For a lot of you, the JLPT has been your major Japanese-related goal for the year. Now it’s over, this can bring with it a corresponding reduction in Japanese study. Drilling Japanese for the JLPT is effective for pass rates but probably unsustainable in the long term, nevermind whether such study gets you to your ultimate Japanese proficiency goals.
Food for Thought
Consider the following
- consistency is the key to improvement
- ‘breaks’ can quickly turn into ‘haven’t touched it for 6 months’
- use the opportunity for new goal identification
Consistency is the key to improvement
Basic fluency can be measured in a language and would include knowing a certain number of words, grammar points and kanji. So if you say that 3 thousand words, 100 grammar points and 500 kanji is the level of fluency you’re going for, it is an intimidating amount of data to remember.
But if you break it down to a year study plan, that’s 10 words a day, 2 grammar points a week and 10 kanji a week. Easily doable without paying for any textbook or any service whatsoever and would take 1-2 hours per day.
Gradual accumulation and revision is what worked for me and is much more effective than any style of cramming. So you always want to have some study plan in the background to ensure this process continues.
‘Breaks’ can quickly turn into ‘haven’t touched it for 6 months’
Pretty self-explanatory. Be careful that although you may have set your goal to be JLPT, of course the JLPT is not your only goal, and if it is you should get additional goals! So if you do want to take a break, do it but set a ‘return date’ for when you will resume study. Given that the JLPT is in December, I used to take a break until 2 January.
Having said that, I’ve tried to include Japanese in many parts of my life so I still am exposed to it daily. This can be things like putting your phone/operating system into Japanese, subscribing to Japanese channels on youtube etc. This is because often inertia/procrastination stops someone starting something, but once you get started you’ll get into a rhythm and get something done. So your main task is keep up even little bits of Japanese study rather than taking a total break from Japanese.
Use the opportunity for new goal identification
Goal setting is integral for success in life. What are you workings towards? What efforts are you making each day to achieve this? Have you achieved your goals already? Constant review should be undertaken to make sure you are updating your goals when they’re achieved, reviewing your progress to consider your strategies and of course some sort of visualisation/writing down of goals.
So perhaps you’re confident you passed whatever JLPT level you went for. OK, what next? The gaps between the JLPT levels are quite large and the exam is not cheap, so perhaps you don’t want to do the next level next year.
Plan for 1 year – read something lengthy
My suggestion would be to get some Japanese novel meant for young adults, a graded reader or pick a bunch of articles from mainstream Japanese news sites, and make your goal be to read it/them all and drill all the vocab/grammar/kanji you don’t know over the year.
Plan for 1 month – vocab and grammar improvement
Pick any piece of Japanese, preferably longish and above your level. Read through it and add all words, kanji, grammar into your Japanese notes. Try and spend 10 minutes every morning revising via an SRS system like Anki. Make time throughout the day to explore the kanji, words and grammar by googling them or using online dictionaries.
