Hajimemashite...Yoroshuku onegaishimasu...
I have started learning Japanese. I am working really hard to improve my Japanese skills. I first started with Hiragana, Katakana letters and made them thorough so that I can read some basic things from the textbooks(Minna no nihongo & Shin nihongo no Kiso are the books that I am using) and other sources(Youtube video lessons and cartoons). Anyway, I would like to share with you what I have learned and what I am now learning. I am happy to share with you my ways of learning Japanese and some interesting techniques that I felt useful during my learning sessions.
1 Hiragana: these are the basic Japanese letters and all the Japanese words can be written using these letters. There are 46 hiragana.
2.katakana: these sounds the same as that of the hiragana letters, but they are used to write the words from other languages like English( still have some difference in pronunciations and writing from the original words).
3. Kanji: these are the Chinese characters . Every writings that we could find all over Japan - on ads, magazines, books and everywhere- are written in Kanji. These letters are originated from a symbol technique to indicate each things/word around us. There are some tricky ways in learning these letters(I am still exploring the techniques to learn them one by one. And sometimes finding my own way to remember the symbols for each word. :) Happy to have your friendship in learning).
About the Japanese Language Proficiency Test(JLPT)
You can find everything related to JLPT from this site: http://www.jlpt.jp/e/
There are five levels of exams for JLPT and they are conducted during the months of Dec and Jul (twice every year).
The basic JLPT is the N5 level followed by the N4 and it includes the following things to cover.
N5 : This is the basic level in JLPT. It includes listening and reading sections. Here, we have to read and understand basic expressions and daily usages in hiragana, katakana and some basic kanjis (some 100 numbers). The listening part will have only slowly spoken audio clips.
N4 : This is the next higher level where we have the reading section with much more vocabulary and conversations from daily life. Also, more Kanjis are included here. Here also, the audios are all slowly spoken.
N3 : This is a bit difficult than the previous, as it includes reading and understanding written comprehensions or newspaper headlines and could be able to understand it well in the reading section. The listening involves nearly natural speed of conversations.
N2 and N1: These are the advanced stages of JLPT. And, as I have told you, I am also in my post-beginner stages of Japanese language studies and my level is not big enough and it's fine not to think about the higher levels right now.
Let's learn Japanese together...I would like to make my blog a combined study corner.
