Prep for JLPN1: 6 months on Bunpro?

Bunpro
#40

I don’t feel qualified to answer that. I haven’t touched N1 yet and only some N2 material :sweat_smile:
I had a rough time with pacing my grammar studies on my own, so I now fully rely on the pacing the material I follow has laid out for me. :see_no_evil:

There is a rough guideline that is brought up often, which I have found to be roughly true so far:
Each JLPT level takes twice the time the one before it did.

E.g. if JLPT N5 took you 200h, JLPT N4 would be 400h (an extra 200 coming from N5), JLPT N3 would be 800h (≙ +400), JLPT N2 1600h (≙+800), JLPT N1 3200h (≙+1600)

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#41

“Just over a year” is approximately the minimum possible time for wanikani, since it enforces going through the levels one by one and most levels take a week if you always get all the reviews right as soon as they become available. I think it’s not a good benchmark. It’s trivial to hit if you cheat, moderately annoying but doable if you already know all the kanji, and so on, but for a serious learner starting from zero, “just over a year” is only an implementation detail that has little to do with how fast one is supposed to be going…

I think the best way to approach tools like wanikani or bunpro is determining an amount of time you’re comfortable with spending on them every day and then managing lessons and reviews so that you hit that. These tools only require you to show up every day and do as you’re told, so the most important part of using them well is making sure you actually want to do that for a long time.

Side note about wanikani and getting a firm base in vocabulary - keep in mind that there’s a lot of vocabulary that wanikani won’t teach because it’s not commonly written with kanji. Based on that alone wanikani levels are not a good way to measure progress toward a JLPT test…

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#42

Just coming in to say that I think J-CAT became unavailable to take for individuals about a year ago or so.

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- from here https://j-cat.jalesa.org/?page_id=41

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#43

Oh dang :pensive:

#44

I mean no disrespect, but it has been a week since you posted this thread and I don’t believe you have increased your Bunpro level in that time. When are you planning on using this site to start climbing N levels? Is there going to be a kickoff date for the six month goal? I would also note Wanikani doesn’t really correspond with fluency or N level. The Wanikani forums have plenty of people who are level 60 who got trounced by the N1 test…

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#45

I will read the thread later, but one i have one question:

Why JLPT? Is there anything that is forcing you to take it? If not isn’t it better to aim at functional fluency?

Please take a look at that discussion:How the heck are JLPT N-levels decided?

there is nobody defending JLPT…

It would be a shame to lose somebody so well motivated only because he discover after hundreds upon hundreds hours spent on learning that he wasted time on something that is not useful to him at all. :neutral_face:

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#46

Definitely this. WK probably teaches you a handful of words compared to what’s on the actual test. WK is about teaching kanji, not vocab. Apart from loads of kanji vocab it doesn’t teach, there’s even more kana vocab it doesn’t teach. (It does teach some, but with kanji instead, which you may rarely find in native material.)

While you mentioned pushing back the test, which I think is in your favor, if you’re still serious about passing the N1, absolutely take a test before that. Even if it’s N5 or N4, I highly recommend it. There are practice tests online too, but taking it in person is honestly very different.

Also, just speaking from experience, being a higher level in WK is really going to hurt you on the lower level tests if you aren’t prepared, because they have so few kanji. I struggled a lot when I took the N4, and it was hilariously ironic to hear everyone else around me during breaks talk about how hard kanji was for them. xD

Reading matters much more than anything else, I assure you. You’ll pick up vocab, kanji, and grammar much better seeing it in a native environment than only using SRS. If you haven’t started reading, start reading asap. NHK Easy, manga, etc are good places to start. A lot of the test relies on your knowledge and SPEED of reading. (You need to have fast comprehension.)

Listening is also another big one, as that’s the last chunk of the test. If you haven’t started listening practice either, add that on now. But I’d, personally at least, prioritize reading if I had to choose between the two.

And just a reminder, this is a test on how good you know Japanese as a /test/, not on how good you know Japanese. You need to add test taking practice to your list as well. Kanzen Master books are nice for this, but also finding a teacher on Italki can make a big difference as well.

I can appreciate your enthusiasm though, it’s quite infectious :slight_smile: I’m rooting for ya’.

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#47

You made it seems more enjoyable than it really is :rofl: Manga will not help much with JLPT1. News about politics, finance and business will be more important. Rule of thump is: if you find reading material interesting it is probably not helping you with JLPT1… They want you to more less know business language not pop culture. Or am I wrong on that?

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#48

You’re not wrong, but if you’ve never read before, you’re in for one hell of a ride if you start with politics and business xD

Obviously the most ideal is to read stuff you’re already interested or motivated to, but if it’s higher than your level, or in this case, if you’re ~N5 trying to read N1, you’re gonna need all the patience in the world.

As was previously mentioned, having a solid foundation in the earlier levels of grammar is what makes passing N1 possible. That’s why I mentioned starting to read now, with easier material, to gain familiarity asap.

If I’m basing their grammar knowledge on their level, it’s honestly going to be a waste of time if they start with N1 material first.

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#49

Here is my recommendation about starting reading material for ambitious beginner like myself.

#50

The JLPT levels are somewhat based on frequency, which I assume is what causes a bunch of stuff that commonly shows up in manga but isn’t very common in other written materials like newspapers to end up in N1.

Also, who says that you can’t learn about finance or business from manga…

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#51

I got to N2 in just over a year. This was about 6 hours study a day. I would say that maybe my first 2 or even 3 months were wasted, as I (like most people learning Japanese) wasted a lot of time sifting through the enormous amount of garbage on the internet for ‘learning’ Japanese.

Keep in mind that is self assessed, I have never taken an official JLPT, just done practice tests and measured myself against other people that I know have taken the N2.

In saying that, if you study full time (9 hours), have a guide to prevent you using garbage resources, and also are able to practice listening very consistently, N1 might be possible in a year… Hypothetically.

Have you taken a language exam before? I saw you mentioned that you speak a few other languages? I have taken the C1 for Swedish (and passed). The C1, is the ‘hardest’ level for European languages. I would say it is about as hard to achieve C1 in most European languages as it is to achieve N3 in Japanese. That’s how much harder Japanese is.

I am no genius (not by a longshot), but I do work my butt off. Are you prepared to?

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#52

That’s great there are manga like this as well!

And just to clarify: I do believe you can learn Japanese with manga, and they are great at that. I wanted only point out that JLTP is consider by many professionals and native speakers to be a little bet weird with their grammar and vocab selection. :relaxed:

#53

According wkstats, roughly N3 (and N2) is covered 100% by level 51. And then there are +250 N1 kanji not covered by WK at all, but how necessary, someone with N1 could probably say.

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#54

If you are competitive then we can establish some wining parameters and do some a race or something. I don’t mind some friendly competition. You have advantage because you are studying much longe than me, but the fact that I am not aiming at JLPT is balancing it out (I don’t have to stress out if mistake な with の since I am mostly aiming at reading comprehension).

Catching me up on bunpro could be you first goal. I am only 2 weeks ahead.

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You can PM if you are interested. But I look for friendly competition only. If don’t want to exchange tips and stuff like that then I am out. If you want some info how on earth I am not overwhelmed with this pace with bunpro as my side quest, I can say how I use bunpro with other resource and maybe, just maybe, that will be useful for you.

I don’t know if we can do it in public though, since other people may be uneasy seeing our competition. For some reason people often find it offensive which is the biggest mystery in the universe for me :sweat_smile:

EDIT: One disclaimer. I sucks at sugar coating my opinions. If statement like “I disagree and here is why” make you uneasy and you prefer something like “I am probably wrong, so please correct me if that is so, but I read/watch that there is different perspective on this matter, and here is why. Please help me to figure out why they are wrong and you are right” then it strongly advise you to opt out xD I am pretty straightforward guy and I tend to forget people are emotionally attach to their views. :sweat_smile:

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#55

I completed Wanikaki in a little more than a year (I was averaging 7 days and 10h per level more or less), and I just took the N4 this past December, after more than 2 yrs studying Japanese daily…

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#56

Oh I would be interested to hear your about your techniques, since they seemed to work for you in the past. How did you decide, which techniques worked for you?

And I find WK much more easier to use as a learning tool on its own than bunpro. Learning to read a kanji and it’s meaning is so much easier than understanding the use of different grammar points.

And if you want to pass the higher JLPT tests, invest into listening practice.

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#57

At some point I will find out what kind of drugs you crabigator racehorses take. I burned out after level 32 and had to fight my way at least 3 times through a huge review pile :wink:

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#58

I did the same my first go around. On lvl30 again now after making it to 34 last year, leaving it for a fair few months and coming back to a review pile bigger than I care to think about. I’d fallen off so many times along the way and just decided to wipe the entire thing clean and start again last May. I’ve managed to keep it up since though. It’s all on setting a routine and time aside to do reviews every day, even better if you can chip away at whatever pops up every couple of hours rather than doing one big bulk review 5mins before bed. Not gonna lie, it’s easier for me now I’m commuting and have a job where I have some free time at my desk.

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#59

I found something that maybe interesting in this subject:

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If you look at people with kanji (eg Chinese) they basically cut the time in 2. And it is important to know that Japanese phonetic system is not even similar. They only have advantage of the knowing what kanji means, and sharing some kanji combinations (but that can be problem as well: 手紙 is letter in Japanese but toilet paper in Chinese). They have to learn the readings just like all of us.

So maybe Heisig method is the way to go if you want to be quick.

You memorise the meaning of kanji first in effective way and then you go with the rest of the plan? Keep in mind that this number (2150h) is for average student without smart study plan (whatever smart plan would mean) and extraordinary motivation. I could Imagine somebody could be able to cut time in 2 again. So you get 1075h + 150h (i guess) to remember kanji, and you have not so bad result. If you are super human and can do 12h of effective studying a day it could be theoretically possible in about 102 day :scream:

But that probably just playing with numbers. I don’t thing there more than a few people on earth able to do something like that. But knowing how much kanji helps is useful.

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