Study Plan
Having come back to studying Japanese for a good two weeks now, I feel like I’m in a decent position to look at my strengths and weaknesses and figure out a plan of study.
Speaking: this is the area where I feel strongest right now relative to my overall level, and where the skills I built in Japan seem to have decayed the least. My active vocabulary isn’t huge, but I use it flexibly enough to be effective (it’s not the size that counts, right?). My goal here is to find some contexts in which I can practice speaking here in Boston, such as a language exchange partner or one of the local Japanese Lunch Tables. Priority is low, since I have no pressing need to use my spoken Japanese.
Writing: also strong, but I find my limited vocabulary quite a bit more limiting. This might be because my writing, mostly on Lang-8 and in emails, has to cover a fairly broad range of topics, and I feel more compelled to write concisely and precisely. It’s easier to talk around a missing word than it is to write around it. Vocabulary building is the biggest issue here, as I don’t feel that my grammar is limiting right now. Apart from continuing to write emails and journal entries I have no plans to specifically work on my writing skills, as I feel they will improve as my reading skills improve.
Listening: enormously weaker than when I left Japan. I used to be able to understand almost 90% of what was going on in TV shows, but now I feel like it’s closer to 50-60%. Working on my listening is going to be largely a matter of how soon I can get a new iPod now that mine is out of commission, so that I can increase my immersion. Reading will build my vocabulary, but I need lots of practice separating out words at native speed. Japanesepod101.com will be another good source of listening practice, mainly for modern, slangy or idiomatic phrases and vocabulary that I don’t have access to in reading material. JLPT2 listening practice is low priority for the time being.
Reading: ugh. My kanji recognition has really plummeted. My reading probably feels worse than it is, since I’m suddenly so dependent on it for input, but for the same reason I need to improve it a lot. Doing an RTK refresher is the first step, after which I want to start working on 2001.Kanji.Odyssey, Kanji in Context, and my JLPT2 study materials. Once I’m done with RTK, vocabulary building is going to be the highest priority. For extra fun and exposure, I have some mangas sitting around that I can read (名探偵コナン、ヒカルの碁、デスノート）, moving up to light novels (十二国記、short stories by 吉本ばなな and 星新一) as I feel ready.
I’d like to take the 日本語能力試験２級 (JLPT2) this December, not because I think it’s a good measure of Japanese ability (though it may be a decent measure of literacy) or because I need it for employment (though it couldn’t hurt!), but because I feel a strong need to have a concrete goal to work towards. While in Japan I abandoned the idea of studying for the ２級 simply because I was making so much progress without it, and I felt maximizing my natural language exposure would give me the most benefit. Right now, since I’m in a position where natural language exposure has to be specifically sought out through purchase, piracy, or personal interaction, I feel I need to be a little more focused in order to bring my language skills to where I want them. It also seems like a good way to fill in some of the ‘holes’ left behind from my at times haphazard immersion experience.
I’ll re-evaluate the JLPT2 idea in September, as the deadline for registration gets closer, but for now it seems like a solid goal and a good way to make use of the resources at my disposal.
Studying is Hard Work
…but exposure isn’t, and you need a very healthy amount of both to get good at a language.
First of all, studying is when you are actively focusing on the language – making flashcards, learning grammar points, picking out new words, etc. It takes a lot of concentration, and even the hardest of core among us will get diminishing returns after going at it for too long at a time. Things like motivation, variety, and caffeine (and other interesting substances – don’t do drugs kids!) will extend your ability to study for long periods of time, but there is always a limit.
Exposure, on the other hand, doesn’t involve focusing on the language, but instead on what’s being communicated. Hanging out with Japanese-speaking friends, watching TV with or without subtitles, playing video games, reading a book (if you’re at that level – staring dumbly at the page doesn’t count as exposure) – you know, all those things you started learning Japanese in order to do. You may not feel like you’re learning anything, especially when you don’t understand everything you see/hear/read, but you’re wrong. You’re immersing yourself in the language, and letting it ooze into your mind bit by bit.
Ever hear the expression “a mind like a sieve”? If you haven’t, it’s describing the feeling you get when you walk out of math class and can already feel the stuff you just learned leaking out. Well, exposure is like that, but in reverse – you’re immersing your mind in a tub of language, and letting it freely leak in. Volume is key here, and I’m not talking about turning it up really loud.
The benefits that you get from exposure, especially when you’re not understanding everything, can be hard to quantify. One big benefit is that it lets your mind prioritize things, deciding which words or phrases come up more often in natural language, and building “hooks” in your memory for you to access them more easily later. Days later you may study a new word and find that it “sticks” immediately, all because it came up like 25 times in that episode of Sailor Moon (don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you were watching it). Another intangible benefit is building up your ability to pick out words and feel the rhythm of speech, which is difficult, if not impossible, to build while studying. You may even pick up new vocabulary just from context, which is like learning a new word for free!
The best exposure is comprehensible, natural input – native speech or reading that you understand 90+% of – but depending on your level, this can be anywhere from difficult to impossible to come by. Let me warn you that exposure to material you don’t totally understand yet, especially if it’s fun and/or interesting, is way way way better for your language abilities than spending hours and hours looking for stuff closer to your level. Put simply, worry less, do more. Volume is everything.
勉強中 