remember what I learn, and still can’t express myself in japanese besides basic greetings. However, I’ve managed to learn a lot of the kana. All of the books that i’m using use kana and kanji. But I also have a program on my computer called Human Japanese, which is really good. And I recently(like a month ago) discovered a site called www.smartfm.com that tailors lessons to how fast you learn and how often you study. AND its completely free! The thing thats kicking my butt at the moment is kanji. Though I recognize written words faster than spoken words, when its written in kanji, I’m screwed. I’ve only began learning about kun yomi and om yomi readings, not to mention stroke order. I cant figure out a japanese dictionary for the life of me. Which is bad, because I try to at least read articles in japanese and I can’t figure out how to look up those words. Do you have any tips for the person who has no official schooling in the japanese language? And possibly some words of motivation?(I feel like I’m running out, but I don’t want to give up. I do want to become fluent in japanese.)

I was going to comment back and answer, but instead I think it would be better suited as a post since it is a common problem. I want to directly address what is above, but also the ideas carry over easily to a conceptual level.

Kirlanda, I think your biggest problem here as to why you are getting burned out is you only have 1 goal. To learn Japanese. You are getting burned out because you aren’t making progress that you can tell. I know how that goes. I have been learning to program of 5 years and most of the time I feel like I am spinning my wheels.

It is time to re-asses your goals I think and make some minor goals. Your goals should be ever changing goals. Make lots of goals to get you closer to your main goal, but never give up. At this point I wouldn’t even take a break because you seem to feel like you are in a place where you just want to stop for a while. You need to re-asses why you are learning Japanese. If the reasons have changed then good you now know.

Next you need to come up with a game plan. You should remember now why you are learning Japanese. Now write down what it will take to get there. Is it learn kanji? just speaking? is it Translation? each of these can lead you to a different approach to get to your final goal quicker. If all you want to do is speak well then forget the vocab, grammar, kanji, kana and pick up Rosetta Stone and hit it hard and in a few months you will be speaking some Japanese.

Be sure to make minor goals by assessing what is lacking in your current knowledge. For me grammar is fairly easy and kanji isn’t to bad right now, but vocab is my Achilles heal, so I spend most of my time on that for now. Try to do the same.

On my way to learning Vocab better I had to learn kana a lot better so I forced it into my head and learned the kana in about 2 weeks. It was possible because I set it as my next immediate goal. Sometimes, that is how you need to approach learning is one little thing after another because the big goal is too daunting.

If I had to give you some advice kirlanda on how to proceed these are the steps

1. Learn Kana (don’t bother with much of anything else until it is learned)
2. Read all of the All Japanese All the Time Site While doing the next steps
3. Get on Smart.fm and hit the Core 2000 vocab hard
4. Buy Remembering the Kanji and start learning the meanings of the top 2046 Kanji
   • Don’t bother with readings of Kanji, yet.
5. Start Using ReadtheKanji.com to start learning the readings

By the time you get to that point you should be more motivated and have some serious progress going. At that point it is time to start defining new goals. Which I am sure you can do. And just remember one of my favorite quote:

Consistent action over a long period of time leads to extraordinary results.

Not sure who said that, but is one of my favorite sayings and is so very true.

Have fun learning and keep coming back and letting me know how you are doing.

Te-Form verb conjugation is kind of difficult and freaks quite a few people out. Unfortunately, there is te-form conjugation with adjectives. Fortunately it is MUCH easier to do te-forms with adjectives over verbs.

い-adjectives drop the final い and add くて
な-adjectives add で to the base word
You can also treat noun+です the same as な-adjectives

Here are some examples:

い-adjectives:
やすい -> やすくて

な-adjectives:
げんき(な) -> げんきで

Irregular Adjective:
いい -> よくて

noun+です:
にほんじんです -> にほんじんで

We already discussed te-form verb conjugation so lets go to the next step and talk about combining activities, because lets face it we rarely just talk about one thing at a time. To do this we combine verbs to do anything from combining two actions, or two things we are doing, to describing why or how we are doing something. Lets look at a couple of examples.

ノートをかりて、コピーします
(I will borrow her notebook and xerox it.)

きょうは、ろくじにおきて、べんきょうしました
(Today I got up at six and studied.)

しょくどうにいって、ひるごはんをたべましょう
(Let’s go to the cafeteria and have lunch.)

Here is an example of how the first verb describes how the second one takes place

バスにのって、かいしゃにいきます
(I go to work by bus.)

This example describes the situation for which the apology is made

きょうかしょをわすれて、すみません
(I am sorry for not bringing in the textbook.)

Hopefully this will get you started on writing more than 4 word sentences. Well at least I am now writing 5 word sentences.

I am pleased to say I have a free 1 month SuperPass I can give away to someone. So what are the benefits of the Superpass?

• SuperPass is $29 a month (or less than $1 a day)
• $1 one week trial
• With a membership, you get access to unlimited live online teachers.
• In class, you can interact with your teachers / classmates. There are PowerPoint presentations, whiteboarding, note-sharing, polling, and more.
• Hundreds of SuperPass classes, thousands of teachers, tens of thousands of students / peers.
• SuperPass is like an “all you can eat buffet for your brain”
• SuperPass is convenient, higher quality (because students rate and review all the teachers, so you can choose the best teachers available in the world), and live.
• For the shy folk: You don’t necessarily need to have a webcam / microphone, a lot of people just join classes to watch.

Now that you know what it is it is time to get the superpass. However, it isn’t so simple as leave your name and get it. Tiny bit more complicated. So here are the rules.

1. Leave a comment, with your valid e-mail
2. In that comment tell us a goof you made while learning or speaking japanese. Something funny or serious. Though if serious explain why it wasn’t good

This will run until the end of September so October 1 or 2 I will take all the e-mails and pop them in a random selection application and have it decide between the entrants. You can enter up to 3 times, but it has to be with 3 different comments.

That is it.

Now the why. I like learning from other people’s mistakes good and bad so I figured this would be a fun way to share our experiences and goofs with the Japanese Language. I will start with one I made as an example. This is what I said in class.

私は日本人を食べます (I eat Japanese people)

Oops. This was early on and I was trying to roughly say I eat Japanese food. Needless to say my teacher, whom is Japanese, did a double take.

So I leave the rest to you. What are some mistakes you have made.