^ Duraraji is hilarious

I like Hanazawa Kana too ^^

I see what you did there

I did the whole anime/manga thingy, though I'm more of a listener than a reader. When I took the L2, it was my choukai that really helped me score the test.
Over the years, I've immersed myself in many other aspects of Japanese culture. Rurouni Kenshin got me started on the whole samurai thingy and I watched lots of chambara (sword fighting) / jidaigeki movies, eventually developing a taste for haiku and Heian poetry and Kendo.
From watching Azumanga Daioh and Abenobashi Mahou Shotengai as well as popular TV variety programs, I developed an interest in dialects, especially Kansai dialect. Some of my Japanese acquaintances have remarked I have the mild singsong lilt of a Kansai speaker even when I speak hyoujungo

I did both reading and listening while playing vn.
One can easily be distracted by the voices

Me, I'm a weird case. On a hand I've just finished Minna no Nihongo Book 1, which is roughly the standard of JLPT N5. But my kanji goes far beyond that, I can recognise, write and speak most kanji up to N3 level, probly due to the fact I'm chinese, and I'm a hardcore enough otaku to find song lyrics of animes and study them real hard lol. But then I realise that JLPT doesn't really make you that good in Japanese, at least not in the early stages since I'm having weird questions pop up here and then when I'm studying, hence I realised I need more reading if I seriously want to be good in Japanese. There's this newspapers articles published for kids in Japan, and what I do is to get hold of them and read them through word by word, trying to understand the grammar and looking up words I don't know. This is quite effective and less tiring compared to reading LNs (although I do read LN at the same time). I want to be up to a level where and I can converse naturally in Japanese, not just passing a damn test which doesn't really proof anything. Long way to go yet, but I won't give up.

Most Chinese educated Malaysians never have problems with kanji, maybe just experience a bit of cognitive dissonance because some 10 to 20% having slightly different meaning. But it will not be of great help in passing JLPT until at least N3 or above. Their biggest problems have always been listening and speaking because many are passive learners who don't speak much in the classroom

Babbling and muttering stuff in Japanese could help you a bit. I guess...
Or try to find someone who is Japanese or a Malaysian who can speak the language naturally.
Also, mixing yourself with people at Japanese clubs and societies here could help, maybe...

Not so much babbling but making efforts to form sentences and express yourself, mistakes be damned. I enjoy it when students go out of their way to form outlandish but grammatically correct sentences. Being adventurous and trying things out is an integral part of making the language your own. When I was a student I'd try to make the most complicated anime flavoured sentence I could think of whenever the teacher asked us to use a mundane grammar pattern. It helps test the limits of your ability and is part of the process of learning to "think" in Japanese.

Pretty agree with you here.
Mistakes are bound to happen while learning something. Once you realized those mistakes you have made, you will eventually learn the correct ones.
The most important thing is your very own effort to learn it

Heh, at least its a great help memorising the shape of those kanjis, 10 seconds and I'm done with a kanji, although my strokes may not be the correct ones. And I train my listening through tons of animes. Didn't have much opportunity to practise my speaking yet, since nobody around me is capable nor interested in the Japanese language, but I will practise my speaking once I get into college and its Japanese club.

Man...I'm jealous of you Chinese-educated people, much easier in learning kanji. This is probably the only time and moment I regretted not learning some Chinese back in my school days (even my sis went for tuition for a bit). So I gotta study Kanji from scratch now. So far, I can only write up to 80 kanji. Still tonnes more to cover.
T__T

And I find my listening better because I've been watching dramas/anime for the past 10 yrs, but reading is still slow So I'm training now.

This post has been edited by avanpiper: Jul 13 2013, 09:47 PM

ayam banana too, but I progressed farther than 90% of my chinese-educated contemporaries. You want to master a new language? Passion and persistence matter more.

I just passed the MEXT scholarship qualifying examination. Only 8 people passed it and are going for the final stage of interview. But my dad would never let me go to Japan, since I already have a scholarship bound for UK.

I'm considering taking an intensive course in the language and it boils down to either ICLS or A To Z Language Centre.

Would love to hear your opinions on either of these 2 language centres as there aren't many recent reviews online on both. Thanks!

Learning kanji is hard

This post has been edited by MisterMRK: Jul 25 2013, 06:37 PM

ikr

Em,I currently learning Japanese too. But now only level 1.

Agree..

n1 is the most powerful level.
the least powerful is n5.

A lot of people are confused between the N levels and the class levels. That's because a lot of the schools market their classes as starting from "level 1" and in our mind we already associate starting level with no.1. They should give a more descriptive name like "Elementary 1"
I saw in /k someone criticize a guy with N1 offering lessons as saying he is 'not qualified enough'. Made himself look stupid in my opinion.

No it's really easy actually compared to learning how to hold an actual conversation with a Japanese.