Posts Tagged nihongo

Yeah, I need to get better at this. Kinda bein a dick with it. The whole thing I mean. What can you do.

I’ve applied for the N4 level of the JPLT. Turns out the grades are pass/fail. Hadn’t looked that far into it before, I was thinking about get a good score on the thing (or very bad score). But I won’t really know, I’ll just do well enough or not. Well, shit. There’s old tests floating around . Pretty sure I can pass the N5. I figure it would be crushing to fail the N5, but less so the N4. Which I shouldn’t, but N3 would be pushing it. You gotta factor in the taking of the test itself, which I’m totally unfamiliar with, is a handicap. But I’m also thinking, you start something like this, you wanna go to the top level. Since it’s a yearly test I gotta knock off one year if I can. Better to take the 4 twice than waste a year of the easiest one.

So that’s what I’m thinking. I’m not getting back to where I want with Anki, but I’ve now got it stuck at a max of 2 days. I can keep it there easy at this point, but it’s got to get down to a max of 1 day and stay there to make good progress. Been going back to Jpod101 too. (I have several old Berlitz and Pimsleur courses but they don’t get very advanced.) I joined Jpod a while ago and for a while I was hating myself for paying for the premium service but if I hadn’t I doubt I would be going back to it and it is kinda good if at times grating.

Signed up for a travel alert and got a dead cheap price today, but not cheap enough. That’s not happening any time soon. But thinking long-term I feel I’ll end up living in North Jersey somewhere and visiting from there. I don’t think I could do the moving to Japan and teaching english thing. Pretty sure I’m too old for an entry level position and would be terrible teaching kids. Maybe I could teach in North Jersey, like ESL tutor. Maybe do freelance translation or other writing but I’m thinking it’s not going to be enough. That’s almost the same as trying to make a living off art/music. I still have this idea of getting a restaurant/bar job right away and say fuck it for a while because I need to be living on my own asap, but I’ve never been able to get that kind of job. One time in art school out teacher laid down the harsh reality that most of us would give up art of have to work as bartenders and just do art on the side if we were so serious about “real art”. Now, I wish he had said “work in fast food…” because then I’d think, maybe advertising isn’t that bad. I thought ‘bartender’ sounded pretty punk. Seems a lot of people though that. But I digress. つづく。。。

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It continues.

Looks like I did pretty well. Did for a while. This past week I’ve hit the wall. I could blame the hurricane, but it was not that bad in my exact area. Didn’t even lose power. It was mostly distracting; couldn’t stop watching the unexpectedly uninterrupted newsfeeds. Thought it would be worse, but not much worse. (It was plenty bad for a lot of people, jerks.)

Anyhow, right before that I figured out that 2 hours a day is the exact right amount to do everyday. Less will not get through the whole list each day, more will cause burnout and then the next day you wind up doing less and figure it all evens out and of course it doesn’t. Things get out of hand real quick (tho I kept all the decks under 3 days…they can still pile up.)

Pretty confident that my JLPT attempt will be total crash & burn but I gotta do it. It’s the only way things sink in for me.

Let’s just look at the list compared to last time: (I’ve skipped both 6000 decks this round.)

T.& I. Verbs – 0 (-173)

2000 step 02 – 373 (-240)
2000 step 01 – 497 (-298)
2000 step 03 – 550 (-181)
2000 step 09 – 621 (-185)
2000 step 08 – 616 (-200)
2000 step 06 – 600 (-240)
2000 step 10 – 636 (-208)
2000 step 05 – 640 (-220)
2000 step 04 – 663 (-217)
2000 step 07 – 744 (-169)

Should all be 20 lower but I bailed today. Needed a break so I guess I can get 1 day a month. Tomorrow I apply for the test.

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You know what, maybe you should just join the new site. Go ahead. Fine. I’m sure it’s fine. Sure I’m sure. Fine for YOU. Me, I’m stubborn. (It helps as much as it doesn’t.) I’m doing good without it, and I talked about using Anki as pretty much the same thing. But there’s a few things Anki doesn’t really do at all that Smart.fm did and it’s not nitpicky style issues. But I’ve found a couple free sites that get close to the same thing.

Tests typing speed and quickness recognizing kana. I know my damn kana at this point but I would like to get better at typing. Eventually I should learn how to use the Japanese keyboard input system, but this seems pretty unrealistic right now. (I still use JWPce and c/p everything.)

Just kanji multiple choice flashcards. Maybe even better than Smart.fm’s speed drill game, but it’s a lot less game-like. There’s no timer, so there’s no way to lose but you can get your speed up. The best part is getting that instant feedback of the correct answer everytime you screw up, and you will. And when you get a good run going seeing that red flash on the screen is a lot better better punch in the gut than a low score at the end that does not even tell you what you wrong. This is not about getting your name on a leaderboard this is about inflicting maximum mental anguish. You deserve to— wait, what was this about again? Well, it’s what works for me. (This used to work within facebook but now it doesn’t? You might need to login to it through facebook. It’s legit.)

…To meaningless Pain! I mean, To Learning! With a purpose of some kind! I think. Maybe.

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