Ok well recently I’ve been mostly quite depressed and not motivated to do much, though I’m occasionally doing a little Japanese. Today I got it in my head, seeing everyone talk about JLPT results, that it’s finally time to take the full N1 practice off their website and see how I do. Just like when I did the N2 one before, I timed it and tried to as best as possible take it fairly like the real conditions. My audio setup is good so that probably is an advantage over real test takers in terrible environments hahaha.
And… I totally passed. This still is just a simulation and doesn’t mean anything technically but it’s a cool benchmark. I missed 15/70 on the written section and 9/37 on the audio. Wrong answers were decently evenly distributed in sections. I learned from someone to just split into the 3 sections, take your %, and multiply by 60 per to get a rough score estimate, which gives me:
Language knowledge: 45
Reading: 50
Listening: 45
Total: 140
That’s pretty good huh! It’s funny because I didn’t quite have the level of confidence to match a score like that, but it WAS way less exhausting than when I did the N2 practice so that’s nice. I still don’t think I’ll go take the real N1 just yet, but I very likely could manage.
This is the power of just doing Japanese things! I read trashy visual novels and play videogames and watch vtubers and shit; I didn’t study for the N tests at all. Outside Anki to drill words I’ve done no proper “studying” since Genki 2. Just do things and you’ll learn it.
Hello friend
Feel like I haven’t been posting a lot lately, which is too bad now that you’re more active here!
I didn’t even notice that you were reading that book and finished it recently, I also just read it last month!
I enjoyed it too and pretty much have the same comments as you language wise. Now for the lore part, I have yet to see it in the wild but I also have yet to play many of the good games! Not starting the good things yet on purpose, using the less good things as training material to up my Japanese so far. Had to drop writing because I realized that I enjoy reading so much more and it was taking a lot of time away from that. I’m following how’s your progress on that, maybe I’ll get some inspiration from it
And wow congrats on the N1! I don’t know that I would have the patience to do a real length mock test to begin with haha. And amazing results at that!! Though of course I know how much work (can we call it work when you’re having fun ) / time you’re putting on consuming Japanese content so not all surprised! さすがに大僧正さん
And sorry to hear about being depressed, that’s tough. Hope you’ll find the way out of the tunnel, keep us posted
Oh very cool! I need to start taking a look at what you’re doing too – I got so distant from the forums for a while that I do update here and talk in the Trails club weekly but that’s almost all I do right now, failing to keep up with others too. The book was great fun!
Interesting way to go at it – I totally get you because there are certain things I’ve heard are partly good for their writing style in particular and I’ve thought the better I get the more I can appreciate that, but otherwise I’m too driven by my immediate whims to do anything the kind of way you are, haha. But it does feel nice as things are getting easier now.
I’m definitely the same way – my break from it has been MORE about mood and motivation problems but it’s definitely the first thing to cut cause reading and listening is the fun stuff. I want to talk to friends so I want to know how to do output but I don’t really want to do the practice grind, which is different from how it’s all one and the same with input. I mean I could just throw myself into trying to talk more and probably should somewhat, but I think I need the other practice more regardless. Hopefully I get back to it soon.
Thanks so much . It’s… not fun! The test is pretty annoying and the second half felt like such a drag, but I’m really happy to be able to point to it as a proper marker for some of my skills. Good thing trying didn’t backfire on me, haha. Maybe I will take the real thing next time, considering as of now I’m almost a year out from the December one… we’ll see how things look then.
It’s true! And I’ve really been feeling like over time the main thing I see from people who get good at Japanese is just, as long as you’re still doing something, the details really do not matter. You pretty much can’t not learn it as long as you keep showing up and direct some amount of attention to it.
Thanks! I’m remembering just now that I included that as one of my 2025 goals in that thread so, hey, goal achieved early .
Depends on what you like! A lot of what I’ve been reading in Japanese right now are kind of obvious popular picks – got Umineko going on the forums which is remarkable but I’m waiting around at the end of the first part while people catch up. Higurashi I read in English only but it was also phenomenal. A little while back I read Chaos;Head, the entry before Steins;Gate in that series, and it’s super cool if you like psychological horror kinda stuff. That one fits best as messy and trashy but I love it for it haha.
My big discovery one is the recent Famicom Detective Club revival, Emio, for the Switch! Really endearing characters, cozy investigation vibes, and then it sucker punches you with some of the most emotionally painful stuff at the end.
I’ve made a few posts about what I was reading at the time this thread was posted – when I finish some more things I’ll probably keep giving my thoughts there, and there are of course other people posting too if you wanna discover some stuff. I didn’t double check the thread so if you are like the second post in there or something forgive me
Right now I’m in the midst of the Ace Attorney Investigations games and those are great. Afterwards… I’ll decide if it’s time to tackle Muramasa since that has such a reputation for being hard. I AM a theoretical N1 level . If not that I wanted to dive into some of the denpa untranslated VNs sometime (denpa being a very particular horror subgenre about people behaving strangely and that kind of thing). We’ll see!
To be honest it’s a bit hard to find because I haven’t been making new posts, but it is there! I will tell you the secret: if you are on my study log, then go to the first post, then find the link to my Bingo card. I update that post whenever I finish a new square and that’s the only thing I’m doing right now, I’m super obsessed by it, feeling like I’m still in Readathon mode since January having a lot of fun! (another way to find out what I’m reading is to look at my Natively or Bookmeter profile but there I only record things being read and don’t write reviews)
I don’t really know how to solve that one, but given your goal, have you considered trying to get an italki teacher and having 1:1 with them? I think if you find a good teacher you could make a amazing progress, and would be great to have someone dedicated to you and with whom you are welcome to make mistakes and ask questions and so on
The bingo looks fun! I know a few other people have mentioned doing it in Discord, as well. I let myself be so driven by whims I’m not sure how I feel about picking a lot of things in advance that way? But I do know that sort of selection is fun to make and work on; I used to do things like that on Letterboxd with movies. Of course, movies are way quicker to get through, heh.
It’s honestly probably a good idea, and like you said I’d have a person who will really give corrections and whatnot. Have just never considered it seriously because, I dunno, I think I’m more awkward about that kinda thing haha. I know logically there doesn’t need to be pressure but that doesn’t stop the feeling, and even though it should be easier because this is what they are there and prepared for, I think the hired tutor thing makes me feel the most awkward for whatever reason. I think I’d be more likely to just start throwing myself into fumbling around in voice conversation with the friend or two I can right now. Which I probably should just do again, but the struggle to get words out got kinda demotivating and frustrating last time.
I do think the biggest thing is I just need to get phrases to come into my head faster, which just writing (or hell, thinking) can help with… just need the enthusiasm to come back.