I've found it very useful to add supplemental materials and workbooks that focus on different topics than what you're learning with your main textbook or study method. It leads to a lot more ”aha!" moments when you come across something in a textbook that you've already learned somewhere else. That little bit of affirmation acts as a benchmark and keeps me excited that my Japanese is actually improving. TL;DR: Varied study methods help.
Good tips and congrats on passing the test! I think mentioning you have experience with Chinese characters will help viewers to not develop unrealistic expectations for their own learning speed, which may end up being demoralizing for them. As a (second-language) Mandarin speaker myself, I only really find remembering the various readings for Kanji to be a bit difficult, but I recognize the majority of Kanji that I've seen so far which is a huge advantage. The estimated time for learning Japanese to various levels is different depending upon prior knowledge of Kanji. For example, the estimated study time to reach N1 is 3000-4800 hours, whereas for students with prior character knowledge it is 1700-2600 hours. So based on these numbers: comparing fast learners with Kanji knowledge to slow learners without kanji knowledge, it could be 3x faster; comparing fast to fast or slow to slow it's almost 2x faster; and comparing slow learners with kanji knowledge to fast learners without it's still like 14% faster.
your advices, your insight, everything sounds so unique to me. It actually opened my eyes...I feel like most of the other popular youtubers just say the same old ideas but you're really different. You deserve more recognition.
Congrats for passing N3! I'm currently studying for N4 and will take JLPT this July. I'm overwhelmed with the amount of kanji, grammar and vocabs I need to study.. After watching this video, I somehow gained confidence how to structure my study method. I liked how you mentioned not to just aim to pass the test but to be good at Japanese generally to be able to speak, write and read for everyday use
Impressive! I started learning Japanese during covid, I can speak it really quite well now and I understand most things, even when I watch a TV program where they speak fast. But my learning was chaotic but my goal was never to do any JLPTs, just being able to do fluent speaking and basic reading/writing. Now, seeing how far I came, I would like to do a JLPT test once, just to have a paper in my hand for all the effort. If I funnel my studies, I think N2 might be achievable in December. For the example I can read everything in the Tobira book already really almost at the same speed as I read English or any of my native languages.
i really think this is the key to progressing. knowing what you want to achieve with your language, being intuitive and listening to yourself when deciding how to study - literally having a strong 'why' is what gave me the motivation to power through so much difficult content (at the time) so quickly
your advices, your insights, all sounds unique to me. It actually opened my eyes...I feel like most of the other very popular youtubers just keep repeating the same old ideas that I've heard before. But you're different. You definitely deserve more recognition
As a first year college student I went from 0 japanese to an low to mid n4 in 9 months. I had a class every week day for about an hour on average as well as 2~ hours of homework every night, various cultural events and the occasional project. For the vast majority of people, I dont think getting to N3 in less than a year is possible unless you have copious amounts of free time. Rather if you can dedicate 2 hours a weekday to studying japanese and do some level of immersion it is fesabile to reach N4 in a similar time to me.
I did it by making almost everything I did about studying japanese. That meant listening to podcasts and Anki on commutes instead of scrolling social media; watching shows/reading in Japanese instead of English - basically I lived and breathed Japanese (still do now). I was studying whenever I saw the chance, in one way or another. While I didn't mention it in the video, I studied while balancing a job, side gig and content creation. There are also people who progressed super quickly in their studies while working full-time (jist search on RUclips). I think it has more to do with the way you use your time than how MUCH time you have. I also need to emphasize that I'm not 'special' - not academically gifted and certainly no prodigious polyglot either. Sure I worked hard, but 90% of it came down to being productive and efficient with how I was using my study time, hence this video. Also, as I basically self-studied for the most part, this meant I was able to control my pace of study and set progress goals accordingly with the time frame I had, as opposed to a class which is obviously more paced-out across the class term. This video is basically the result of a self-experiment and what I learnt about the actual learning process. I am about as normal as anyone else and wanted to show that it's not outlandish if you put your heart into it.
I pickrd up a book on n3 but ive decided to quit that route. My journey isnt traveling to japan and study. I just want to read mangas, books, see movies.
Nah people learn different..i find writing down words doesnt allow my brain to learn them. I literally learn one kanji find out what it means and move on to other kanjis. What helped more with the language is grammar and verbs and particles
How many hours would you say you were studying per day/week? Also, how did you go about immersion especially if you're not in a japanese-speaking area? Were you able to find resources for you to practice japanese in real-life scenarios? Thank you and this video was really helpful! I'm learning French and Korean, not Japanese, but think a lot of your advice can apply :)
I basically studied in almost all the free time I had, which could be anywhere from 10-20mins or all day (5+ hours). I studied entirely in Sydney until now (excl. the 1 month I just spent studying in Japan). I'm really shy lol so talking to strangers online or to a camera is really daunting to me, so I never used any language exchange apps like Hellotalk. I got all my speaking practice by seeing a private tutor for 2 hours a week, which I've been doing since August. It's the only time I speak Japanese since studying. I basically didn't encounter any real-life scenarios where I used Japanese until I went to Japan. Because this video was about JLPT I didn't go much into speaking, but it's is a whole other skill in itself which I will cover in a later video!
ahh i am bilingual cantonese but not a native/bilingual mandarin speaker! mandarin is my third language, but i did spend a few years studying chinese literature
I wonder if this presenter already knows Chinese cuz that will help with some Kanji, though Chinese brushstroke order and Japanese brushstroke order are quite different. It helps, I think. **going to check out the textbooks**
At what point should i do full immersion? After Genki 1, 2? I can listen to Japanese all day now without fatigue. But i am still low level. I only know maybe 1000 words. And 100-200 kanji.
Did you also do the excercises in both the genki workbooks? Or did you just study the textbooks? Btw great video, as a beginner I didn't know how to start learning japanese, I tried some japanese learning apps but they weren't very useful. I will actually try the genki textbook method
Did you do the pair work? I’ve sorta just been pretending and saying the pair work out loud in Genki but admittedly I’ve skipped a lot cuz it was tiring at times.
@@shakenbacon-vm4eu there are videos from Tokini Andy where you can practice those exercises. They record one part and you have to answer Or you ask the question. I find them really helpful it's around 10 dollars, I think.
HOLY SHIT. These textbooks are freakin’ expensive. Damn, I ain’t paying for that. I’m looking for free materials. Actually, I am looking for Chinese-language textbooks on Japanese.
not a Chinese resource on japanese. but English to japanese the best free resource you're likely to get is Tae Kim's guide to learning Japanese website. It's the most recommended option to those who don't have the cash to grab genki 1&2
@@metalfamilyfanandqueenfanall well and good but you don't actually get the audio content you get with buying the actual textbooks (the audio is what inflates the price of the textbooks mentioned in this video)
Love the video! Could you clarify what the timeline was for each level - like how many months at each level? Did N5 N4 and N3 all take the same amount of time or were they increasing in order of time? I'm not that interested in taking the exam, but I would like to set general goals for myself to keep myself accountable, and then I can adjust them based on how busy I am Thanks❤❤
that depends on a lot of things - but generally japanese gets exponentially harder the higher you go, so the gap between n4 and n3 will be larger than n5 and n4, etc.
So it seems you are a Chinese person that learned Japanese and English to fluency. WOW! You are very inspirational to us! Thank you for this channel! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
You'll be interested to know that out of all the Native Japanese people that I know, only one of them has been able to pass the N1. It's really only for super business professionals, not normal people lol
Japanese people don't take the JLPT. It's for foreigners, it's like if an English speaker took the TOEIC. It's very uncommon. That's why you don't know people who have passed the N1. The JLPT N1 has some difficult questions and I would not say all Japanese could get 100% but at least for high school level graduates, it should be doable as an exam. Also most foreigners who pass N1 still struggle quite a bit with Japanese, so it would be surprising if it was truly the same as native level. There's a separate business Japanese exam for foreigners which is quite difficult too. For native Japanese speakers the other exams called Nihongo Kentei日本語検定 (general japanese exam) and Kanji kentei 漢字検定 (kanji test which has up to 10 levels). I think sometimes Japanese speakers confuse that one with the JLPT. Those two exams are difficult and the top levels have quite a low pass rate. To date only a few foreigners have managed to pass that kanji kentei exam.
I've found it very useful to add supplemental materials and workbooks that focus on different topics than what you're learning with your main textbook or study method. It leads to a lot more ”aha!" moments when you come across something in a textbook that you've already learned somewhere else. That little bit of affirmation acts as a benchmark and keeps me excited that my Japanese is actually improving. TL;DR: Varied study methods help.
Good tips and congrats on passing the test! I think mentioning you have experience with Chinese characters will help viewers to not develop unrealistic expectations for their own learning speed, which may end up being demoralizing for them. As a (second-language) Mandarin speaker myself, I only really find remembering the various readings for Kanji to be a bit difficult, but I recognize the majority of Kanji that I've seen so far which is a huge advantage. The estimated time for learning Japanese to various levels is different depending upon prior knowledge of Kanji. For example, the estimated study time to reach N1 is 3000-4800 hours, whereas for students with prior character knowledge it is 1700-2600 hours. So based on these numbers: comparing fast learners with Kanji knowledge to slow learners without kanji knowledge, it could be 3x faster; comparing fast to fast or slow to slow it's almost 2x faster; and comparing slow learners with kanji knowledge to fast learners without it's still like 14% faster.
your advices, your insight, everything sounds so unique to me. It actually opened my eyes...I feel like most of the other popular youtubers just say the same old ideas but you're really different. You deserve more recognition.
Congrats for passing N3! I'm currently studying for N4 and will take JLPT this July. I'm overwhelmed with the amount of kanji, grammar and vocabs I need to study.. After watching this video, I somehow gained confidence how to structure my study method. I liked how you mentioned not to just aim to pass the test but to be good at Japanese generally to be able to speak, write and read for everyday use
thank you! 🥰
omg you got this! just study one day at a time and you'll be absolutely fine 🩷
Chloe, congratulations on passing N3. That is very impressive. Thank you for sharing your helpful tips and experiences. Ordering Genki now.
Thank you! All the best on your studying journey, you got this 🥺💪
Impressive! I started learning Japanese during covid, I can speak it really quite well now and I understand most things, even when I watch a TV program where they speak fast. But my learning was chaotic but my goal was never to do any JLPTs, just being able to do fluent speaking and basic reading/writing. Now, seeing how far I came, I would like to do a JLPT test once, just to have a paper in my hand for all the effort. If I funnel my studies, I think N2 might be achievable in December. For the example I can read everything in the Tobira book already really almost at the same speed as I read English or any of my native languages.
u can definitely do it imo! maybe even n1 could be achievable for u
That's really impressive! What did you do to learn so quickly?
i really think this is the key to progressing. knowing what you want to achieve with your language, being intuitive and listening to yourself when deciding how to study - literally having a strong 'why' is what gave me the motivation to power through so much difficult content (at the time) so quickly
your advices, your insights, all sounds unique to me. It actually opened my eyes...I feel like most of the other very popular youtubers just keep repeating the same old ideas that I've heard before. But you're different. You definitely deserve more recognition
thank you for this, your comment made my day 🥹🩷
As a first year college student I went from 0 japanese to an low to mid n4 in 9 months. I had a class every week day for about an hour on average as well as 2~ hours of homework every night, various cultural events and the occasional project. For the vast majority of people, I dont think getting to N3 in less than a year is possible unless you have copious amounts of free time. Rather if you can dedicate 2 hours a weekday to studying japanese and do some level of immersion it is fesabile to reach N4 in a similar time to me.
I did it by making almost everything I did about studying japanese. That meant listening to podcasts and Anki on commutes instead of scrolling social media; watching shows/reading in Japanese instead of English - basically I lived and breathed Japanese (still do now). I was studying whenever I saw the chance, in one way or another.
While I didn't mention it in the video, I studied while balancing a job, side gig and content creation. There are also people who progressed super quickly in their studies while working full-time (jist search on RUclips). I think it has more to do with the way you use your time than how MUCH time you have.
I also need to emphasize that I'm not 'special' - not academically gifted and certainly no prodigious polyglot either. Sure I worked hard, but 90% of it came down to being productive and efficient with how I was using my study time, hence this video.
Also, as I basically self-studied for the most part, this meant I was able to control my pace of study and set progress goals accordingly with the time frame I had, as opposed to a class which is obviously more paced-out across the class term.
This video is basically the result of a self-experiment and what I learnt about the actual learning process. I am about as normal as anyone else and wanted to show that it's not outlandish if you put your heart into it.
Such a great video!! Very useful information that isn't heard anywhere else, thank you for this video
thank you! this is much appreciated 🥰
that’s insane results for only few months! This will probably take few years for me to reach, congrats
I pickrd up a book on n3 but ive decided to quit that route. My journey isnt traveling to japan and study. I just want to read mangas, books, see movies.
wise.
studying and building literacy helps a lot in doing all of that
The Dunning Kruger effect is strong in this video
Nothing beats writing down words from flash cards.
Nah people learn different..i find writing down words doesnt allow my brain to learn them. I literally learn one kanji find out what it means and move on to other kanjis. What helped more with the language is grammar and verbs and particles
I never really find that helpful but DuolIngo actually helped me a lot with a few languages so i never understood all the hate it gets.
Wow thank you so much for sharing this. I am still in my humble beginnings, thanks for sharing your ressources.
good luck! you got this ☺
I don't really like textbooks. But nice recommendation, a lot of ppl speak well abt it.
Anki is life fr
Thanks a lot it was very useful information ❣️
thank you that was exactly what i needed
How many hours would you say you were studying per day/week? Also, how did you go about immersion especially if you're not in a japanese-speaking area? Were you able to find resources for you to practice japanese in real-life scenarios? Thank you and this video was really helpful! I'm learning French and Korean, not Japanese, but think a lot of your advice can apply :)
These are questions! I would also like to know
I basically studied in almost all the free time I had, which could be anywhere from 10-20mins or all day (5+ hours).
I studied entirely in Sydney until now (excl. the 1 month I just spent studying in Japan). I'm really shy lol so talking to strangers online or to a camera is really daunting to me, so I never used any language exchange apps like Hellotalk.
I got all my speaking practice by seeing a private tutor for 2 hours a week, which I've been doing since August. It's the only time I speak Japanese since studying. I basically didn't encounter any real-life scenarios where I used Japanese until I went to Japan.
Because this video was about JLPT I didn't go much into speaking, but it's is a whole other skill in itself which I will cover in a later video!
@@chloedyhe thank you for the info!! And gl with the rest of your learning journey! 😁
A disclaimer mentioning your existing Mandarin base would have been nice. But still a good video, without too much flexing. Thanks.
Ah yes, this is what I was looking for. That would def give a leg up
ahh i am bilingual cantonese but not a native/bilingual mandarin speaker! mandarin is my third language, but i did spend a few years studying chinese literature
YOU LOOK LIKE THE GIRL FROM KDRAMA PYRAMID GAMES!!!
Great job! When did you take the JLPT N3 test? Also what Anki deck did you use for the vocabulary? Would you mind sharing if it's downloadble?
dec 2023, i made my own anki decks with vocabulary i encountered along my studies + from textbooks :)
It helps if you already know some Chinese
helps with kanji, not so much with grammar/speaking tho
I wonder if this presenter already knows Chinese cuz that will help with some Kanji, though Chinese brushstroke order and Japanese brushstroke order are quite different.
It helps, I think.
**going to check out the textbooks**
It does... as their times are 1/2 to 1/3 of the time of English speakers.
i studied chinese before so i already knew some beforehand, it helps but japanese and chinese kanji are definitely quite different
Great video and congrats! How many hours did you study each day?
At what point should i do full immersion? After Genki 1, 2? I can listen to Japanese all day now without fatigue. But i am still low level. I only know maybe 1000 words. And 100-200 kanji.
Well I guess you answered my question by the end. Thank you much!
how long have you spent to finish both genki 1 and 2? Thanks ^ ^
Thanks for the video! :D Do I have to to do jlpt n5 exam first? Or can i skip n5 and n4 and do n3 as the first test? Greetings
you can take any level :)
How you master n3 listening?
ありがとう
@Chloe DY He hey chloe! can you recommend some more books for n3?
Thank you so much!!❤
Did you also do the excercises in both the genki workbooks? Or did you just study the textbooks? Btw great video, as a beginner I didn't know how to start learning japanese, I tried some japanese learning apps but they weren't very useful. I will actually try the genki textbook method
I did everything according to the structure of the genki textbooks, they also have kanji textbooks that go along with them
Did you do the pair work? I’ve sorta just been pretending and saying the pair work out loud in Genki but admittedly I’ve skipped a lot cuz it was tiring at times.
i played both roles and talked to myself 😅
@@shakenbacon-vm4eu there are videos from Tokini Andy where you can practice those exercises. They record one part and you have to answer
Or you ask the question. I find them really helpful it's around 10 dollars, I think.
Not sure if you are aware that the free Anki and Ankipro are not related. Great video!
I had no idea haha 😅 i only recently found out (after i made this video) that there are actually many anki's 🤯
Great video, thanks for sharing!
thank you!
You speak English very well… impressive…. How about Minni No Nihongo ;and, when should a beginner start studying Kangi? Best, John
Hi! Can you make a video for Tobira please
what about tobira do u want me to talk about? ❤
This is really helpful thank you
Unrelated but I’m floored by how gorgeous your skin and make up is
aw thank you!
Can i pass jlpt n5 in just 2 months?😢
definitely doable if you're dedicated
hello I just saw this video of you. you got another subscriber now.
welcome! hope to see you around more 🥺
@@chloedyhe yes I will
HOLY SHIT.
These textbooks are freakin’ expensive.
Damn, I ain’t paying for that.
I’m looking for free materials.
Actually, I am looking for Chinese-language textbooks on Japanese.
Just look for free pdfs xD
not a Chinese resource on japanese. but English to japanese the best free resource you're likely to get is Tae Kim's guide to learning Japanese website. It's the most recommended option to those who don't have the cash to grab genki 1&2
@@metalfamilyfanandqueenfanall well and good but you don't actually get the audio content you get with buying the actual textbooks (the audio is what inflates the price of the textbooks mentioned in this video)
I got the first Genki book for under $30 used. They're pretty cheap on the used market.
How many hours did you study each day?
4 years goin and can barely pass a n5 practice test. im retarded affffffffffff lol
it takes time! but it could also be a sign to reconsider your study method/routine too
Love the video! Could you clarify what the timeline was for each level - like how many months at each level? Did N5 N4 and N3 all take the same amount of time or were they increasing in order of time? I'm not that interested in taking the exam, but I would like to set general goals for myself to keep myself accountable, and then I can adjust them based on how busy I am
Thanks❤❤
that depends on a lot of things - but generally japanese gets exponentially harder the higher you go, so the gap between n4 and n3 will be larger than n5 and n4, etc.
So it seems you are a Chinese person that learned Japanese and English to fluency. WOW! You are very inspirational to us! Thank you for this channel! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Duo lingo also teaches nothing about grammar which is very important.
I agree with dont translate to learn. You need to have two "language brains" that think and use only the one language.
very true!
You'll be interested to know that out of all the Native Japanese people that I know, only one of them has been able to pass the N1. It's really only for super business professionals, not normal people lol
Japanese people don't take the JLPT. It's for foreigners, it's like if an English speaker took the TOEIC. It's very uncommon. That's why you don't know people who have passed the N1. The JLPT N1 has some difficult questions and I would not say all Japanese could get 100% but at least for high school level graduates, it should be doable as an exam. Also most foreigners who pass N1 still struggle quite a bit with Japanese, so it would be surprising if it was truly the same as native level. There's a separate business Japanese exam for foreigners which is quite difficult too.
For native Japanese speakers the other exams called Nihongo Kentei日本語検定 (general japanese exam) and Kanji kentei 漢字検定 (kanji test which has up to 10 levels). I think sometimes Japanese speakers confuse that one with the JLPT. Those two exams are difficult and the top levels have quite a low pass rate. To date only a few foreigners have managed to pass that kanji kentei exam.
The time I saw her Chinese name I ended the video.
No way that people actually using Genki ☠☠☠
What's the problem with it? It seems to be _very_ popular
por que?