I passed N4 some months ago finished my Japanese course that covered to the N4, using the Minna no nihongo shokyuu. Now what should I do next? How should I begin the N3 journey? The Minna is not really good for it as Im aware.
I’ve carried on with the Intermediate Minna no Nihongo books – close to finishing Intermediate II. What are your concerns with it?
Quartet 1. Beware the jump from N4 to N3 is a quite big. Namely you will find that the amount of kanji significantly increases. Also, vocab tends to be more diverse and specific at this point.
The way to overcome it would be to do some kanji priming. There’s this 500 kanji look and learn book from the Japan times, same publisher as Genki. It’s illustrated and helpful in learning 500 kanji that will be useful for N3. Or you can start reading and doing RTK. Alternatively, if you do not want to grind/prime kanji, you can simply study the vocab lists of each chapter in quartet before attempting the chapter. Really try to remember the kanji of the vocab as you go.
This great thing about Minna no Nihongo is that it is written in Japanese only, so you are should be acclimatised to reading textbooks without English already. Unless you only studied through Minna no Nihongo through the supplementary English booklet. But having pass N4 is a good indicator that you are discipline and competent enough for N3.
Passing N4 is a good predictor of eventually passing N3 more so than passing N5 is a predictor of passing N4 (my intuition). This is because you likely already possess the tools and skills by passing N4. You just need to know what to do to.
In addition to textbook learning (quartet). You should start to use Japanese only content such as anime with Japanese subtitles, YouTube Japanese educational (jlpt,grammar, comprehensible Japan, nihongo no mori, Japanese with yuta, あかね）videos and reading.
The transition from never watching any Japanese content without English translation to doing so is not as big as it *appears* to be. ESP at N4 level. A lot of these YouTube channels like Japanese with yuta, utilises so much easy vocabulary that it’s manageable to follow. If you find these videos still too hard, work on listening comprehension from Minna no Nihongo textbooks/workbooks. You also need to start reading a lot to internalise grammar, vocab, and meet new vocab. For me I like to use a second textbook to supplement reading. And that would be Tobira. In fact I cycle between quartet and Tobira. I feel that Tobira is slightly harder and uglier to look at? But Tobira text is really good. By the end of each Tobira chapter you would feel that your Japanese progress is increasing at a palpable pace. Other reading tools includes satori reader. Get the subscription. Graded readers are also pretty good. But even better than satori reader and graded readers would be assessment books like 新完全マスター. I am using their n4 and n3 grammar, reading, kanji, and listening books. Every text printed in the book is another opportunity for reading.
Good luck. TLDR, intermediate plateau exists because people don’t know what to do. It’s now less of a motivation and skill issue as compared to people trying to pass n5. The solution in life to not knowing what to do usually can be resolved by throwing huge amount of resource at it. If you only use one resource, for example Tobira, or anime immersion, you won’t go far unless you are very discipline because you can feel the difficulty. But if you bombard it with different resources, you don’t get bored and each new resource you rotate to will give the illusion of ease compared to the last. It is always about finding the resource that is at just the correct level for you.
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I’ve carried on with the Intermediate Minna no Nihongo books – close to finishing Intermediate II. What are your concerns with it?
Quartet 1. Beware the jump from N4 to N3 is a quite big. Namely you will find that the amount of kanji significantly increases. Also, vocab tends to be more diverse and specific at this point.
The way to overcome it would be to do some kanji priming. There’s this 500 kanji look and learn book from the Japan times, same publisher as Genki. It’s illustrated and helpful in learning 500 kanji that will be useful for N3. Or you can start reading and doing RTK.
Alternatively, if you do not want to grind/prime kanji, you can simply study the vocab lists of each chapter in quartet before attempting the chapter. Really try to remember the kanji of the vocab as you go.
This great thing about Minna no Nihongo is that it is written in Japanese only, so you are should be acclimatised to reading textbooks without English already. Unless you only studied through Minna no Nihongo through the supplementary English booklet. But having pass N4 is a good indicator that you are discipline and competent enough for N3.
Passing N4 is a good predictor of eventually passing N3 more so than passing N5 is a predictor of passing N4 (my intuition). This is because you likely already possess the tools and skills by passing N4. You just need to know what to do to.
In addition to textbook learning (quartet). You should start to use Japanese only content such as anime with Japanese subtitles, YouTube Japanese educational (jlpt,grammar, comprehensible Japan, nihongo no mori, Japanese with yuta, あかね）videos and reading.
The transition from never watching any Japanese content without English translation to doing so is not as big as it *appears* to be. ESP at N4 level. A lot of these YouTube channels like Japanese with yuta, utilises so much easy vocabulary that it’s manageable to follow. If you find these videos still too hard, work on listening comprehension from Minna no Nihongo textbooks/workbooks.
You also need to start reading a lot to internalise grammar, vocab, and meet new vocab. For me I like to use a second textbook to supplement reading. And that would be Tobira. In fact I cycle between quartet and Tobira. I feel that Tobira is slightly harder and uglier to look at? But Tobira text is really good. By the end of each Tobira chapter you would feel that your Japanese progress is increasing at a palpable pace.
Other reading tools includes satori reader. Get the subscription. Graded readers are also pretty good. But even better than satori reader and graded readers would be assessment books like 新完全マスター. I am using their n4 and n3 grammar, reading, kanji, and listening books. Every text printed in the book is another opportunity for reading.
Good luck. TLDR, intermediate plateau exists because people don’t know what to do. It’s now less of a motivation and skill issue as compared to people trying to pass n5. The solution in life to not knowing what to do usually can be resolved by throwing huge amount of resource at it. If you only use one resource, for example Tobira, or anime immersion, you won’t go far unless you are very discipline because you can feel the difficulty. But if you bombard it with different resources, you don’t get bored and each new resource you rotate to will give the illusion of ease compared to the last. It is always about finding the resource that is at just the correct level for you.