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.

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.

I tend to have a bout of introspection at the oddest times. Today it just so happened while I was on the elliptical reading an interesting history book. The word Passion was used to describe early followers of Buddhism in Japan. Their Passion led to people going to great lengths to accomplish their ideals. This got me to thinking about my goals and where I was going, and to look at where I had come from.

There is the saying that goes something like “You don’t know how far you have come until you look back at where you have been”, something like that. Roughly until you look at the road you have traveled so far you won’t realize how far you have actually traveled down the road.

What struck me though while I was thinking about the journey is how far I had gotten with little, perceived by me, effort. It was Passion that had gotten me to where I am. I’ll be honest I don’t feel I am very far down the road in learning Japanese, but I realized I can read fairly quickly hirigana and katakana. I can figure out sentences I am reading by knowing kanji meanings and understanding grammar. I realized I am further than I thought I was, and I got here with Passion.

Again how I got there confused because I constantly see how I can improve and I am lacking in my studying, but it is Passion that has gotten me here. I have developed a Passion for learning Japanese so it makes learning the langauge fairly “simple”. Learning Japanese has become a daily part of my life simply because I have the Passion to learn it, and I don’t care what it takes to learn it.

This seems to be a universal truth too. When reading autobiographies and Biographies of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Lee Iaccoca, and many other people. They all had one thing in common. Passion. They didn’t necessarily care about money or fame for the most part. They loved what they did/do and making money was just a side benefit. You see this in software development world too. Some people you just ask a question and you easily can sit there for the next hour listening about 1 topic because it is there passion.

So the next question is, is what you want/are doing your passion? If not, why not? is it a step towards another passion? If so then what you are doing now should be your passion too.

If you want to make something your passion all you need to do is do it, seriously. Do what you want to do figure out how you are going to do it or get what you want. Make it not a question of if, but when. I have no doubt in my mind that I will learn Japanese its just a matter of when. There was no doubt in Khatsumoto’s mind he was going to learn Japanese it was just a matter of time.

It is possible to turn something into a passion, just do it. make it a part of your daily life somehow. If you want to learn Japanese then get up first thing in the morning and do a couple of cards in your anki deck or a round on smart.fm. If you want to ride cross country on a bicycle start learning about bicycles and start riding if nowhere else than around the block. If you want to get in shape start walking more. Make what you want to do a part of your daily life it is much easier than you might think you just have to want to do it. Develop your Passion for it.

So it is time to ask the question.

Is it a matter of if or when? (feel free to answer in the comments.)

Speech competitions may be an interesting way to practice and get some critiques of your speaking ability and a fun way to really put yourself out there and force you to grow as a speaker.

Here are some videos of people doing there speech competitions. These are all gaijin’s doing speeches.

I took a look at some of the criteria for judging for one speech contest they were.

• Content
• Pronunciation
• Presentation
  • Memorization
  • Expression
  • Delivery

From various competitions I looked at around the internet it looks like most competitions are sponsored by Japanese Embassies. Being that I have never considered there to even be speech competitions for Japanese not sure if this is normal or not, but interesting non-the-less.

What was real funny is one of the applications, not all, had a waiver and mentions specifically falling and suffering severe bodily injury they are not liable. Not sure if I would want to go to that particular competition.

Looking through many competitions it also looks like most of the competitions, at least in the US, are for non-native speakers; or they have 2 categories. I think it would be better, personally, to pit up against native speakers or at the very least where parents do speak Japanese. Gives us that learn from scratch a bit more of a challenge.

Some of the awards I saw were really cool anything from $1000 cash to full year scholarship for college. Don’t remember which one, but there was one offering a job if you won and fit the other criteria. Basically the speech was the interview.

So the question now is would you ever consider doing a speech in Japanese?

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.

Most books for learning are horrible for the long term learner of Japanese.  There are several things to take into account when trying to learn Japanese, or any language for that matter, from fluency level to resources, and even how you learn.  I want to discuss the importance of learning written language and how most American books put out to learn Japanese are counterproductive.

Most people whom want to learn another language, generally, would like to reach a pretty high level of competency in their target language.  There is some debate, usually by lazier learners, about whether you need to learn the writing system at all if you just want to speak the language.

I propose to you if you want any level of competency learning to read and write in Japanese is essential.   Why you may ask, well for the obvious so you can understand things in Japanese.  Once you reach a certain level your English to Japanese dictionary is going to be useless and a hindrance to your Japanese.  You will get to a level where you need to use a monolingual dictionary to really get hold of words you don’t know.  Besides the best way to practice Japanese is to use it as much as possible because you can’t always speak it so reading and writing in Japanese is very important to further your learning.

At this point you are bored and are wanting me to get to the point I am sure.  Well America sucks. Well American books for learning Japanese sucks that is.  I hate to buy a car before I can test drive it for a minute or two, same with books, so I like to go to Borders and Barnes and Noble to look at their language sections, which are pitiful to say the least.  While I was looking through books that promise to take you from beginner to intermediate I noticed something horrible, they used little to no Hirigana or Katakana. It was mostly romaji.  Here are a few pictures I shot of them close to the back where the kana should have been because to be intermediate you need to know kana.

Notice that there is VERY little if any kana on these pages.  I was taken aback at this because if you don’t have kana then how can you be effective with your new language.

The next argument is “It is easier to learn with romaji and we can just use Kana later so its all good”.  My answer is “why?” why is it easier? Is it because you aren’t comfortable with kana? is it that you don’t know kana? (if not visit my kana in 2 weeks post) I mean lets be honest if you don’t ever use hirigana or katakana while learning what makes you think you are going to be fine when you are no longer learning?  Romaji is a crutch for you if you stay using it for too long and should be done away with as quickly as possible.  And even more important moving from kana to Kanji is even more important, but kana will do for now, at least.

One thing I see in class and in talking to others is people spend a lot of time sounding out the words in kana because they don’t know them well enough to read them because they don’t practice enough. Practice is one of the key things I hear people don’t do enough of, especially with Katakana. However, I have seen the reverse true. I recently went to an anime organization meeting and showed the JLPT study paper I had to a person who studies Japanese and knows more than me. They died when they saw hirigana, not good. As a kind of test tell me how easily you can read the following in reverse if not very well you need to get studying if good keep doing what you are doing.

I also want to note another important reason to learn kana.  Sounds will become more natural when speaking.  With romaji we still want to use English sounds and you will become more dependent on those thus increasing any accent you have.  However, once you finally break away from romaji and associate the sounds with kana and not letters with kana you will start to speak a bit more naturally as you hear others speak since you no longer are depending on the English equivalency of the kana.

To sum up how are your books hurting you? Well they aren’t using kana or much kanji to teach you they are using romaji.  This hurts because if you go through a whole book without learning either when you go to a website from japan guess what.  You aren’t going to know anything.  However, if you do know kana and some kanji when you go to Japanese  sites you are going to understand some of it.  Let me tell you this is VERY motivating.  I randomly went to docomo website and could make out parts of the site to be able to register.  It allowed me to really feel that I have been learning Japanese and not all my learning was in vain. By having the book only use kana when doing Japanese it forces you to use kana whether you like it or not.

So what is the solution.  Investigate books.  Take a look at the bok you are about to buy or are looking at buying.  How much kana does it have it? none, put it back.  Some keep it in hand but keep looking.  A lot, buy it.  The more you use kana the more comfortable it will be to use and the more you can do with it.  I can’t really look at to many books since my book store selection sucks, but the best bok I have seen so far is the Genki series.  While it has flaws it does meet the converstion from romaji to kana as the primary Japanese communication, and as a note the book is from Japan.

The most ideal book would be as the book teaches you something be it kana or kanji it no longer uses the crutch but uses what it already taught you.  So after it shows you how to do hirigana.  No more romaji where hirigana is.  Same with Katakana and Kanji.  I wish the genki books would do it with kanji too as I rely on the furigana way to much and use it as a crutch, though I am working on not doing so.

So what do you think?

As a college student I spend a lot of time learning things that don’t seem to apply to the real world or has no immediate benifit, but with some work I can see a future return on learning the subject at hand.  I must say only learning things which have a future return is kind of depressing and makes it hard to want to learn said subject, like math.

However, over the last few days I have noticed while I am studying for my final in Japanese pretty much every new word I learn I turn around and hear it in the current Anime or J-Drama I am watching.  I have kind of seen this in the past, but never so blantant because I haven’t really ever spent 6 to 7 hours a day for 4 days straight grinding away at learning Japanese. Doing so today just drove the point home even further.

The great thing about the immediate response to my learning is it motivates me to want to learn more and spend a lot more hours learning Japanese.  It is a postitive feedback loop that leads to some serious self motivation.

I think the key though is I am studying for about 45 minutes then watching a show for about 8 to 9 hours straight so the shows I am watching are able to re-inforce what I have just learned. Not only does it help with the new vocabulary, but when am heavy into grammar I can start to pick out the grammar too while watching.

If you want to stay motivated to learn japanese and want to be excited to learn I really suggest grinding out a few days of nothing, but anime and Japanese to get that loop going to re-invigorate your learning.  Especially watching J-Drama this is more true than watching anime.

So, go watching some tv

I a person that is into social science based on observation and when a good blog post comes along I can’t help but take a read and take some time for thought and introspection.

Last night I was going through my feed reader and got to yonasu’s feed.  Going through them he posted on the All Japanese All the Time (AJATT) website about how it motivated him again to learn.  I took a look at the site a long time ago as more a reference point of what AJATT was while reading different forums about study methods.  At the time I took a look at a few article thought it was cool bookmarked it and never went back, why I hate bookmarks they are so useless but that is anther story.  I was happy yonasu posted about it because I really wanted to check it out again.  So I took his advice and started going through the table of contents.

I specifically got to one post he made, desires and decisions, and while his post was a rehash of a lot of cliche’s, they are cliche’s because they are true.  However, I liked his approach.

Those who have the skills didn’t just want to be good, they decided to be good.

Basically, you can want something all day long, but until you actuall do it nothing is going to happen.  This goes along with my conclusion I came accross on my own a long time ago.  There nothing in this world I can’t do or learn, nothing.  It just depends on if I want or not.  I can learn anything if I put my mind to it, and so can anyone else.  I hear excuses from people all the time “its to hard”,  “i’m just not good at it”, “i’ll never get it”.  My answer to them is you won’t get good or be good because you have already failed.  You have chosen to  not be good at it and not to get it.  If a person really wants to know, learn or do something all they have to do is do it, and to heck with anyone else’s opinions, as long as it is moral and ethical.

Sometimes we need a kick in the seat end to remember what our goals are and what we are doing and why.  While reading this and thinking on it hasn’t fully helped with motivating me in all parts of my life it has re-re-invigorated my want to learn Japanese.  So I am now off to iKnow for a 3rd time today.  I just want to leave you with a couple word of wisdom from a very wise person

“Do or do not, there is no try” – yoda