#JPlog

[nickelstudy]

JLPT N1 Experience

So first of all, Happy New Year. It has been a while since I've updated this blog. I've been feeling depressed in the past few weeks, I think it's because of drawing? I feel like I haven't been performing well in art, and that it's hard to accept painful truth that I cannot please everyone- not that it matters on this blog, but it's WHY I decide to take some time to write an update here.

I was supposed to talk about my first experience with N1 but I got busy after. I caught up in many stuff, I guess, plus I was busy with my birthday and helping my family's work throughout the month. But now that it's over, let's talk shall we?

Before That

I haven't talked about my last week strategy, here's what I did.

Stopped learning Kanji and do the drills instead

Finished Shinkanzen Grammar in the first section. I had some days left, so I skimmed through the second section without doing the exercise (I did for A - D i think but- I definitely shouldn't)

Borrowed these two books (pic below). For reading, I did every bit of every question style (there were like 6 of them right? Short passage, Long, etc.)

And for listening, I tried to rush through it but I kinda gave up with the chapter III or IV I'm not sure.

I switched between two of them on the last day

FYI the blue book is actually fantastic! I think I've said it before but it has explanation for each answers. I think it's super cool.

Now For N1

Chapter 1: Before exam

For context, I travelled to the exam location alone, so I wasn't bounded by anyone and I could roam anywhere. I got out early, and arrived there pretty early. But walking from the entrance to the exam spot took a while, to the point where I doubted to myself if I was going in the right direction. There were many people there already. I think the morning peeps had already entered the room when I arrived.

I had lunch and... wander around (Typical Pikmin Bloom player). There wasn't much to do anyway. I decided to take a quick review of some onomatopoeia and other vocabs. I think at that point, nothing is more important than vocabs. It was a while before they allowed us to go up the building. Anyway, I SAW A KID in a highschooler outfit in front of the same room as mine! IM- I DON'T KNOW?? HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO BE THIS GOOD AT THAT AGE?? And of course we entered the room. I sat not so far from the entrance.

One thing that bothers me is the fact that they never announced to bring a mask but they asked everyone to wear it in the room?? Luckily, I had it on already.

Chapter 2: The Exam

Sorry for the long introduction haha. SO, starting off with vocabs, grammars, and reading. I skipped to grammar secion first because it's not too hard or too easy. It's all fuzzy now but I did okay(?)

There was あっての that's pretty easy. But there was one of them that bugged me and I was wrong on that one too. It's といたしまして... so weird, I didn't expect it to answer that. ALSO, HONORIFIC VERB CAUGHT ME OFF GUARD but i think i answered it right.

Then onto reading section because I was really scared if I couldn't finished it. It- took me a while to finish each of them but in a fair amount of time. It's like 10 minutes left that I switched to doing vocabs with a lightning speed because I FORGOT there was a fill in the blanks and not just guessing kanji's reading.

I almost got 誇張 (こちょう) wrong as こうちょう

There were 奇跡、偏り、矛盾、賄う、軽率 in which i had no problems

Filling the words is where I had problem due to hurriness. I missed the 快挙 cause I don't know the word.

見返り too, because there was a word that I thought it meant (repay) and not the first

I GOT ONOMATOPOEIA WRONG ANYwAY HECC YEA i didn't know what つくづく means so i went with きっかり or きっぱり im not sure

Also there was a sentence that was supposed to mean "His body condition was..." I thought it was "worsen" so I went with 崩れる except no it's the opposite "ほぐれる". I didn't know that word but i've seen it before it's the goodamn spirit's name from the game.

I didn't know what 尺度 means or how it is read but I got the meaning substitution right (yay) (it's standard)

Here's the fun one. デマ... THIS WORD THAT I NEED TO GUESS HOW IT IS USED WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING ITS MEANING. I tried to came up with the word this word could come from. Dermatologist? Demand? Theme??? (that's テーマ) I had no idea and got it wrong eventually. Can you guess?

It's "Demagogie", a German word meaning false rumor... WHO WOULD'VE GUESSED. I asked one of my Japanese if she knew. Of course she did. She even gave me an alternative for it too... but I forgot. I only know that's it in katakana (im sorry)

Last minute i left one Mondai randomly answered!

For Choukai, it was so goddamn fast. I am certain that if it wasn't fast, it would be manageable for me. I honestly don't know if I scored it well or not, the last listening part were as hard as ever. ONE THING ABT IT THOUGH, there was a part where they were talking in a cafe about how the shop owner use a coffee beans? I think?

ANd FOR GOD'S SAKE WHAT'S WITH THE BACKGROUND MUSIC??? My concentration was popped away, I kept glancing around wondering if what I was hearing was someone's phone or the tape's music. I don't even know what the question really was to be honest.

What's Next?

I- I don't know. I just need to wait for the result. But I'll try to slowly get back to learning a bit Korean and Japanese every day again. Probably need to brush up Memrise and Anki. At least 5 mins a day haha. Thanks for reading til here. Keep on learning! I'll make sure to do my best for learning languages this year too!

I don't have new year's resolution but I guess.. continue ASL? I got busy that I have no time to do it anymore. I doubt if I can do it, considering I'll be busy with internship next academic year.

Anyway, have a great year everyone. Hope you have a good luck and success with studying and anything you are willing to pursue this year.

[alantrcy]

Pup's getting big ! !

[nickelstudy]

I passed N1!

Yep, as the title suggested. I took JLPT N1 exam this July and the here's my result!

I didn't have time to write about how the exam was, so I'm using this as a good opportunity to write about it. Though, it won't be as clear as that very day.

Reading

I started off with my usual way, doing the 読解 very early. This time I tried to apply some tricks I learned from Sou-matome hoping it would help me which is

Skimming the first time -> Read again while making different symbols for different types of keyword including conjunctions too. I didn't have time to summarize each paragraph of course. I could only underline some phrases I think were important.

Knowing that I won't have enough time to do all of them, my time management was a little better. I skipped to finish the last reading problem first, the one with an information/table/graph.

In the end I couldn't finish only one big mondai which is fine. I did my best. And looking at my reading score, I was 1 point from failing which is really scary. If I take a test again, this is what I need to improve on.

Also the girl sat next to me finished it with 45 mintues left and took a nap. I wonder who she is...

Vocabs/Kanji/Grammar

Grammar part was actually the first section I do. This time I must say it was harder than I thought especially the star one. It was surprisingly confusing. There were a lot of problems I marked to do it later because I couldn't figure out the answer at all. Despite that, the format is the same as the last round. There was one polite language, and this time I didn't let it catch me off guard again because I was well prepared. Other than that, I kinda forgot...

Vocabs and Kanji, I did these when I had 10 minutes left. Kanji was so easy that I could speedrun through it. There were some that I wasn't so sure like 粘膜 or 誓約書 but in the end I correctly answered all 6 oft them. For choosing the right vocab, I'm okay with some. There are some that I felt stupid choosing, trusting my gut rather of my brain like when I choose 低迷 instead of 返上. I know the first one isn't that close but I chose it anyway...

Choosing the same words were almost all correct if it wasn't for the word ぞんざい. I've seen this word TOO MANY TIMES in the textbook or Anki but yet I could choose the right counterpart of it because it has too many meanings and I guess I wasn't so precise.

Lastly, the context usage. We have this 風潮 which I didn't even know how to pronounce it. It was hard deciding whter it litereally means as the kanjis show or is it something more figurative like a trend. (I chose the wrong one). There was 補填 and other words that mean a similar thing. I still couldn't figure out the differences lmao. And the last one, which was コンスタント. Should it be a constant (like a math) or constantly? or always or stable action? It was hard to choose but I made the right choice YIPPEE. I only 5 mintues but I had to read every single sentences so I was shaking a little bit but gladly, some are easy that I could tell from a glance like もたらす or how to use 撤回する -> 宣言撤回 from 籠り唄 by 悒うつぼ really helped me TT

Listening

There was no guarantee that I will pass the listening test. That's the scariest part. But I think I did pretty decent. Every time there is a listening mondai where they explain 4 things, could be 4 courses, 4 items, 4 rooms. And there will be a couple talking. Then you have to answer what each of them choose BUT THIS TIME THEY DIDNT DO THAT they go with what the girl choose first and what did both two have done I thought I could understand all of the 4 activities and I was going to be fine but nah. (maybe I really did)

Overall I'm just happy that I pass regardless of the score. All of the effort really paid off! The learning journey will continue despite reaching this level and I hope I can learn more and more from now on.

[nickelstudy]

6/10/2024

Ok, I'm back again. I made a reasonably good progress for my Japanese repreparation. I realized if I don't start studying it again, I will only have a week left to review all the contents which obviously isn't enough. I'm plannning to spent that week on going through test especially the listening part.

I decided to make use of my Notion account to note all of the things I'm learning

As you can see, there are several grammar notes already. I want to share them on this blog too but it needs to be refined because many sentences are taken directly from other places and I don't want to be accused of plagiarism.

I also use the database function to keep track of confusing vocabs!

Yes, it's not fully filled but I'll gradually fill them. I think it's very neat, because you can hide the meaning and also filter howevery you want just like- well... a database.

I tag some words as "hard" so it appears on the view I created, so I can review only those words.

Oh but how am I studying for the past few weeks? I'm doing the test from japanesetest4you website. I am speedrunning through grammar and vocabs. A little bit of reading just to keep my brain ready. I think in the next few days I should review the REAL test so I get a grasp of the scope the test.

That's all the update!

[nickelstudy]

Did a Japanese lecture session with my friend today. I never talked this much lmao. It feels good that I get to use my Japanese knowledge to teach someone

[nickelstudy]

The Result Is Out

1/30/2024

It has been a little while since the JLPT result came out. Here's mine.

It's...not surprising considering that I can't finish the reading part in time. But I'm quite surprised I got listening more thatn half (though I could be lucky).

I'm a little sad haha. 9 points to pass, i think. Still, I had only 4-5 months to prepared so I don't think there was anything I could do.

I'll try it again this July because it's my last time before I'm busy with an internship.

But what I am going to do?

SInce I have more time, I'll take a closer look into the materials I've already have. Vocab farming is also crucial, considering that the range is very wide. And of course, read more. I think reading is the best way to learn vocab and improve my reading speed. ah but I should expand my reading topic.

That's it. Hopefully it won't be worse next time

[nickelstudy]

My JLPT N1 Study Method (& Plan)

9/25/2023

As my introduction said, I'm trying to pass N1 by the next JLPT exam which is in this December! In this post, I will share how I study or prepare for N1

Books I Bought

Nihongo Sou Matome Vocabulary N1

TRY! 日本語能力試験Ｎ1

GO! JLPT N1 Grammar(Translated from Shin Kanzen Master i hate the renaming sm)

They are translated into Thai.

If you want to improve your Japanese understanding, people might recommend buying the Japanese version when you are at an intermediate level. But personally, I can completely understand it better when it's explained in my mother tongue, hence the reason why I bought them (plus I'm broke)

I bought them 2 months ago!

I start with TRY! and Sou Matome by reading the vocabs first from Sou Matome, then move on to TRY! doing their exercise as much as my brain can handle, usually not over a chapter.

Here's what my notebook looks like

As you can see, nothing fancy– just a pencil and a sticky note. I write words I don't or barely understand at the top of every page. As for the sticky note, it's for the words from the seventh day of Sou Matome that I can't remember their meanings. You might notice I didn't write their meanings. It's because I want to challenge myself to recall their meanings without relying on written translations.

I also READ the TRY! book in advance, so I'm always ahead of my actual exercise. Why you may ask? It came from when I read the N4 book. I always carried it everywhere because reading it was fun! So I'm trying to keep up this habit (despite taking more effort than before). When I read sample sentences, I try to translate them into Thai by myself before looking at the translations, because I want to practice my interpretation/translation skills too! (It'll definitely be useful in the future).

After finishing TRY! I will start reading GO! JLPT. Hopefully, I can finish this before the exam date.

OH! One thing I forgot to mention, I haven't done the listening exercises in TRY!. The reason is simple, it's a bit of a hassle to use a DVD player so I want to do them altogether when I am done reading GO! JLPT. I use Kanji Study (Play Store only) for studying Kanji. Right now, I'm studying secondary 3's kanjis. Believe it or not, it has been a year since I started learning secondary 3 and never managed to make progress.

Future Plans

There can be a rare case where I finish these books earlier than I expect so here's what I should do (by that, I mean you definitely should because god those books don't cover the skill adequately)

日本語能力試験　対策問題＆必点整理　読解 Ｎ1 This book is incredible imo, because it explains the answers to every question which made me thoroughly understand it when I was studying for N2

Shin Kanzen Master 聴解 Ｎ1

These will be the books I borrow from my university's library. They are in Japanese too that's why I love borrowing from here! I think the CD resource can be found online because that's what I did for N2.

Lastly, if there is still time I'll take a mock exam from the official JLPT handbook.

AAAA Thank you for reading again. I will try to use this blog for archiving my knowledge and stuff like this more. See you in the next post!

[nickelstudy]

1/12/2024

Despite being amidst midterm and project hell, I borrowed these 2 books yesterday from a uni's library.

The left one is about Japanese's onomatopoeia and the other is about Korean slangs.

I'm currently reading the Japanese one first. I find it quite useful. But honestly, even if I feel like I can get the meaning from the feeling of them, I'll eventually forget that. Still, I'm gonna try to learn as much as I can. It even has exercises! I like that a lot.

For Korean slangs, I haven't started yet but looking at the year it was published (2014) I don't think it would be that useful. Langauges evolve a lot obviously. But I hope I can still find some useful.

I only have 2 weeks to finish them. I don't know if I can, but I'll do my best. (does this mean i'm gonna ignore school y- no of couse haha there's no way i would do that????)

Trying to keep my mind busy... I know I should be doing other stuff. Everyone has the same amount of time but it depends on how one will use it. I don't really know if this is the right thing haha. Like- everyone is getting better at their own thing, me as well, but I also feel bad when I'm not getting better at the same thing as others. It's the consequence of my choice why am I even feeling bitter about it. right? I can't help it

[nickelstudy]

HAHA I'm back at my dorm

11/5/2023

This sounds like a diary lmao bUT yes I'm back at my dorm. To be honest, being at my home makes me study better because the routine is more fixed than here. Nonetheless, I'll keep trying.

Anyway, the update... I have skimmed through the kanjis and oh boy. I just don't see the point of studying them for some. They are mainly for names so they're not worth spending time learning it too much.

That's it! I'm on the 6-7th set right now. Hope I can be on track hehe

[nickelstudy]

New Month hello??

11/2/2023

It's a new month which basically means I have around a month left before JLPT. I have finished TRY! book on the 30th (Listening parts are still undone but I'll do it later!) The ninth lesson weirdly lacks grammar points but I understand that it's hard to allocate them evenly.

Anyway, I have started Shin Kanzen book, but it hits me that I have only a month left. I looked through the chapters and found out that I would never finish this book in time. SO, I decided that I would at least finish ONLY the first part of the book which contains all the grammar points. That will take me around 25 days unless I speed up by doing 2 lessons per day... A little rough, but I can manage it by doing that on the day I feel like it.

I need a week to spare for summarizing and doing the listening part of TRY! That is why.

Another problem I found is Kanji. Unfortunately, the level that I am testing for is catching up with my learning pace, so I need to switch from learning from school grades to JLPT levels.

Here's the thing. Please look at this

The orange stars mean a number of Kanji I've already learned from a normal pace

The yellow stars mean a number of Kanji I've encountered in a Sou-Matome N1 Kanji I read at the start of the year (Doesn't mean I still remember them)

Which MEANS I still have over 400 kanjis left to learn in 1 month! THAT'S A LOT (110 kanjis per week)

A reminder for myself on the new learning pace

Set 1 - 8 contain 145 Kanjis -> I'll try to learn in this first week as best as I can

Set 8-10 in the second week (Around 2/3 of 10th set)

Set 10- 11 in the third week

Set 12 in the fourth week

Hopefully I don't get caught up in school assignments TT

[nickelstudy]

3/14/2024

Decided to borrow Sou-Matome N1 Reading today

**I'll add a photo later**

Luckily the due date is extended probably because the school semester is ending.

I'm planning to improve my reading speed while slowly reviewing grammars. I shouldn't waste time because I have only 1 shot left this July... Gotta be prepared!

I also did Korean vocab review too.. now that I'll be free soon, I think I can do it more regularly.

Extra: I have a Japanese internship interview in the upcoming days, I realllllly hope I learn something from it. Having N2 cert doesn't help you with this kind of stuff at all ahaha

[nickelstudy]

漢字でGO!

1/19/2024

漢字でGO! is my current obsession in the past week. My friend sent it to me last September, I had lots of fun but I didn't continue playing it. That is until I picked it up again recently.

The game is about typing the pronunciation of the given words containing Kanjis. Mainly, there are 6 levels with each level, the word become less straightforward to read and require LOTS of word bank to correctly answer.

Personally the first few levels are fun because of the joy I get from guessing the pronunciation right using my mere knowledge of each Kanjis. It's also interesting to see a nonsense looking word from the upper level. Or the kanji of loan words that I didn't even know it exists!

Well does this benefit anything to me? Not really, but it is still fun to brag that you know the reading of 「丿乀」 (へつぽつ）

Give it a try!

https://plicy.net/GamePlay/155561

[nickelstudy]

11/17/2023

I've decided to stop going through Kanji sets because it is a waste of time. I am now focusing on doing exercises from japanesetest4you. Well, if there is a chance for me to do the exercises from other resources, I think I will do it too.

Shinkanzen grammar is going on track. But lately, I haven't aced any drills at all. Maybe because I'm distracted or that they're actually hard. Could be either way *shrugs* but I'll try harder. I'm concern if my school projects will get in my way of learning, but I hope not.

Also, my friend has been trying to level up his Japanese. I recomended a few books for him and now he's actively reading, doing the exercises every day while we're waiting for class. It is... surprising. He surpasses my expectation because I thought he would stop doing it after a week.

Seeing him being passionate about it, asking me about the language reminds me of- something that I've been missing, something I lack of which makes learning Japanese a duty for me. Since when did that change? haha I still remember bringing a JLPT N4 book everywhere trying to go through it as much as I could. I mean i still bring it everywhere but..I don't feel the urge to read more once I reach my goal. (it's hard, that's why duh)

Well, I hope everyone's studies are going well too! I'm gonna do my best too.

[nickelstudy]

～ものの vs ～ものを

No one does it in English so I'll do it for myself. It's a rough one, please don't expect to know anything more.

TLDR: ものの = しかし、 ものを = のに

Both express contradiction and are rather formal.

～ものの

Use to express the concept that "Yes, it's true that ～ HOWEVER ー"

手術は成功したものの、まだ心配だ。 Though the surgery was a success, I'm still worried. 不景気とはいうものの、人々の表情は明るい。 Despite the economic slump, people's faces are cheerful. (there's also というものの!)

There is also a であるものの conjugation too.

～ものを

Use to express a hypothese of "What could have been" with a sense of regret (It didn't actually happened but it COULD have if you had done that) It's literally another のに but more formal. So if you can use it, then this shouldn't be a problem

一言声をかけてくれれば手伝ったものを。 If only you had call out to me, I would have helped you. 黙っていればバレなかったものを、どうして言っちゃうかなあ。 If only they had kept their mouth shut, no one would have found out. I wonder why they talked about it?

My honest thought? "It's literally another のに" is tricky, because のに can express what seems to be a normal contradiction (or so you think), which can get you confused. But the main point is that regretful nuance containted within the sentence(？？？？)

[nickelstudy]

11/7/2023

I think I'm doing good being on track. I almost finished Set 8. But it's not that I learned how to write them all, just meanings should be good. I'm also planning to do kanji drills from Japanesetest4you so I can know what mistake I could make.

Studying from Shinkanzen can be time-consuming haha (Is an hour a lot? Idk) because I have to look at eVERY grammar references in order to truly understand them. They're harder, that's for sure.

I have yet to summarize them oh god

[nickelstudy]

10/23/2023

Oh my, I'm back. Earlier this October, I caught bad flu + rushed school finale projects, so I had no spare time for learning Japanese AT ALL. But now that it's over, I'm fully back (hopefully)

Considering the current progress, I think I won't make it for Kanji, so I should speed up. Also, my house isn't suited for studying at all. I hope I can study without dying mentally (it's hot and reaLLY uncomfortable here)

Yeah that's a rough update. See you in the next post.