Inhae's blog

I can’t believe that the test of July is in a little more than one month. My real goal is to pass in December, and I am taking the test of July as an exercise. Nonetheless, I cannot help but feeling excited (stressed) for July, and I am focusing on making vocabulary and grammar drills.

So-matome Grammar: DONE!

I have finally finished the So-matome textbook for grammar. I had planned to finish it in May, so I am very glad to say that everything went according to plan.

I am aware that the So-matome textbook is not enough, this is why I will also study with a Korean textbook:

This Korean textbook is very thorough. It has a lot of example sentences, and it has a strategical approach, showing you the grammar in the context of JLPT questions:

I still don’t know if I will buy the Shin Kanzen for grammar or not… I remember that the Shin Kanzen was a little overwhelming for me when I took N2. More than once, I felt discouraged when studying with it…

Drills, drills, drills!

In order to get ready for July, I bought this two textbooks of drills by ASK publishing:

I think that making drills is a very good way to review and learn new words. My first impression is that the grammar drills are very close to the So-matome grammar textbook. I cannot say anything definite for vocabulary because I haven’t studied with the So-matome vocabulary book, but I would not be surprised if it were the same.

As a result, I find the vocabulary drills quite difficult, I usually answer at least one third of the questions wrong.

As for grammar, as I said, the drills seem to be very close to the So-matome textbook. This means that if you have gone through the whole So-matome grammar textbook, you will find these drills easy and answer most of the questions right. However, it seems that the drills will not test you on grammar points that are not in the So-matome textbook… I still need to make more drills to see if this first impression is confirmed.

Other things

I am still working with the 日本語単語スピードマスター, and I have reached unit 39. I had to admit that not using Anki was a bad idea… I thought I could learn and review the vocabulary using this book only, and while it did work during the first units, it became overwhelming with time. I have decided to add the words and example sentences to my Anki deck, which is better in the end.

I am still working with the So-matome textbook for kanji, and I must say that I am quite bored with it. I will continue until the end, but I feel that the lessons are not all useful. Sometimes, the textbook introduces words that are too easy, and I feel like I am losing my time. On the contrary, some lessons have difficult kanji, but they are introduced quickly, and I feel that I don’t master them even after I studied the lesson.

I am still reading in Japanese almost everyday, and I also do some JLPT reading practice from time to time. I am also glad to announce that I took the habit of listening to the NHK News every morning. I don’t understand everything but I feel that I am getting slightly better, which is very encouraging.

That’s it for this JLPT update! I hope I will be able to have decent results in July. I will certainly write another JLPT update before the test!

About

I’m learning Japanese, Korean and Chinese to read mystery novels and play video games in these languages.

Learning languages has always been one of my favourite hobbies, but I’m not a social person, I don’t like to meet new people and make friends, this is just not me. I keep hearing that languages are meant for communication, that we have to actively use them, talk to people, etc. and for a long time, I thought I was weird to learn languages just for me, just to enjoy media, culture and entertainment in a foreign language, with absolutely zero interest in communicating with natives.

Now I don’t really care what people think, and this blog helped me a lot to stop doubting myself and just do what I enjoy doing.