Tips for Passing JLPT N5 and N4 - Vocabulary Part

Edit: There's a part 2 for these tips...
PART 2: More tips are in this next article for studying for and passing the JLPT N5 and JLPT N4:
 
Part 1:
Next JLPT is fast approaching again. Meanwhile, here are some (hopefully) useful tips.

1) Memorize the hiragana and katakana immediately since the test will be entirely in ひらがな, カタカナ, 漢字。

• Use these hiragana practice writing worksheets
  
• print a complete list of hiragana and katakana for use anywhere
  
• study how to write and read gya, gyu, gyo, and use of small tsu
• use hiragana / katakana memorization software - for desktop or mobile
• set your computer desktop wallpaper to a hiragana chart such as this
• try reading words or texts in hiragana / katakana such as this:

[あばなかかばさなぱらあこ！」

2) Know exactly what you have to study. There is no official list, but an approximate one can be found in the JLPT resource page for N5. Meguro Language Center (MLC) also has a good list that is ready for printout that includes vocabulary, kanji, and grammar points in one pdf.

• ~700+ vocabulary words
• ~120+ grammar points
• ~100 kanji

• (MLC) also has a good list of verbs you should know
  
• and adjectives you should know
  

3) Knowing what to study, break it down into daily chunks.

• subscribe to the yookoso mailing list - this will send you a grammar-a-day (sentences) and a kanji-a-day email for your selected level

• Vocabulary is KING - study vocabulary daily using renshuu.org. (renshuu means practice) Create a user account, and create a daily schedule, selecting JLPT Level N5. The advantage of using this over paper-based memorization is the spaced repetition - you will be quizzed more on the words you get incorrectly, at the "right time"
• If your computer has no Internet connection, you may use Anki - a flashcard-type software (anki means memorization). Make sure to download the cards also.
  
• Given 70 days to study, memorize 25 vocabulary per day (finished in 40 days), 3 kanji per day (finished in 33 days), 3 grammar points per day and allot the rest of the days for REVIEW.
  

3) Check out the exam format and try it out:

• The official JLPT page has a test guide. The 3 parts of the test are vocabulary, grammar (reading), and listening. To pass the exam, you must pass ALL 3 parts. The passing score is not yet fixed, I think (probably statistically determined).
  
• check the sample jlpt questions on the official jlpt website
  
• check out past exams (sorted by year - click on the left side) from this JLPT StudyPage
• You can also purchase the complete and official sample exams (or the official book trial examination questions) here with CD for listening: 

                

• JLPT N5 official book
• JLPT N4 official book 
• JLPT N3 official book

• JLPT REVIEW AND STRATEGY BOOKS Highly recommended for a more focused and efficient review. Please check out this very useful list of Japanese study and review books that have worked for me really well and for many others.  A sampling of recommendations in the list is below:

     

4) Use all your resources and gadgets aside from the websites and reviewers mentioned

• Use your phone's capacity to play music - load JLPT listening MP3 files, Japanese podcasts - iTunes has a lot of these, spoken vocabulary files, easy Japanese songs, and Minna no Nihongo conversations (recommended) and listen on your way to work in the bus, in the bedroom, in the bathroom...
• Better yet, if you have an Android / iPhone, load JLPT apps into it and memorize vocabulary flashcards while listening to your Japanese MP3s. I noticed that even if an app is a paid app, its JLPT N5 reviewer is usually free. My favorite apps: Obenkyo and HumanJapanese. 
• For Obenkyo, you can write hiragana / katakana / kanji, can quiz on vocabulary, can see the stroke order, quiz on kanji for your JLPT level. Free for all JLPT levels. 

PART 2: More tips are in this next article for studying for and passing the JLPT N5 and JLPT N4:
http://jlptdekiru.blogspot.com/2014/12/even-more-tips-for-passing-jlpt-n5-and.html

Even More Tips for Passing the JLPT - N5, N4, N3, N2, and N1

0) Use ALL the study time you can use - 
Note: just before sleeping is the most effective time to memorize stuff
When you wake up, is also a good time. In the bathroom, in the bedroom, in the
train / bus / commute. Use all your senses - your eyes, your ears, get creative
where you post your notes. 


1) Try a daily email subscription list - select your JLPT level, enter your email address and it'll send you one kanji a day and one grammar point per day for the rest of your life until you unsubscribe. Click here for the list details.

2) Try online study sites
The two recommended study sites are....... 

December 2015 JLPT Application Deadlines per Country

Calling all JLPT test-takers!

The JLPT will be held on December 6, 2015.
However, application closes somewhat early - around September 2015,
roughly 3 months earlier.

Application periods and last days, due dates or deadlines of application or registration for the JLPT differ per country:

• Philippines (thru the office)
• Manila: August 4 - September 4, 2015
• Cebu: Aug 4 - Sept 4 Friday
• India (thru email)
• India: Sept 11, 2015 Friday
• Myanmar (Burma) - finished!
• Yangon: August 10-23
• Mandalay: August 26-29 Saturday
• Malaysia http://www.jlsm.org/japanese-language-proficiency-test.html
• Sept 1-13, 2015 Sunday
• UK (online application) 
• London: until October 1st
• Japan (online or by mail application):
• Sept 1 to Sept 30. 5,500 YEN
• Hokkaido (Sapporo, Asahikawa),Aomori,Akita, Iwate, Miyagi,  Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gumma, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Niigata, Toyama, Fukui, Ishikawa, Yamanashi, Nagano, Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi, Mie, Shiga, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, Nara, Wakayama, Okayama, Shimane, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Kagawa, Tokushima, Ehime, Kochi, Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Oita, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, Okinawa.
• USA (online application)
• until September 25

For others, please click on this link to find your country's organizing institution for JLPT:

http://www.jlpt.jp/e/application/overseas_list.html

An article from the Japan Times an article about disasters, 

it offers an opportunity for targeted vocabulary learning within the topic of disaster prevention. 
You could even make some flashcards out of this!

-------------

"When disaster strikes in Japan, keep calm and carry a diaper

You’ve probably noticed that September is the month of bōsai (防災, disaster prevention). Schools and companies hold drills, TV news programs tell you repeatedly to check that your kinkyū hinan baggu(緊急避難バッグ, emergency pack) is stocked and ready. In homes, married couples have conversations (or arguments) about where the flashlight is, why it’s not always in the same place, and whose fault that is. It’s a Japanese couples thing.

Long before the triple calamities of March 11, 2011, Japan as a nation had been disaster-prone — a historical, ancestral fact of life that has made the Japanese hyper-hazard-conscious. Consider the word saigai(災害, disaster), comprised of the kanji characters wazawai (災い, mishap or bad luck) and gai (害, hazard).

The Japanese disaster comes in many forms, and saigai include tensai(天災, literally, heaven-sent disasters — i.e., natural ones) like jishin(地震, earthquakes), kōzui (洪水, floods) and kaji (火事, fires). On a smaller scale, there’s the roster of small catastrophes called sainan (災難); these include everything from mushisasare (虫さされ, mosquito bites) and hage (ハゲ, losing your hair) to wakare (別れ, break-ups),rikon (離婚, divorce) and other relationship troubles.

It’s drummed into us from birth that the quicker we realize calamity can strike at any moment, the better we’ll be prepared to live out life on this archipelago. Nani ga okoru ka wakaranai (何が起こるかわからない, “There’s no telling what might happen”) and Sonae areba urei nashi (備えあれば憂いなし, “Be prepared and you will have no regrets”) are refrains we hear from the cradle.

Japanese lessons in Manila: Marugoto Conversational Japanese

MARUGOTO Conversational Japanese for Everyone

Elementary 2 A2 Module 1

The course is for those who have completed Marugoto Elementary 1 A2 Module 2, or those who have an equivalent background in Nihongo, and are interested in further developing their Japanese language proficiency and understanding of the Japanese culture. Communicative language activities are provided and used within the context of Japanese settings.

Term	September 28 – November 9, 2015 (Mondays & Thursdays)
Time	6:20p.m. – 8:30p.m. (Total: 24hrs)
Venue	The Japan Foundation, Manila
Tuition Fee	Php4,500 (Inclusive of book)
Age	At least 17 years old
Class size	Maximum 16 persons per class (The course opens with at least TEN (10) registered participants.)

At the end of the course, learners will be able to:

1.    Understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment).

2.    Communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters.

3.    Describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need clearly.

Submit duly accomplished application form to the JFM together with the payment on or before September 18, 2015 (Friday). For placement examinees, please submit the duly accomplished application form on or before September 11, 2015 (Friday).

For those who have not taken “Marugoto Elementary 1 A2”, there will be a qualifying level check test and interview scheduled on September 15, 2015 (Tuesday) and September 16, 2015 (Wednesday) from 2:30p.m. - 6:00p.m. Please contact Ms. Kimy Tanmo (nihongo1@jfmo.org.ph) for schedule reservations.

Ave Maria no Inori, a study in translation

If there's the Our Father in Japanese, 

then there's also the Ave Maria prayer. 

• In 2011, a new version of Ave Maria was introduced in Japan. 

The commentaries about the translation is good to read, as reference to the choice words used in translation, even for such a short prayer, a lot of discussion conspired. 


From the source: http://www.ucanews.com/news/japan-bishops-finalize-ave-maria-text/22860


Here is the final text of the prayer in Japanese, with the official Latin and English texts provided in parallel for reference. Each numbered passage has accompanying notes summarizing the most important clarifications offered in their guide.


JAPANESE:

Megumi ni michita kata,
Shu wa anata to tomo ni oraremasu.
Anata wa onna no uchi de shukufuku sare,
go-tainai no on-ko Iesu mo shukufuku sarete imasu.

Kami no haha Sei Maria, 
watashi-tachi tsumi-bito no tame ni, 
ima mo shi o mukaeru toki mo, 
o-inori kudasai. Amen.

Foreigners Fill Gaps in Japan Workforce

In Japan, Foreigners Increasingly Fill Workforce Gaps

Responding to labor shortage, nation that once shunned non-Japanese workers is overcoming its resistance

TOKYO—Non-Japanese are taking a bigger role in powering Japan’s economy as a labor shortage impels the country to overcome its long-standing resistance to foreign workers.

With hundreds of thousands of jobs going unfilled, businesses from noodle shops to auto-parts factories are squeezing every existing channel to get help.

“Japanese businesses need workers, and the number of Japanese college graduates keeps decreasing,” said Toshihiro Menju, a managing director at the Japan Center for International Exchange who supports increased immigration as an answer to the nation’s sluggish economy. “That gap will continue to rise.”

Many Asians come to Japan as students who are allowed to work nearly 30 hours a week. Others qualify as technical trainees under an internship program that aims to teach them skills they can bring back home.

That program has been criticized by the U.S. and international organizations as an avenue for cheap labor that lacks effective oversight or protections. Japan has described it as a philanthropic effort and said it would step up oversight.

ENLARGE

Still other foreigners work without proper visas.

In 2014, there were some 788,000 legal foreign workers in Japan, up 15% over a two-year period to about 1.4% of the legal workforce, according to the Ministry of Labor.

Anh Mai Thi, 28 years old, arrived in Tokyo in late 2012 from her hometown near Hanoi, spurred by an interest in the Japanese language. Back home, Ms. Thi studied economics and worked for a company that sought to expand Internet coverage in rural areas.

Now, she works two part-time jobs—as a cashier at a supermarket and greeting customers at a ramen shop—to make ends meet while attending vocational school at night. “You have to work a part-time job to live in Japan,” she said.

Economists see Japan’s aging and declining population as one of the biggest challenges to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s quest to get the country growing again. Unemployment is near the lowest level in decades as open positions go unfilled. Yet many Japanese are reluctant to take manual-labor jobs at the wages available.

ENLARGE

Anh Mai Thi, who came to Tokyo from her hometown near Hanoi, Vietnam. She now works two jobs while attending vocational school at night.PHOTO: LISA DU/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

“I think foreign workers can be the golden egg that will produce,” said Mr. Menju, the immigration advocate.

Others say Japan already has enough foreign workers. Some cite difficulties with integration and concerns that Japanese workers could lose out from an influx of foreigners willing to accept lower pay.

READ MORE AT THE ORIGINAL SOURCE:

Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-japan-foreigners-increasingly-fill-workforce-gaps-1440987888