Beginner seeking opinion on next JapanesePo101.com lessons

[hajime]

皆さん、

I joined one month ago. Prior to joining I had very little background except random learning from childhood including familiarity with some kanji and ability to read/write ひらがな and カタカナ。Until I found JapanesePod101.com, my study was fairly haphazard. Now I listen, take notes, and review 2-4 hours (or more) a day.

I went through almost all of the Survival Phrases lessons and all of the Newbie lessons. I have all of the Beginner lessons downloaded onto my Zune and am wondering if I should next go to Beginner Lessons "season 1" (i.e. the first 170 lessons) or try to pick up at Season 2. I have sampled both Season 2 and (all of) Season 4 and am having no problems keeping up with either.

Here is my plan:
- Continue to review Survival Phrases / Newbie as necessary (grammar/vocab/kanji). I took notes all through these lessons and review them as well as listen to new lessons (and talk back to them, thank goodness my wife is supportive. She is going to give me a year's premium subscription for my 誕生日 coming up soon).
- Start on Beginner Lessons seasons 2 and do them along with Season 4 as they appear.
- Review the topics on Season 1 and build up a plan to review the ones that would seem to have content that may be valuable. Intersperse selections from Season 1 with Seasons 2 and 4.

Or should I just start next on Beginner Season 1?

Would be interested in hearing what route people took through their first 6-12 months with JapanesePod101 (assuming they started as a beginner).

ありがとうございます。
-

[Javizy]

As I remember, S2 was supposed to fill in the blanks that S1 left behind. The new beginner lessons seem to be a continuation of the never ending newbie series that took about 200 lessons to begin verb conjugations. I used to listen to the lower levels, but now they lack the charm and craziness, as well as the progression that the first 2 series had.

Anyway, I'd recommend listening to S1, since it covers just about everything from A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, which should give you enough understanding to begin reading things like simple books and manga.

I'd recommend buying the grammar dictionary and using it to back up what you learn from the lessons, since the explanations are more detailed (including usage notes and comparisons to similar expressions), you'll find that you develop a more in-depth understanding of the grammar. Naturally, it's very useful as a reference as well.

[untmdsprt]

I second that recommendation of buying the grammar book. I've also bought the intermediate version, since I'm shooting for JLPT level 3.

I've personally been listening to the newbie lessons, even though I'm far from being a newbie. Who knows what I've missed in my studies so they're good to review.

頑張ってください!!!


PS. It's helping me also that I have a Japanese boyfriend that encourages me to speak more to him in his language. Also have a Japanese friend that encourages me to speak more when we're out shopping or doing other girly stuff. She ignores the salespeople and I have to do everything for the both of us. I never hesitate to say she's been the best friend I have!

[markystar]

i wanna chime in here and mention something about Beginner Season 1 and Beginner Season 2

BS1 was designed as a linear course. it starts out REALLY simple and in the end is ridiculously high level. in the final lessons, it's quite advanced, so i'd focus on the grammar points for those final lessons and not try to wrap your head around all of the additional stuff.

BS2 was a lot more controlled, but assumes that you listened to all of BS1. it's non-linear, that means, it never gets harder. it's designed to reinforce what you already learned, as well as introduce usual sentence patterns, idioms and vocab, vocab, vocab.

i think BS2 and BS3 are great levels for just anyone with a decent amount of exposure to the language but just needs practice to fine tune their skills. these lessons are some of the funniest/craziest we've done, especially the ones under my supervision (if i do say so myself). so if you feel overwhelmed by lower intermediate or something, these are a good place to get comfortable with the language again.

if you haven't already, please check our Where Should I Start Guide:
http://www.japanesepod101.com/help-center/the-courses/

you can sample the first and last lesson of most levels to see where you fit in.


one final note.
a lot of listeners jump around. one jpod101 level might be perfect for student A but a combination of levels might be better for student B. (BS2, BS2, Lower Intermediate S2, LIS3 come to mind).


you said you're taking notes and buckling down and studying several hours a day. this says your motivated and serious. passively listening to the show you can pick up a lot, but aggressively "attacking" the language is the way to mastering it. 頑張ってください！

[hajime]

皆さん

ありがとうございます。I appreciate the help. (apologies in advance for the errors in my Japanese), 頑張ります！

月曜日にMakino/TsutsuiのGrammar Dictionaryを買いました！

私もRemebering the Kanji Iを買いました。

Beginner Season 1を修めます。　(Maybe I won't do quite all of them since each lesson is an hour or more with listening at least twice plus note-taking plus review).

I want to get very comfortable with Beginner level (which at JapanesePod101 is not very beginner, IMO) before going to Lower Intermediate.

JapanesePod101のおかげです。

一

[jkid]

I've been using Remembering the Kanji for a while now and I'm sure you will find it very much worth the money. I do however, need to buy the Grammar Dictionary. I'm pretty sure I've said that in just about every thread that discusses it now. I really should buy it.

Be sure to check out: http://kanji.koohii.com/ it's a great website recommended to me by others on the forum. It really is a great review tool.

[Javizy]

皆さん

ありがとうございます。I appreciate the help. (apologies in advance for the errors in my Japanese), 頑張ります！

月曜日にMakino/TsutsuiのGrammar Dictionaryを買いました！

私もRemebering the Kanji Iを買いました。

Beginner Season 1を修めます。　(Maybe I won't do quite all of them since each lesson is an hour or more with listening at least twice plus note-taking plus review).

I want to get very comfortable with Beginner level (which at JapanesePod101 is not very beginner, IMO) before going to Lower Intermediate.

JapanesePod101のおかげです。

一

Good choice on the kanji book. Be sure to download Anki, and use the Heisig deck (in the sample decks) to review the characters as you go along.

Another good technique is to add full sentences as Anki recognition cards, with word definitions/grammar explanations as the answer. This way you get to see how well you remember reading a sentence in Japanese over time. You can add anything you want to learn; perhaps key sentences from the lessons you're studying would be a good start.

[markystar]

heisig's method has never made sense to me personally, but it seems pretty effective for a LOT of people, so i think it's a worthwhile purchase.

a dictionary of basic japanese grammar
and
a dictionary of intermediate japanese grammar
will be your bibles, i think.

javizy's recommendation for anki is also a really good one. i've yet to find a more flexible flashcard program. and it's actually fun to use (or maybe that's my twisted inner-nerd speaking).

[hajime]

皆さん、

I am on lesson 六十九 (beginner season 1). I went through lessons 25 or so きりきり and then every lessons had 新しい, um, everything.

Season 1 is defnitely worth the effort. 私もSeason4は勉強します．(I didn't know how to put 兼行 into that last sentence).

As for Heisig, I am closing in on frame 80 and... it's not helping very much (yet). I keep hoping that progress there will intersect (交叉する？？）with the 漢字 in the JapanesePod101の学科。But, so far, very little. I have not yet given up, though, because I did recognize 早 as "early" (sunflower) 昨日so I felt a minor victory.

皆さん、when you finish Newbie lessons, go directly to Beginner Season 1.

頑張って！

一

[Taurus]

As for Heisig, I am closing in on frame 80 and... it's not helping very much (yet). I keep hoping that progress there will intersect (交叉する？？）with the 漢字 in the JapanesePod101の学科。But, so far, very little. I have not yet given up, though, because I did recognize 早 as "early" (sunflower) 昨日so I felt a minor victory.

I think it will take a while to intersect, because Heisig orders the kanji so that they're easy to learn. Consequently, you end up learning some of the more obscure kanji first, and some of the more widely used kanji only appear later.

Personally I would persevere, though. I have found Heisig has really accelerated my learning (although I'm not yet all the way through either, so I can't completely vouch for it).