Sunday, July 12, 2009

Study Regiment

I will be self studying every day for at least two hours.

The JLPT site recommends 150 hours of studying Japanese in order to take the JLPT level 4 exam. In order to ensure that I understand the material, especially since I am not enrolled in a structured course, I will aim for 250 hours of Japanese study. In this way, I should be fairly competent at reading and speaking within two months and after over 200 hours of studying. Much of my time will probably be spent re-learning forgotten terms as well as trying to gain a better understanding of grammar points. Every two weeks I will try to engage in a conversation of sorts with any one of my Japanese-speaking friends and perhaps play a round of shiritori.

Each day will consist of kanji review, listening to podcasts, reading kana from manga or online, and/or studying particles and grammar.

Based off of what I read online in forums and blogs, the listening section is the most difficult section. In order to increase my listening comprehension and automaticity, I will listen to Japanese radio, audio blogs, or dramas on a regular basis.

Here's my weekly schedule:
Monday, Wednesday, Friday
o. Review the previous day's post.
1. Anki Review (List: JLPT4 Kanji)
2. JapanesePod101 (2-3 lessons at a time)
3. Write about the podcast lessons
4. Add to Anki (List: Everyday Phrases)
5. Human Japanese
6. Write about HJ lesson
7. Add to Anki (List: Everyday Phrases)

Optional:
KanjiPop review
Practice Writing Kanji
Read Manga

Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
0. Review the previous day's post.
1. Anki Review (List:Everyday Phrases)
2. Write Kanji from Everday Phrases list
3. Japanese with Beb and Alex (1-2 lessons)
4. Write about lesson.
5. Add to Anki (List:Everyday Phrases)

Optional:
Other Japanese Podcasts +Anki
HJ Review

Sunday
0.Review the Past week
1. Write Kanji from Everyday Phrases list
2. Watch Japanese Drama
3. Study Cultural Notes
4. Write about Cultural Notes & Drama
5. Reflect on the week and revise as necessary.

Optional:
Anki Review (Everyday Phrases list)

Personal Thoughts:
I'm not sure if I'll be motivated to get up and follow this strict plan. I think my motivation will come from being able to listen and understand little bits and pieces of the drama that I'm watching on Sundays. While the motivation to keep to the schedule will be difficult, I have been keeping myself exposed to Japanese language for the past few days and learning new words sporadically. Whether or not I can keep that up is really up to myself. However, I will try to focus mainly on this for the rest of the summer.

Why I Am Starting "Journey to JLPT"

For those of you that don't know, JLPT is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It's a good gauge of how proficient one's Japanese reading, writing, and comprehension skills are. The purpose of this blog is to document my process learning Japanese with aim for passing marks on the JLPT Level 4 (easiest). While I may not officially confirm my proficiency by taking the exam, I will take practice tests to see how far I've progressed.

This blog is purely for my own documentation purposes. If you, as a reader of the blog, happen to find it helpful, that will be a bonus. I will gladly answer any questions you may have concerning my process in learning Japanese. If you have questions about Japanese grammar or vocabulary, I will answer to the best of my ability. However, please understand that I am only a beginner and that you should consider asking someone more fluent in the language.

Please note that this will be one of the few posts about myself. This post is for anyone who stumbles upon this blog and wants to know why it was created or what it's about.

A Little Bit About Myself
As with many students new to Japanese, I started out with anime and manga about five years ago. I was exploring manga on the internet and got frustrated with having to wait for the scans to be translated and released. So I thought the easiest way to gain access to a whole new world of manga would be to learn the native language.

At the time, I wasn't seriously trying to learn the language as I was very young and it was more of a hobby and I hadn't even mastered the kana until a few months ago. My interest in learning the language had died down as I had my schoolwork to focus on. I continued to read manga and watch anime, but only on rare occasion. Instead, I moved toward the Jdrama scene where I encountered similar frustration with waiting for new fansubs to be released.

So that's where I am now! I sort of officially decided to self-study a few days ago. There are many reasons why I want to study it, but mainly I love to learn new languages and understand foreign cultures (I had studied a tad bit of Russian and a fair amount of French) and it would be nice to understand what I'm hearing in Japanese dramas. Not to mention that I have three friends who are essentially fluent in Japanese and it would be a shame not to utilize their abilities to help me in my journey.

I would also like to say something about my background. I am American by nationality but my parents are both immigrants from Taiwan. When I was young I was sent to Chinese school to study mandarin Chinese. Although my Chinese is quite poor, I still retained my listening skills as well as some reading skills, so many Japanese kanji are easy for me to pick up.

Alright, so enough of my ranting. I'll try to make an entry for each day that I study. I'll be including which resources I used and a summary of what I learned from each resource as well as different kanji that I learn each day. The next post will be about my classroom regiment--a study plan for the rest of the summer.

じゃあまたね!