Studying For The Japanese Language Proficiency Test

[Princess Kae-Leah]

One of the reasons why I haven't been quite as active in the mer-community as I once was is I have found a potential career path and passion in life. Over the past couple years, I have been diligently studying the Japanese language. I now can read hiragana/katakana, can recognize almost 1,000 kanji, and know at least 5,000 vocabulary words. I prefer to practice my reading comprehension by reading in Japanese whenever I can, I own several Japanese children's books and untranslated manga and I check out books in Japanese from my local library system, I can now read at an upper elementary or junior high level fairly well. In December, I will take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test at the University of Washington, so wish me luck, mer-friends! I hope to get my proficiency certificate and eventually work from home/telecommute as a professional Japanese-to-English translator for manga, novels, etc. I already translate manga and Japanese children's books into English as a hobby and practice. I kinda feel like I finally found my "calling", as it's something I'm actually good at(having an above-average memory comes in handy for studying a language!), genuinely enjoy, and working from home being a translator requires minimal social skills

[telzey.amberdon]

"Ningyo" is that the proper term?

[Princess Kae-Leah]

Yes, it's made of the kanji for person and fish

[MerShellly]

I can barely study Spanish without wanting to bang my head against the wall. I've always had a lot of respect for bilingual people bcuz they're either insanely naturally talented or have a loads of dedication- or both. That is such an amazing skill to have! What were the basics that you first learned when you started studying Japanese?

[Princess Kae-Leah]

Well first one needs to learn hiragana and katakana, which is the phonetic alphabet, there's a character for each phonetic syllable and children's picture books are commonly written in all hiragana, as well as basic greetings and grammar structure. The key to remembering lots of vocab for me is a method called extensive reading, which basically means reading as much native material as possible on a level that is understandable to you, starting with simple "See Spot Run"-type children's books and working my way up

[Azurin Luna]

Good luck!
I've been trying to learn Japanese as well, but I never get around to really learn it. Which is a shame, cause I like the language.
I'm now learning some basic Spanish words with a program called Duolingo on my iPad, which works pretty well. To bad they haven't added Japanese to the list yet.

[Floppus]

Oh, as a Japanese teacher, I can say that this language is easier than it seems. Of course, it's not as easy as Spanish, for instance, but it's possible to learn. I'm even applying for a Japanese tutor job, and I hope I'll be able to teach people and help them understand all the small things about this language.

[Mermaid Fina]

"I've been trying to learn Japanese as well, but I never get around to really learn it. Which is a shame, cause I like the language." Same for me i'm still very basic in japanese after decades trying (in autodidact or with online teachers only cant find one in real person where i am but still) without success...i still cant get if i am too lazy or if it's a disability issue maybe my dyspraxic mind just cant remember kanji or maybe i am not dedicated enough i dont know but i would definitively love to read other stuff in japanese original version more complicated than Pokemon games but that's the max level of complexity in japanese i can manage (it being in kid langage helping a lot).

[Lorrytorry]

I faced the problem with bad writing skills in English. I have been living in England for a long time, but my writing skills did not become higher, as I did not have enough practice. Of course, I found an option for myself, it's https://www.topessaywriting.org/write-my-dissertation , a service for providing services for writing any paper. I turn to them and get a great result in a few days. This is used even by my classmates, and I consider this option a great alternative to handwriting.

[MarkUltra]

Japanese is a very difficult language to learn. Everything related to hieroglyphs seems rather difficult to me. Now I am learning Spanish, and even here I have difficulties with spanish dialect, but thanks to the lingopie service, on which I watch TV shows, serials in Spanish and hear different live Spanish speech, I learn to perceive different variations of pronunciation, vocabulary and so on.

[RobertWalker]

Very interesting information that will help me make my future translations. There are quite a lot of tools for translation, but like everyone else I want to get a quality translation. Especially now when it comes to english chinese translation and i never learned chinese. That's why I entrusted this translation to professionals with years of experience.