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The Bowery Presents
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YOU ARE THE REASON
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if i look back, i am lost
Kiana Khansmith
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oozey mess
Product Placement
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@jlptstudygroup
If you’re learning Japanese…
Particularly at an absolute beginner/ beginner level, meaning you can’t handle much…
The new show, Sunny サニー, out now on Apple TV+ is worth checking out — mostly English but with occasional Japanese here and there, as the story is about Suzie (Rashida Jones), an American expat in a not-too-distant-future Japan that loses her family in a mysterious accident. Also stars Hidetoshi Nishijima, Annie the Clumsy, YOU (from Terrace House), and more
Free Workbooks & Worksheets for 34 Languages
If you’re looking to practice a bit and remember your target language better… here are tons of free worksheets/workbooks for 34 languages (Japanese, Spanish, Korean, French, German, Italian, etc, etc.)
It’s the same type of “fill in the blank” workbook across all of their languages but the magic in actually rewriting things over and over is that the words end up sticking. Plus, there are English sections where you’ll have to force yourself to remember and write the word/phrase in the target language - which is even better for your memory (called active recall - forcing yourself to remember). I’m personally a big fan of this approach and I’d do similar to pass vocab quizzes in my HS & uni language classes.
If you’re interested, give these a go.
Afrikaans— https://www.afrikaanspod101.com/Afrikaans-worksheets
Arabic— https://www.arabicpod101.com/Arabic-worksheets
Bulgarian— https://www.bulgarianpod101.com/Bulgarian-worksheets
Cantonese— https://www.cantoneseclass101.com/Cantonese-worksheets
Chinese— https://www.chineseclass101.com/Chinese-worksheets
Czech— https://www.czechclass101.com/Czech-worksheets
Danish— https://www.danishclass101.com/Danish-worksheets
Dutch— https://www.dutchpod101.com/Dutch-worksheets
English— https://www.englishclass101.com/English-worksheets
Filipino— https://www.filipinopod101.com/Filipino-worksheets
Finnish— https://www.finnishpod101.com/Finnish-worksheets
French— https://www.frenchpod101.com/French-worksheets
German—https://www.germanpod101.com/German-worksheets
Greek— https://www.greekpod101.com/Greek-worksheets
Hebrew— https://www.hebrewpod101.com/Hebrew-worksheets
Hindi— https://www.hindipod101.com/Hindi-worksheets
Hungarian— https://www.hungarianpod101.com/Hungarian-worksheets
Indonesian— https://www.indonesianpod101.com/Indonesian-worksheets
Italian— https://www.italianpod101.com/Italian-worksheets
Japanese— https://www.japanesepod101.com/Japanese-worksheets
Korean— https://www.koreanclass101.com/Korean-worksheets
Norwegian— https://www.norwegianclass101.com/Norwegian-worksheets
Persian— https://www.persianpod101.com/Persian-worksheets
Polish— https://www.polishpod101.com/Polish-worksheets
Portuguese— https://www.portuguesepod101.com/Portuguese-worksheets
Romanian— https://www.romanianpod101.com/Romanian-worksheets
Russian— https://www.russianpod101.com/Russian-worksheets
Spanish— https://www.spanishpod101.com/Spanish-worksheets
Swahili— https://www.swahilipod101.com/Swahili-worksheets
Swedish— https://www.swedishpod101.com/Swedish-worksheets
Thai— https://www.thaipod101.com/Thai-worksheets
Turkish— https://www.turkishclass101.com/Turkish-worksheets
Urdu— https://www.urdupod101.com/Urdu-worksheets
Vietnamese— https://www.vietnamesepod101.com/Vietnamese-worksheets
It’s here! Just a couple days ago, I finally got the last Japanese Grammar dictionary: A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar. I cannot stress enough how helpful it is to have these dictionaries around. Each dictionary has around 200 grammar points for a total of 600. There are detailed explanations, example sentences, and related grammar. You are also able to look up grammar based on its English equivalent, which is nice if you’re stuck on how you want to say a particular thing.
My only issue with these was that different nuances between similar grammar are often not explained. The Kanzen Master grammar book (I’m using N2) does a good job explaining the subtle nuances between similar grammar points, but the dictionary is also good for explaining when to use specific variations of a grammar point, which otherwise is not often covered in the Kanzen Master grammar book.
Although a little pricey ($40-$50 US), these dictionaries are definitely worth it for anyone wanting to study Japanese and make sense of grammar. They’re also good references for not only when you’re studying but watching or reading media in Japanese.
These are from Amazon, but you can also find these at White Rabbit, eBay, or Amazon Japan (if you live in Japan). I bought most of mine from eBay, since it was a few dollars cheaper.
A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar
Introducing Language Printables
My boyfriend and I are trying to save up so we can rent a new place and get married, so we have been working hard on a new project: Japanese Learning Printables, which we’re selling on Etsy. He’s a professional graphic designer and I have been teaching languages since 2003, so we decided to put our professional skills together and design some products that we hope Japanese learners will find useful. Here’s a brief overview of what we’ve made so far: Language Study Printables Pack 1
This bundle contains eight different printables in PDF format, both in A4 and letter size. Colour and black and white versions are included.
There are New Kanji blank sheets for you to practice kanji, with spaces for mnemonics, stroke order, on’yomi and kun’yomi, example sentences and more. Language Exchange sheets allow you to document new vocabulary and phrases, as well as cultural points as you participate in language exchange, meaning you get more out of your experience and can review afterwards. There’s also space for feedback for your partner and goal tracking.
To increase productivity you can track your reading and study hours with these Reading Log and Study Log pages.
To keep track of new words or compounds you can use our New Vocabulary sheet, with space for readings, example sentences, so you can lean in context, and review tracking included. Learning in real-life context is particularly difficult for self-studiers, so with this in mind we designed this Grocery List printable, which you prepare at home, as you would a normal list, then take shopping so that you can use Japanese in context, even if you’re in a non-Japanese environment. Also included in the Language Study Printables Pack 1 are Anime Log and Drama Log trackers, where you can note down examples of words in context you encounter when watching Japanese TV, track where and when you heard them and monitor your reviews.
Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced Journal Prompt Printables There are three different levels available individually, or you can buy the bundle and get all three at a discount. Again the printables come in PDF format, including both A4 and letter size versions. Designed with self-studiers in mind, these packs cover basic to advanced Japanese, including topics on your interests, memories, goals, as well as your opinions on a variety of current events, cultural points and social issues. Each pack contains 31 unique language prompts, one for every day of the month.
Beginners Journal Prompts should be good for self-studiers who are at around JLPT N5/N4 level, or who are working through Genki I and II. Topics include writing about your environment and interests, whilst giving you opportunities to use beginner level grammar and vocabulary. An English translation cheat sheet is included to help you if you get lost.
Intermediate Journal Prompts would best suit those at about JLPT N3/N2, or working through a textbook like Tobira. Topics include writing for different purposes, talking about culture, re-telling anecdotes and expressing your opinions. An English translation cheat sheet is included to help you if you get lost.
Advanced Journal Prompts are designed for those at N2/N1 JLPT level, or beyond. They are written by a native Japanese speaker and are designed to help you create independent texts on engaging and relevant topics, whilst using advanced language skills such as persuasion, criticism, and expressing nuanced opinions that often appears at this level.
We really hope that you will take a look at LanguagePrintables on Etsy and favourite our store. We put a lot of thought into making these as useful as possible, and so we would very much appreciate your support through buying or simply reblogging this post. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. If you have a request for a language learning printable you’d like to see on our store in the future, then please let us know!
hello, I´ll take n3 this year and i was wondering if you could give me some tips on material to study (apps, books, videos..) thank you :D
Sure:Kanzen Master books are the best IMO for test practise, they’re the hardest, but also the most reflective of the difficulty of the real exam and use test-format questions (Sou Matome is cute, but has some question types that never come up on the real test, a lot of unnecessary vocabulary and is pitched too easy; some people love it and if it works for you great, I prefer Kanzen Master though).
The Power Drill series is also good for practising timing.
Nihongonomori N3 vocabulary and Grammar videos- I made flashcards for a lot of the vocabulary that came up in these and a good ammount came up on the real test when I did it last July. I like that they’re 100% Japanese videos. I wish they weren’t so slow and said things more naturally to help pick up pitch accent etc, but the delivery is good, the vocab seemed relevant and their videos are well-organised and comprehensive.
If you haven’t signed up for one get an Audible free trial. You get one free audiobook and you can use your credit for this to get one of the intermediate JapanesePod101 audio books. I got one that way and it has over 26 HOURS of podcasts on it, no adverts, no fucking about on itunes (JapanesePod101′s itunes podcast feed is limited to a few episodes and is a hideously disorganised mix of beginner lessons, survival Japanese, random vocab and a lot of other stuff I don’t want jamming up my computer, with just a few rare podcasts at my level I actually want- I may just be doing it wrong though.) I don(’t like how much English they use, but I do like the convenience of having this right on my phone. I’ve done over 18 hours of listening practise I otherwise wouldn’t have done in the last fortnight because of this free download and it covers a lot of N3 grammar. I know you can sign up for a free account on JapanesePod101 but the spam you like you wouldn’t believe, so I’ve disabled my account there.I also listened to a lot of the LingQ podcasts before and found those good too. On itunes there is News in Slow Japanese, 中３ラジコ (a radio show designed for JHS students to understand current affairs) Apps: obviously Anki or Memrise are both very useful for vocabulary and kanji. Beyond them I reccomend HelloTalk- you can do language exchange, use your Japanese with native speakers and get support when you need it, in return for supporting someone with your native language. It’s a great app and I know having friends cheering you on can really help you.HiNative will let you ask native speakers questions about their language and is also a really useful tool to have.
For reading practise Yotsubato!, The Magic Treehouse series and the １０分で読めるseries for low-mid level elementary school kids are great. You need to read a lot and fast in the exam- it’s exhausting, so you need to build your stamina by regularly reading, it’s not a skill you can suddenly cram the way you may be able to with kanji or vocab to a certain extent. NHK Newswebeasy is also great.Last year I made the tumblr @jlptstudygroup where you can join other learners, share resources and support each other in the run up to N3. It’s a group blog so anyone who joins as admin can contribute, PM me your email address and I’ll send you a tumblr admin link if you want to join the blog. (This is not something tumblr allows you to do without submitting your email address).
I started the listening today. Sadly there is no memrise course to this that I could find to reinforce new vocab I come across. I may create one, but I am pretty busy with JET departure getting closer. Posting on here may just have to be enough. The style to this book is pretty different than the Kanji and with other JLPT prep books I’ve had before, but I think I like it. Today’s lesson was too easy. It reviewed listening on where there is a 小さい つ カタカナのー and ひらがなののばす音. After that, there was practice on しまった and ちゃった. Here is a review of it: ～ちゃ～ ＝ ～ては ～なくちゃ ＝ ～なくてはいけない ～なきゃ ＝ ～なければならない ～ちゃう/じゃう ＝ ～てしまう/でしまう ～ちゃった/じゃった ＝ ～てしまった/でしまった 動詞の例 食べちゃいけない 食べなくちゃ 食べなきゃ 食べちゃう 食べちゃった
Free Japanese lesson videos (Free Japanese school) 無料日本語レッスン 無料日本語学校 先生募集中です。気軽にお問い合わせください。 [email protected]
Nihongonomori are amazing, their JLPT N3 lessons really helped me so much. I’m not sure if I was missing this before, but they seem to have channels for each JLPT lesson, which should make it easier than ever to find exactly the level of stuff you’re looking for.
JLPT N3 grammar list part 1
Source
I made a JLPT test day checklist printable and wrote some advice for those of you taking the test for the first time. Click here to access the PDF version.
Good luck everyone!
JLPT week advice
I think reviewing what you sort-of know but aren’t consistently getting right is quite useful in the last week to see if you can raise your chances of getting those points right. This applies to grammar, vocab and kanji.
If you definitely don’t know something and it stresses you out, it may be worth choosing to focus your energy elsewhere. That’s what I did with the three things that I’m still super shaky on before my test (causative and passive, transitive and intransitive and keigo). Putting those things aside allowed me to work in refining my accuracy in grammar points I was *almost* getting right and get solidly correct answers on them as a result.
Doing a full practise test under exam conditions some time this week also helps, even if you’ve already done one.
Visualising yourself finishing and being confident will help.
Working out the order you want to do the questions is a good idea- I do the sections I find hardest first normally. Of course going over vocab and kanji cards daily is also a good idea. Use any spare time you have.
Sleep and eat well the day before the test.
Have a decent breakfast on test day. Pack your pencils and eraser etc before the test and don’t forget your if and test voucher. Double check their checklist before leaving.
Make sure you’re allowed your stationery (plain eraser, not in any kind of wrapping, plain pencils, etc- all this is in the test voucher). Lots of people in N3 this summer were flustered because they’d brought the wrong stationery and were told they couldn’t use it at the last minute.
Plan your journey and allow plenty of extra time.
Take food- the breaks were very short for my test this summer, I ended up wishing I’d had lunch beforehand (at about 11.30), because whilst there were some 40 or 45m breaks between the tests, we were actually only allowed outside for about ten to fifteen mins, as the invigilators were counting and checking things, and of course you have to go back a while before the start of the next paper so you don’t miss it.
Plan your transport carefully and double check the times.
Make sure you have an allowable wristwatch (not all are allowed to prevent apple watches etc that can obviously be used for cheating). There are no time warnings in the tests I’ve sat and in the n4 test the clocks in the room had been deliberately covered over with paper circles. Plan your time carefully and know your strategy before you go in.
Have some music or something to calm you ready to use before the tests and between papers if you get very anxious.
Turn of your phone got the entire test duration. If it goes off because you forgot to turn it off again after a break you’ll get a yellow card, or get totally disqualified from the exam if it happens in the listening portion.
Don’t answer texts or check emails in the test break, if you get stressful news it will distract you. Concentrate on yourself. You’ve waited a long time to do the test, so everyone else can wait for a couple of hours till you’re done.
I wrote down my feelings the evening after the test about how it went and that I walked out of the n3 test wanting to take n2. That’s been useful to me for reflection since the exam.
Remember that you can take the test again if you don’t pass, that the overall pass mark is low and that you’ve come a long way, no matter what your test performance is. The JLPT is not the be-all and end-all, so try to keep perspective.
Do your best. You deserve to prepare yourself, look after yourself in the days before and on test day and reward yourself with something you enjoy after the exam. Put concerns for others aside for a while and concentrate on this investment in yourself.
Take care and good luck!!!!
Started again for JLPT3
I'm freaking out... I'm studying for the JLPT N3 and I feel I haven't made any progress. Last week I did the HSK 3 (chinese) and decided to rest for a week and start studying after that. Now I'm kinda regreting that. I alredy failed it once, and in my country we can only do it once a year on December. I really need to pass the exam so I can apply for a scholarship to Japan. All I have in my mind now instead of kanji is hanzi, so my vocab got fucked up. It's 41 days to go,...I wanna die...
Hi @theworldisnotqu thanks for yourmessage. First off try not to panic, as that never helps.I’mgoing to recommend far more intense study than I typically wouldbecause a) you’re on a tight deadline and b) there’s a scholarship atplay.
You have about a monthleft until the test. I’m ot sure how prepared you are and if you’llbe able to pass but here’s what I believe to be the best way to makethis manageable:
Take a full N3 test under exam conditions. Work out your strengths and weaknesses.
Make a realistic study plan: this will depend how many free hours you have a day and how much you can realistically handle.
Aim to study up until 5-7 days before the exam and then spend the last few days reviewing and refining what you know, you may not finish everything (I didn’t get through all my kanji or vocab), but throwing new information at yourself at the last minute may stress and confuse you.
Study your weak points first and when you need a break or are tired, work on the stuff you’re stronger at.
Make sure you cover timed reading comprehension, kanji, vocabulary, grammar and listening.
Set a small study target and write a list of rewards you can give yourself every day you meet your target to stay motivated.
Work out how you will look after yourself and relax every day.
2. Work out which resources are best for you, here are some ideas:
If you already have textbooks or test books use them- stick with what you’ve started and a format you’re familiar with, at this point switching things up is likely to waste time.
If you don’t have the necessary resources consider the following:
Use Nihongonomori for vocabulary videos for listening and vocabulary practise.
If you have them definitely use the Kanzen Master books- they’re the most reflective of the scope and difficulty of the real test. If you can do the Kanzen Master questions, then you’ll be well prepared for the real test.
If you can get hold of the Power Drill series then I recommend these for timed test practise and because my teacher says they’re quite accurate in terms of the kanji/vocab presented (apparently Nihongo Sou Matome has a lot of unnecessary vocabulary, which isn’t a problem unless you’re short on time, which you are).
If you can’t get hold of the Power Drill series right away then use japanesetest4you.com in the meantime.
3. Get a grammar list and work out which points you’re strongest at, review those weekly. For the other grammar I generally try to learn things comprehensively, rather than skim a lot of stuff, because I won’t remember the details of the rules if I do that. I figure it’s better to know fewer things well than to skim a lot of stuff but not really know any of it when it comes to the crunch.
Try to make sentences using your new kanji or vocab with the grammar points to consolidate everything.
4. Use whatever system you’ve been using so far for vocab and kanji. Now is probably not the time to experiment with new stuff. If you have a bajillion anki cards then you may need to take an hour or two to suspend a lot of cards and focus on key vocabulary.
5. Read every day, reading speed is a big failing point in the JLPT for many candidates. You need to really train here if your reading speed isn’t fast enough as it takes a lot of practise to improve.
6. Listen to as much Japanese as possible, have TV shows/youtube videos on in the background whenever you’re doing other stuff and try as hard as you can to follow it. Try to make your environment as immersive as possible, hopefully this will help you flip your brain into ‘Japanese mode’.
7. Use the 30/30 app to manage your study time, use browser apps like stay focused or cold turkey to stop you using social media at inappropriate times. Use Fl.ux to stop studying on the computer at night totally ruining your ability to get to sleep.
8. Make sure you review before bed and just as you wake up- this has been show to improve retention.
9. Consider exam day strategy- for me the grammar/reading paper is the biggest challenge for timing, I chose to do the reading long questions first and effectively did the paper backwards as the high mark questions are the long reading passages and those horrible ones with the star symbols in apparently. It’s worth working out a plan and also how you’ll target your time if you can’t answer the questions in time (I skip stuff and go back at the end, I make sure every question is filled in on my answer sheet in the last 2m of the test and fill in randomly if I didn’t get back to it as that way at least I have a 25% chance of getting it right). If you’re going to go back to questions be VERY careful that you don’t put your answers in the wrong spaces on the answer mark sheet (I lost a few minutes doing this and having to fix it, it stressed me out).
10. Studying really intensively often makes me sick, so try to eat well, look after your eyes because they’ll be working really hard this month (I find using eye drops help), take proper scheduled breaks where you really put everything down and give your brain time to soak it all in.
Stay hydrated and try to sleep a good amount.
Keep yourself and your work area clean.
Use sites like rainymood.com or apps like Calm to help you focus and wind down at the end of a long study day. I listen to bands like Tycho, Aphex Twin or Brian Eno ambient stuff when I’m studying as words really distract me, often I prefer to study in silence though.
Make sure you go outside every single day, you can easily use Nihongonomori videos to practise listening while you take a walk if you really feel you can’t spare much time.
Sleep 6-8 hours a day but set an alarm to make sure you don’t become nocturnal (like I do when I study intensively), keep regular mealtimes, basically try not to fuck up your body clock.
I really hope that this advice helps you and that you can sit the exam knowing you absolutely did your best this month. Best of luck!
A selection of Japanese sentences showing grammar use, sorted by JLPT level. All grammar, all levels.
Grammar Sentences for all JLPT levels.
