The JOI of the N1.

 Education, Japanese Language  Comments Off on The JOI of the N1.
Sep 012014
 

I just registered for the JLPT N1 again in December. This time I’m really serious about it. As in, I’m pulling out all of the test prep stops! Or at least I’m not going to go get a cert in the middle of studying for it, and sabotage my efforts.

I signed up for classes on JOI again. I like their system. You buy some tickets (the more, the cheaper, and the longer they last), and use them on classes whenever you can take them. I generally buy them in yen, because they’re slightly cheaper. (And since the yen is plunging, it’s a good deal.) They have classes aimed right at N1 level people like me (or who aspire to pass it, anyway!), and they also have special courses in vocab, grammar, conversation, and test strategies. It’s all really helpful.

And I like it more than a MOOC. Maybe I’m a little old-fashioned, but I like real human interaction in my learning, especially when it’s something like Japanese, which requires some immediate feedback.

My other strategy for the test is something I’m already working on, and that’s working on vocabulary. I have my big book of 2000 N1 level words I should know (meh, not really, but I’m going to!), and a few other books, like one on 慣用語 (idioms, I guess?) and a Kanzen Master N1 book on 漢字.

I’ve also ditched Anki for now. Farming vocab, doing data entry and all that is too much of a pain. Instead, I got some Campus vocabulary notebooks over at JBOX, and I’ve been rapidly filling them up. This is where the 0.3mm Kuru Toga shines– at filling in the small boxes! Writing vs typing, which is faster? Neither, really, but this is working for me. It’s a nice change of pace.

The notebook has 3 columns– Foreign Word, Pronunciation, and Japanese. I put the word I want to know (kanji or hiragana, if there’s no kanji for it commonly used) in the Foreign Word column, the pronunciation in hiragana in the Pronunciation column, and either English or Japanese definitions in the Japanese column. Whatever helps me remember best.

It’s nice, because I can just grab a notebook, half-open it so that only the Foreign Word column shows, and scan down it to check my understanding and pronunciation.

I use the Page column to put a horizontal mark next to words I have trouble with. If a word has a lot of marks, it gets more attention.

It’s really the same thing as Anki, I just find it faster for me to review– no pressing buttons, or guessing whether it’s a 2 or a 3, or dealing with percentages. I keep staring at words until I remember them. Also, I keep separate notebooks, one for the N1 book, one for the 漢字 book (because a lot of it is verbs), and one for the 慣用語 book. And I have a few others, too, and a stack of blank books.

Reading-wise, I’m reading the editorials on Shasetsu Hikaku-kun whenever I can. I’m not a fan of reading right-wing Japanese editorials, but the vocab is useful. So is the reading practice! When it’s N1 time, there’s just NO time to do the reading, so I want to smash it to bits.

Listening is the only area where I don’t have a perfect countermeasure yet. I’ll probably go with my old Drill and Drill book.

Here’s hoping I can finally kill that N1 with fire!

N1, Take Three

 Japanese Language, Travel  Comments Off on N1, Take Three
Dec 012013
 

My hotel room is kind of creepy. When I woke up this morning, it was 8 a.m. already, but my room was as dark as midnight, even with all of the curtains open. It feels like I’m in one of those rooms they use for experiments to confuse your sense of time. It’s really hard to know what time it is without looking at a clock.

I did some studying before heading out to Georgetown, and settled any anxiety I had by walking vigorously. A nice workout is a great way to relieve stress.

Today’s N1 was hard. Like last year, I think I simply need more vocabulary, but I feel like I nailed the listening portion. (I may be completely wrong.)

My N1 assault plan was the same as it was the other two times. I do most of the reading section first, because it takes me longer to do it, then go back and do grammar. I do it this way mainly because I don’t want anything that may go wrong in grammar to throw me off for the reading portion. Also, I do it because I want to make absolutely sure I get all of the reading questions done, because they count more than the grammar questions. (Per question, anyway.)

It went okay. I’m not sure if I passed or not. If I did, it’s probably by just a bit. If I didn’t, it’s probably by just a bit. I’m hoping that I pass, because I really don’t want to take this exam anymore, to be honest. It eats up a lot of time and money to prepare for it, and while it’s great to have the certification, it means that I can read and write at about a 12th grade level in Japanese. Not bad, but not “native level.” But still, not bad.

A lot of people I know who have already passed it say that it’s like finally getting in the door on learning Japanese. I suppose I’ll find out when that happens.

I’ve also been thinking about my approach to learning the language as well. Rather than doing lots of grammar drills, I’m going to focus on writing and reading more. Reading-wise, I’m going to focus more on newspapers, literature, and essays, and less on light novels and manga. I enjoy reading light novels, because they’re generally easy to read and light on thinking, but weightier literature, depressing though it may be, is really good at getting deeper into the language.

Writing daily will help a lot, too. I write some in Japanese, but I should write more. (I’m not changing the language of this blog, however tempting it may be.)

After the exam was over, I headed to Five Guys again to get a burger, then went back to the paper shop to get more paper for my sister, just like last year.

I thought about using Uber, but decided against it. I prefer to walk.

Speaking of which, according to Google, I walked 27 miles in November. How did they know? It’s interesting, but also kind of creepy. Welcome to the future, I guess.

I got back, then relaxed in my room. Long day, and I’m a little burned out. I’ll head home first thing tomorrow.

Off to DC

 Japanese Language, Travel  Comments Off on Off to DC
Nov 302013
 

I headed to DC today. The roads were a mess, because it’s the Thanksgiving weekend.

Actually, a mess is understating it. It was most unpleasant. But I got there.

I’m staying at the same hotel I did last time. It’s a nice hotel, if a little bit pricey, but it’s close enough to Georgetown for me.

I studied some, and I’ll study some more, then go to bed. Then I’ll get up early, study a little more, then head to Georgetown for the test.

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, N1 Coming

 Food, Japanese Language, Music, Technology  Comments Off on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, N1 Coming
Nov 292013
 

Thanksgiving was nice. We had our usual fried chicken, because turkey is boring, and takes too long to make. I made some killer fried chicken this year.

We did NOT go to any stores. It’s Thanksgiving– it’s not a day to shop. That’s what Friday is for.

Deals!

I’m also looking out for good deals. Ever since the Propellerhead User Forum got shut down, I’ve been relying on Rekkerd’s Deals page a lot for info as to what’s going to be on sale this weekend and beyond.

The coolest thing I found was Native Instruments‘ massive software sale. Full versions of some of their software is half-off, everything except Komplete.

But it’s not what you think.

If you get a cross-grade from the full version of an NI product, you can get a big discount on Komplete, and Komplete Ultimate. The way it worked for me was that I bought Kontakt for half off ($199), then got the Komplete Ultimate cross-grade for only $374. Considering it retails for $1099, and usually goes for around $999, that’s a great deal.

I’m looking forward to playing with that. A lot.

I also scored a great deal on a new dryer. My dryer has been making scary noises and giving off weird smells, so rather than have the house burn down, I bought a cheap dryer. Really, all I need in a dryer is a low setting and a timer.

So long as it fits, dries my clothes, and doesn’t burn the house down, I’m happy.

N1 Coming

Tomorrow I leave for Washington to take the JLPT N1 again. I’m studying as much as I can.

Study-wise, I put a couple of N1 grammar books into Anki. It’s not enough, but it’s all I had time to do given the time I had. Studying for the A+ (and getting it) took up a lot of time.

Oct 212013
 

Man, that was nerve-wracking.

Part two of the A+ exam was trickier than I thought it would be. I know a lot of this stuff just because I’ve been messing around with computers all my life. I’ve built every computer I’ve used for the last 20 years. (Except for laptops.)

But if you ask me about cables, and numbers, and standards, my eyes (until now) would glaze over.

Now I know which version of Windows XP you really need. Or Vista. Or 7. (Yeah, that part was kind of weird, if you ask me.)

I also have a bunch of handy new skills in basic network troubleshooting, and dealing with Windows’ general random bugginess.

Finally, I have a new way of approaching problems that’s really useful.

I highly recommend getting as many A+ books as you can, and dumping them into Anki, then dump the questions into Anki, and review the bejeezus out of them.

Now on to N1 prep, and Career Forum prep.

A+ Part One: Pass!

 Education, Japanese Language, Technology  Comments Off on A+ Part One: Pass!
Oct 112013
 

So far, so good. I passed the first A+ test. It was harder than I thought it would be. I’m glad I had 3 different prep books to drill questions out of. I must have taken about 10 or so practice tests. I nailed this one.

Now my sister and nephew are coming tonight for the weekend, so I need to get the house ready. And I’ll be taking part two of the A+ on the 21st.

And of course there’s still the N1 looming over me. I’m not sure what to do about that. Panic? Nah. I don’t have time for that.

Anki Assault / Piano Practice

 Education, Japanese Language, Music, Technology  Comments Off on Anki Assault / Piano Practice
Sep 102013
 

In order to get ready for both the N1 and the A+ exams, I’m going all out on Anki for the next few weeks. I’ve just finished setting up a bunch of workbook practice sheets for Anki, thanks to e.Typist. It lets me OCR stuff and get it into Anki relatively painlessly.

For A+ material, if the book I bought is in PDF format, it’s easy to just copy/paste the text into Anki. But if it’s a Kindle book, then I have to use something like Greenshot, which take a photo of the page, OCRs it, and adds it to the clipboard. Then I just have to paste it into Anki.

Really, it would be a lot easier if these publishers just gave us text files. I paid for the book. It’s not like I’m going to give away the contents. I just want to turn it into flashcards I can use.

Also, I finally upgraded to Anki 2.0. I’ve been putting that off forever, but it’s finally time to bite the bullet. The transition took a couple of days to get ironed out completely, but now I don’t even notice the differences. The differences are there, and the workflow is pretty different, but things I used to complain about don’t seem like such a big deal to me anymore. As long as it’s fast, that’s all I care about.

Oh, Piano Class started tonight. That was a lot of fun. The Piano Lit class afterwards was interesting, too. I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to piano music. My background is in marching bands, concert bands, and jazz bands. So I don’t know much about classical piano music. But it’s interesting.

Music School

 Education, Music, Technology, Travel  Comments Off on Music School
Sep 032013
 

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is starting something new this fall, a Community Music School for people like me who live nearby and want to polish our musical skills in a relaxed setting. It sounds really interesting to me, because as I’ve said before, I need to work on my music composition skills. I also need to work on my piano/keyboarding skills, because that’s the fastest way to enter music into my DAW of choice, Reason.

I spoke with the teachers at an event on Sunday, August 25th, and they both seemed like really nice people who were not only passionate about what they do, but highly experienced. So signing up was a no-brainer for me.

Composition starts this Saturday, Group Piano starts next Tuesday. I’m looking forward to it.

Also, I’m starting to go into full gear mode for the N1, which is coming up in less than three months. (OMG!) I’m also looking at getting my A+ certification, because it’s an easy way to show people I know what I’m doing when it comes to computers. I may get Network+ and Security+ later on, but for now A+ will be plenty.

The only thing I’m worried about is cramming for A+ will mess up my N1 prep. But I want to have the A+ certification before I go to Boston again. (Yeah, I’m going again.)

This fall is going to be crazy.

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