Study plans and JLPT
Practical guides on speaking, grammar, pronunciation, listening, and study planning, written for learners who want to use Japanese in real life.
Study plans and JLPT · Page 14
What to Do in the Last Week Before the JLPT
Nothing you learn in the final week will reach the exam in a usable state, which is liberating rather than discouraging.
5 min readTracking Japanese Study Without It Becoming the Study
Hours studied is the number everyone tracks and one of the weakest predictors of whether you are improving.
5 min readLearning Japanese Well Without Spending Much
Almost everything that determines whether you learn Japanese is free, and almost everything that is expensive is optional.
5 min readFinding Japanese Learning Material Aimed at Adults
Most beginner Japanese material assumes you are a student with unlimited time and an interest in school vocabulary.
5 min readReading Japanese With a Dictionary, or Without
Looking up every word and looking up nothing are both legitimate ways to read, and doing something in between is usually worse than either.
5 min readDeciding What Not to Study in Japanese
Every learner leaves things out; the difference is whether the omissions were chosen or happened by accident.
5 min readHow Often Should You Practise Speaking Japanese?
Two hours of Japanese once a week and twenty minutes five times a week are not the same investment, even though the totals look similar.
7 min readPractising Japanese Speaking on Your Commute
Forty minutes twice a day is more Japanese time than most learners get anywhere else, and almost all of it goes into silent reading that does nothing for speaking.
7 min readHow to Practise Speaking Japanese Outside Japan
Living outside Japan does not stop you learning Japanese, but it does quietly remove the one thing that makes speaking improve.
7 min readHow to Get More Out of a Japanese Tutor Session
An hour with a tutor can be the most valuable hour of your week or a pleasant conversation you have paid for, and the difference is decided before it starts.
7 min readWhy Living With a Japanese Partner Does Not Fix Your Japanese
You speak Japanese at home every day and your Japanese has not moved in a year, which is one of the most common and least discussed situations in language learning.
7 min readLearning Japanese as a Nepali Speaker
Nepali gives you the shape of a Japanese sentence for nothing, which puts you ahead of most learners before you start.
7 min readPractical guides
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