My New Japanese Study Guide
Reflecting on July’s JLPT in preparation for December’s exam
Now, I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert at Japanese, or the JLPT, or even exams in general (I’m a literature student — just let me read and write essays, for God’s sake).
In fact, confession time: I’ve somehow managed to fumble questions on the most basic kanji yet picked the right answer for when that particular word, according to Jisho, is supposedly a level higher than the exam I was taking.
So, clearly, there are gaps in my knowledge — accumulated from just randomly searching up new words and grammar whenever they come up and being too stingy with buying textbooks geared towards preparing me, specifically, for the JLPT.
But I don’t want to just prepare for the JLPT and be done with it.
I don’t want to spit out the word for “declining birth rate and aging population” in the middle of a conversation just for the sake of it, and then blank out as everyone else starts talking about possible solutions, the social and political consequences if this phenomenon continues, etc.
No, I’d really much rather talk about the anatomy of vampires in that one cool manga and then switch to gossiping about the popular squad in my middle school (because those two topics are clearly related). Now that makes for an interesting, two-sided conversation.
So, whether you want to actually make Japanese friends and/or you’re planning to stay in Japan long-term, I’ve prepared a list of methods and resources that I found work best for me, ensuring that my general Japanese ability improves, so that I could also pass the JLPT (as opposed to passing the exam yet failing at real-life situations):
YouTube
Surprised? But if you remember the age-old rule — “you learn better when you’re actually interested in the subject” — then this study method should make perfect sense to almost everyone.
I was surprised myself at how quickly I memorized the words I learned from Japanese videos than other media like books and manga (and, again, I’m a literature student).
I just watch the same kind of videos as I would watch in English: vlogs on living in Japan, particularly those that introduce cute cafes around the city, with “東京カフェちゃんねる” thereby being perfect for my perpetually famished soul.
And I don’t usually watch gossip/confession videos, but it’s exactly one of those videos that led me to the YouTube channel (“森ちゃんねる”) of one of my favorite J-Rock vocalists.
The tale of how a reporter contacted him about a potential scandalous incident involving someone that was supposedly him but looked not in the least like him let me learn some unique vocabulary (and some swears) like 名誉毀損 (meiyo kison, or “character defamation”) that’ll certainly spice up any conversation.
Through watching these different kinds of content, I was able to learn terminology about particular topics like food and celebrity news. Most importantly though, I was able to slowly pick up the flow of natural conversation and some common, casual phrases that I certainly won’t know by simply poring over a textbook.
Just like how many Japanese people have no confidence in their English because they only learned the textbook version, it’s important to learn how the language is actually used in daily life.
Make sure to turn on the auto-generated Japanese subtitles if there aren’t any on the video, so that you can jot down new kanji and make sure you’re following along with the dialogue.
森ちゃんねる’s video format follows closely that of Japanese variety/talk shows where subtitles are always present onscreen — only with YouTube, you have videos that you can actually pause, rewind, and even play at a slower speed until you can clearly hear everything someone says.
This is key to steadily improving your listening skills, which you’ll definitely need in order to respond properly in a conversation.
Anime
Now, it’ll also be great if you can watch anime with Japanese subtitles instead of the language you’re used to reading. Same with YouTube videos then, you can pause to search up new words or rewind to catch the correct intonation of a sentence.
But unless you’re already pretty fluent and are not watching some isekai anime with a wealth of unusual fantasy jargon, this might stretch out the usual twenty-minute viewing time to however long it’ll take you to survive the onslaught of Japanese words you’ll hardly ever need to use in daily life.
Which is why I’ve simply settled on my usual English subtitles in the case of anime though you’re definitely welcome to try if this method works better for you than other video media.
It’s definitely much more efficient if you could somehow turn studying into hobbies. It’ll be tiring at first but hold on for long enough and you’ll continuously be picking up language skills even when you’re relaxing at home.
Still, it’s important not to get too burned out, and since I myself am running out of things that I could simply call hobbies rather than “ways of contributing to my work portfolio,” I’ve decided to let my brain breathe when it comes to watching anime.
Of course, I’m still picking up new vocabulary and I’m constantly testing my listening skills just by watching an episode or two per day. I like to think of YouTube as being my true study ground (when has it not been for our generation?) whilst anime is where I test my improved knowledge.
Articles/games/manga/novels
Obviously, word-based media would be the best method towards improving your reading skills, and the only reason why I put them below YouTube and anime is due to the sheer amount of time it’ll take me to get through a single page/chapter. Spoilers: it takes a lot of time.
Articles aren’t bad at all. Any one of the top search results will teach you many of the jargon and associated vocabulary of that topic you happen to be curious of on that particular day.
And because of how search engines work, they’re likely to be written in clear, direct, short sentences, and you might actually grasp what the article is trying to tell you when you’re having to translate only a few words per paragraph.
If you know basic grammar and sentence structures, articles in Japanese will be good daily practice for your reading skills and possibly in developing your sense of simple yet effective writing in Japanese.
Moving on to fiction, games and manga can actually teach you a lot about natural conversation, again, depending on the setting/genre. It takes me three times to get through one chapter playing a game about university bands than a dark fantasy otome game set in Victorian England.
I’m also more likely to memorize and actually use some of the phrases in the former than the latter, but it’s also good to diversify and just expand your word list for possibly interesting, niche conversations in the future.
Novels are useful for that purpose as well. Not to mention, it’ll help build up your aesthetic sense since knowing how to read and write in a language does not mean you can write or truly appreciate its literature.
It’s important to note that all word-based media have different writing styles, and diversifying your knowledge includes getting used to all of them to make things easier for you in the long run.
Quizlet
Most of us probably wish we have photographic memory, but chances are we’d spend a couple of hours memorizing all of those new vocabulary and completely forget about them the next day.
That’s where flashcard apps for memorization, or anki, come in handy.
And yet I immediately wrote “Quizlet” as the title for this entry because it has served me well all the way back from middle school.
It used to offer a bunch of effective methods other than flashcards, like match the word with its meaning and randomized tests complete with multiple choices, true/false, and writing sections, but now you’d have to upgrade to the premium version to access these functions.
Still, even with only the flashcards, it was definitely a better way of memorization than writing down all of the words in your notebook and running through them every once in a while. With websites/apps like Quizlet, you can even revise during your commute with only your phone in hand.
Not to mention, I’ve made 50 flashcard sets and still haven’t hit the maximum limit. Definitely not a bad free version as far as free versions go (I’ll just say it — it’s more effective than Duolingo).
Japanese learning sites (JLPT Sensei, Tofugu, Japanese Ammo)
I’ll forever stand by the fact that it’s better to learn a language yourself through personally tailored methods than following a textbook curriculum, but it should be noted that:
- you’re still learning something if you’re doing the latter, and
- unfortunately, you do often need some sort of certification to prove your language ability when applying for a job or vocational school — and JLPT is the best proof there is.
But if you’re too stingy to buy those textbooks even after signing up for the JLPT like me, then the next best method is to check out “JLPT Sensei.” This website includes all the grammar and vocabulary lists for each level and includes a concise explanation with multiple sentence examples for each grammar point.
You can sign up as a member for five dollars a month and get unlimited, bulk downloads for flashcard packs, e-books, and study guides, but just like with Quizlet, even just methodically clicking on each grammar point for free is perfectly sufficient.
“Tofugu” helped me the most when I was still learning basic verb conjugations and is my go-to whenever I go searching for specific Japanese counters.
It also publishes reviews and lists on other Japanese learning resources like textbooks, podcasts, and other websites (for those who want to dig into the juicy details of a possible rivalry between them).
I first stumbled on “Japanese Ammo’s” YouTube channel rather than the website, with the host, Misa, making quite long videos that give you clear, in-depth explanations with plenty of examples on various grammar points.
For example, if you’re still confused about the difference between はず、べき、しなきゃ (all variations on “should/must”), Japanese Ammo does a good job in explaining to you the slight difference in connotation between them in simple terms.
The channel also has playlists for certain JLPT levels, but if you’re more of a reader than a listener then she also publishes article versions of her videos on the website, which are particularly useful since the different parts of speech are color-coded.
There’s no one right way to learn a language, and depending on how you study it, you might end up with a slightly different vocabulary list than your friend, for example, who prefers visual novels than watching YouTube videos and anime.
And even if you do go the textbook route and focus exclusively on JLPT, there’s no actual, official list, and words that are listed as N1 or N2 in an online dictionary like Jisho might appear on your N3 exam.
That’s why it’s important to diversify your study resources, especially if you want to improve all the main skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking for the long haul.
How you diversify, however, is ultimately up to you. Taking advice from Japanese archery, it’s important to find your own “form” or shakei that’ll help you shoot right for the center of your unique study target.
So, think about why you want to study the language, do some trial and error by reading other people’s study guides like this one, then ultimately patch up your own effective road to eventual Japanese fluency (already gets you motivated just thinking about it, huh? Let’s keep it up, everybody!).
