Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (August 06, 2023)

5 comments

1. I’m a month out before a trip to Japan – what should I focus on studying for the next four weeks?
   I’ve been studying Japanese for about 8 months now and am nearing the end of N3 (I’ve finished the Anki deck I was working on it with, am doing a Memrise course with a few hundred extra words I will probably finish in the next week or two, do both native and graded reading every day and plan on going through Jisho’s N3 words list after I’ve finished the memrise course). I’m not the kind of person who thinks I need to stick only to the JLPT approved words list, but I planned to finish N3 before I left for my trip, and with only a month out I don’t think “just start N2” is the smartest plan of action, I’ll save that for after the trip.
   Of course, I still don’t feel very confident. Particularly with regards to having to interact with store clerks, but I also don’t know what I don’t know, and I figure there’s going to be a lot of things I encounter I have no way of deciphering (not opposed to using my phone’s translate app for stuff, but I’d rather not if I can afford it.)
   Aside from watching YouTube videos breaking down customer service conversations over and over again, what would I be best off doing in these last four weeks? Please suggest whatever, vocab topics that could be helpful, stuff I can watch or listen to, exercises I can do, just anything. I’m just looking for some more pointed direction because I’ve got time I don’t want to waste meandering around on stuff that won’t be practically useful for tourism.
   So far, the vocab topics I’ve got on my list to work on are:
   – Japanese foods (already started these)
   – Major city names
   – Vocab relating to sales/stores
   – Animals (plan on going to some wildlife parks)
   Thanks for any suggestions guys!

2. Throughout the four years of Chinese that I learned in school, I was always told what vocab to learn. Now that I am the one guiding my studies with this new language I am wondering if learning too much vocab will harm efficiency and my ability to recall. Just wondering if anyone has personal experience or wisdom to share regarding this topic because I am currently trying to balance genki vocab, 2k/6k, and WaniKani.

3. I’m learning Japanese through a class via Genki I/II, and I have a question about verb phrases. How do you join them with other verbs? So far, we learned how to make verb phrases using の to say things like “ねむのが好きです” with regards to like and dislikes. When you have a phrase that uses two verbs where one verb serves as the ‘object’ for another, how do you use it?

   Ex: To prepare for studying, where prepare is the verb and studying is the object of prepare.

   …oops.My bad. I meant 寝る above

4. does anyone have tips for remembering or practicing grammar?

   kanji comes fairly easy to me but i’m struggling to remember grammar points and anything other than the basic 6 or so verb conjugations. does anyone have tips or methods that worked for them (other than just reading more, unless that’s it hehe) it feels like i have to keep googling/referencing the same things over and over and they don’t stick

5. does anyone know how to setup microsoft’s IME to be able to type kanji? I’ve been at this for a good while and can’t seem to figure it out for the life of me.