What shall I focus on next?

Japanese Language
#1
  • I am taking N5 in July
  • I’m almost through all the Genki 1 vocab (Anki), until end of Febuary
  • I’m planning to finish Genki 1until mid/end March
    • I’ll keep drilling the grammar points on BunPro
  • I’m level 14 here on WaniKani
  • I’ve got “A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar”, but I’m just using it as cross reference for Genki
  • I’ve joined the Absolute Beginners Book Club and I also try to read one NHK Easy article a day
  • I haven’t started with KameSame

When I’m done with Genki 1, I’ve got a bit more time, so the the question is: How should I use it?

Should I …

  • already start Genki 2 and the respective vocab deck?
  • look for a N5 specific vocab deck?
  • drill a Core 2k, 3k, etc. deck?
  • give a shot at some older JLPT’s?
    • planned to do this from May/June anyways, but I could start earlier
  • enjoy Animal Crossing: New Horizons in Japanese for 2 - 3 weeks :stuck_out_tongue:

    • I’ll do that anyways, but that will turn my gaming time into some Japanese time

I can’t really tell how much vocab I’ve already covered with Genki and my WankiKani knowledge or if I’ve got all the important grammar point after finishing Genki 1.

Thanks for you advice :slight_smile:

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#2

I would suggest just going for Genki 2. It just goes into N4 territory, which is still the foundation of everything you’ll learn after, and the sooner you get the hang of it, the more confident you’d feel :smile: At least that worked for me that way.

Reading helps a lot, so knowing the rest of the verb conjugations and some other basic grammar points will help you in the long run imo. When I was level 20 (and I reset after), I felt that I should’ve known so much more, but I couldn’t really read or understand that much because of my lack of grammar knowledge.

WK does a decent job at teaching the vocab, but not in the frequency order for sure, but you’d get those from Genki, reading and other textbooks and exposure. You can do core 10k deck, I use that one on Kitsun, and you can just hibernate WK words there if you want too. I also add leeches from WK there to my exposure deck or to core 10k if they are there^^

Playing games at that time was really challenging for me, I tried playing Ni no kuni on DS and that one is supposedly around N4. But it turned into Japanese time, like you said, instead of my gaming time, but you can try doing that for sure :smile: I think AC is not that text heavy, so you can just ignore some words like “pickaxe” and not bother translating those I guess xD

The most important thing is to have fun and do/read/play what you like, I think, so just focus on getting to the next pleasant thing you can do with your Japanese knowledge :slightly_smiling_face:

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#3

It seems like youre doing a whoooole lot of studying and not so much consuming, so id definitely look into doing that.
Theres reading books/manga, watching anime without subs (or JP subs), listening to japanese radio/podcasts, playing games in JP etc.
I can attest that doing those things do in fact yield great results in terms of improving your japanese, and i believe this should be everyones main source of vocabulary acquisition.

Doing those things are slow in the start but you’ll be happy down the line,
I just finished watching code geass with JP subs, and while there were quite a few details i didnt catch i was still able to follow the story well enough to understand what was happening.
I do think ill watch something easier next time tho. (sadly the things i like mostly contain complicated dialogue)
In the evenings before going to bed i read a novel for 30-60 mins.
And when i have some more time on my hands i play games.
You wont believe how much vocab im actually learning this way despite only having partial comprehension.

To emphasis the point in the post above, do something you enjoy.

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#4

Like Flamy suggested, I would definitely focus on finishing Genki 2, improving you grammar will also improve your hability to enjoy more stuff in japanese.

When you can do that, even with some initial struggle, you can pick up vocab more naturally, and the reading/listening will help reinforce everything that you’re studying!

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#5

Already did some of this, watched Toradora! with JP Audio + JP Subs, started Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee in Japanese, started listening to the IGN Japan Podcast and I’m currently watching Terrace House on Netflix in full JP.

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#6

Thanks for all of you advice so far.
I’ll start with Genki 2 and will try to consume more stuff.

Do you think I need to do more/other Vocab and other Grammar lessons to be prepared for N5 or is the stuff from my WaniKani + Genki studies sufficient?

#7

You could look at an N5 deck and see if it even has much vocab you haven’t already encountered elsewhere, but WaniKani and Genki I should cover most of it already!

Research supports that taking previous tests (or just testing your knowledge at all) is one of the most effective study tools! You can find JLPT questions all over the google-verse :slight_smile:

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#8

According to wkstats you are gonna be all set in terms of kanji for N5 at level 16 and even N4 is gonna be at 98% at level 17. Genki should cover the common vocab about studying and all that, but I would absolutely train for not only knowing vocab, but recognizing it when you hear it.

Listening can be much harder if you don’t do any practice for it, so be sure to look up some youtube videos for N5 listening practice. :slightly_smiling_face: I have most of my listening practice on Kitsun, it has audio for core 10k, and even sentences with it, which is absolutely great :smile:

Also you might want to check if your reading speed and overall timing of the test is good, so maybe you could check at least one or two practice tests to see that^^ I went unprepared the first time, but the proctors were telling us the time, so I could adjust my speed. I still would suggest bringing watches with you though :3

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#9

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