Saturday, November 03, 2018

One more month to JLPT N3!

The end is near! Winter is coming! Last year I chickened out and went for the much easier N4. This year I am doing the much harder N3. Harder as in I actually need to study.

My initial strategy was the same as what i was doing last year, do sample exam questions, reverse engineer and try to figure out the formula to the question but that proved very difficult because I do not know so many basic Japanese grammar things.

I can usually whittle down the four answers to two but the two always sound right to me which is my main problem. I do not know why things are right or wrong, only that they sound right. Plus, I find googling for reasons why doesn't really work.

I've ditched reverse engineering the answers and I'm slowly working my way through the grammar speedmaster book. Things are starting to make my sense now and there are things that I couldn't believe and things that are so simple that I never even realised.

Its do or die time. Don't want to waste $90 exam fee to go to waste. Once I finish my first grammar book, I'll try to finish a second one before jumping into the mock exam book. I'm not going to do vocabulary because hopefully years of jdorama and manga and gaming will have provided me with enough vocabulary knowledge.

I signed up for JLPT to force me to study grammar. I have no idea if it will get any better after this. (I doubt it but its opened my eyes to a lot of basic things I never realised) I've got no choice but to put in the effort this final month.

5 comments:

  1. Gankooyaji8:13 pm

    頑張てください!N3 really separates the men from the boys (if I may be permitted a gendered metaphor). Once you master it, so much more becomes logical and clear in the language. Not to mention the kanji — you can actually understand whole passages without looking anything up. Looking forward to celebrating your success!

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  2. Anonymous9:48 am

    have you read tae kim's guide??? if not, i recommend it.

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  3. All the best, you can do it! I don't know what textbooks you use, but I've seen the intermediate students using Tobira.

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  4. We're all cheering you on. ♥

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  5. Thanks all. I'm using 3 JLPT books I got from Japan. They are the N3文法スピードマスター、新完全マスター文法N3 and 完全模擬N3. Very generic names.

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