昨日、勉強会が始まりました。
@appleeatingapple and I started our group study or benkyoukai (勉強会) during this long weekend. What prompted this, how we plan to continue to do it, and anything in between will be in another post, if I won’t get lazy. For now, I just want to focus on the study session.
We're studying for JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) N2. Basically, in JLPT, the lower the number is, the harder it gets.
- N5 & N4 -> beginner level
- N3 & N2 -> intermediate level
- N1 (& N2) -> advanced level
We could have started learning vocabulary but because I didn't have the same book as what Apple has, it would be difficult to study it. I didn't want us to share one book. It would be great if both of us had the book. In the next session though, we will start with vocabulary as I already bought the same book before we parted ways.
Since we have the same grammar book, we started on it. It was definitely not the best idea because there were many words unknown to us. It's not the end of the world yet though, it's an opportunity to also learn a few vocabulary while learning grammar.
The book we're using is called Shinkanzen Master (新完全マスター in Japanese). I've been using the same when I studied for N3 and I think it's a good book overall. I remember some people recommended this book and it helped me greatly during N3 so I believe it will be great for N2 as well.
The only problem is - for N2 Grammar (文法), Shinkanzen Master doesn't have English translations so this part is where it gets difficult. Unless you have a tutor or a teacher to discuss this with you, then you'll be having a hard time like me. I could ask my Japanese boyfriend but he's having a hard time translating the lessons to me and just says Japanese people just know. It's hard to ask randomly because they just know. I know, my partner isn't really the best teacher. 😂
By the way, I just checked my N3 Grammar book and it has English translations on it. As to why N2 doesn't have, probably because they assumed we already understood Japanese. 😒 Or maybe it's easy to explain it in Japanese. I could only assume though.
The 1st section had 5 grammar points, and each of them have examples. I don't really like to study without writing it down. I want to write them so I could remember them. Are you the same type as me?
I wrote some notes in red ink in my notes. I like doing my notes like this. It’s colorful, true, but I like it this way. I don’t want to write anything on my book, it’s all in my notebook. I don’t know why, but I just want to keep the book like new. I can always check my notes if I want to review.
After we studied the first section, we took the test. I got 17 correct answers out of 25. 68% isn’t too bad I think but I need to improve this. I had some careless mistakes.
And of course, we discussed the items that we didn’t get right. It was a very healthy discussion. I was able to understand on some mistakes because we were discussing them.
Anyways, we finished the 1st section and this group study helped a lot. We were able to discuss what we think and understood for every grammar point, so even when it's all in Japanese, we were able to survive by helping each other. It's also good that you have someone to discuss with you, especially in the most comfortable language we use. Had I studied on my own, there would be some things I won't understand.
We planned to study 2 sections but it took us 2.5 hours, almost 3 hours just to finish one section. My brain was fried afterwards. I couldn't take another section. My brain just wouldn't function anymore after one section. We decided to end the group study session there as it's also about to be dinnertime. Time to eat and play! 😉
Too bad that it seems we won't be having another study session this month anymore because Apple's schedule is so full. I think our next session is on the 1st weekend of August. Til then, I hope we won't forget what we learned from the 1st session.
Thanks for reading!
See you around! じゃあ、またね！
With love,
All photos are taken using my phone unless stated otherwise.