The JLPT exam is exactly 1 month away now. I registered for the JLPT 3 exam a while ago, scheduled for Sunday 6th December 2009 globally! I’ll be taking mine at SOAS, University of London. It’s a once a year thing, so hoping I won’t miss it!
I got in contact with a few possible tutors when I left Japan but things didn’t really fit (schedules and location etc) so I took the self study route. I’ve been at it since September and have an idea what I need to know to pass. As it stands, exactly one month before my JLPT 3 exam, I’ve yet to start learning the Kanji! I’ve just covered the grammer points and I’m hoping I’ll have time to go over all of them again as well as do some past papers! Now that sounds like a challenge.
I did surprisingly well in last year’s JLPT 4 but I did have about one and a half year’s worth of tuition by the time I took that exam. This time I have about 3 months for double the difficulty. Anyway, I’ll try my best as always.
I’ve used various sets of text books in the past including Minna no Nihongo but my favourite is the Genki series from Japan Times:
If you’re just starting out in Japanese, I highly recommend starting with Genki I. There is a sufficient amount of English explanation for all grammer points as well as plenty of exercises. If you have a lot of money to spare or a Japanese friend who can buy these for you in Japan (much cheaper over there), I’d recommend getting the CDs, workbooks and answers too! If you’re attending a class, your teacher will probably have all the audio tracks and make copies of the workbook exercises as homework, so in that case you don’t need to get it. But for me, doing self-study, I feel they’ve helped me a lot.
CDs and workbooks:
Answers to the workbook exercises don’t seem to be available in the UK but they are on www.amazon.co.jp, so you’ll need to know someone in Japan to get that.
After the exam is over, I’ll be looking to move on from “elementary” Japanese to intermediate. Any suggestions for a good text book?
