Learning Japanese.

[Mcjon01]

My skills are just too lopsided. I was fine with the reading/grammar, but when it came to listening it just turned into noise the second I lost focus once and then I couldn't catch up.

(I'm bad at following conversations in English, too, for what it's worth, and I never learned how to take notes.)

Anyway I need some Tylenol now, head hurts.

[Serenarey Chiba]

Bah, N2 listening is practically like N3 listening. It's not all that bad at all. You'll be fine.

[Quibi]

I've been studying Japanese for a while now. Technology really helps you know. If you have android phone you must download Obenkyo. It's a Kanji writing practice app that let's you type Kanji using touch screen and actually corrects you if you use the wrong stroke order. From my experience it's much more effective to memorize Kanji by writing, even if you aim for reading.
I've also been using rosetta stone and while the pace is slow, it's pretty fun and makes you talk a bit (speech is my favorite part! I have no one else to talk to...)
There's a great article on fuwanovel that suggests how to set up visual novels to work dictionaries. This is probably the best thing I did. It's super fun (though tiring at times) and it's a great reading experience.
For Grammer I used Tae Kim which is pretty good, though if you wanna get better intuition about that stuff then use rosetta.
There's also an app called HelloTalk for chatting with other language learners. Great idea, though finding an enthusiastic partner can prove to be difficult.
Overall I've studied about 700 Kanji and some basic grammar. It takes a while until you start seeing results, but it kinda fun when you do.

Unfortunately since uni started this year I have no time to even practice Kanji. I like Japanese more than math ._.

[Frostedflakes]

My skills are just too lopsided. I was fine with the reading/grammar, but when it came to listening it just turned into noise the second I lost focus once and then I couldn't catch up.

(I'm bad at following conversations in English, too, for what it's worth, and I never learned how to take notes.)

Anyway I need some Tylenol now, head hurts.

It seems you are working hard tho so good luck!

[BananaShiki]

I've been studying Japanese for a while now. Technology really helps you know. If you have android phone you must download Obenkyo. It's a Kanji writing practice app that let's you type Kanji using touch screen and actually corrects you if you use the wrong stroke order. From my experience it's much more effective to memorize Kanji by writing, even if you aim for reading.
I've also been using rosetta stone and while the pace is slow, it's pretty fun and makes you talk a bit (speech is my favorite part! I have no one else to talk to...)
There's a great article on fuwanovel (I'll post the link later) that suggests how to set up visual novels to work dictionaries. This is probably the best thing I did. It's super fun (though tiring at times) and it's a great reading experience.
For Grammer I used Tae Kim which is pretty good, though I'd you wanna get better intuition about that stuff then use rosetta.
There's also an app (forgot name, will edit later) for chatting with other language learners. Great idea, though finding an enthusiastic partner can prove to be difficult.
Overall I've studied about 700 Kanji and some basic grammar. It takes a while until you start seeing results, but it kinda fun.

Unfortunately since uni started this year I have no time to even practice Kanji. I like Japanese more than math ._.

Get Anki and read more manga, mining words with VNs is fine and all but makes it much slower to get through compared to manga. Still, just diving in into reading something is one of the best things you can do.

[Lianru]

Stroke order sucks.
It was made for right-handed people.

[Mcjon01]

出る杭は打たれる

The Japanese solution to this Japanese problem is to write with your right hand to preserve your family's honor and pretend that sinister aberrations like yourself don't exist.

[BananaShiki]

Absolutely disgusting.
Stroke order is shit anyway.

[Lianru]

Well, I've been trying. ;_; Interestingly enough, my right-handed moonrunes are noticeably better than my right-handed english words.

But it's totally true about stroke order. 厂 is supposed to be written in two separate strokes which is super awkward with your left hand because you have to push the 一 out. Or 巨 etc.
Also especially 力 which I write wrong every time and have long since given up on fixing.

[Serenarey Chiba]

Left-handed people don't exist. You don't exist.

[mewarmo990]

I'm going to have to say this, but with your level, N1 should be a piece of cake.

OH YEAH that was this week wasn't it? I missed the sign-up deadline this year.

But I'm doing practice things, and yeah. It's harder than N2 was, but not nearly as hard as I have led myself to believe. Mainly just need to study vocab.

Mcjon, N2 listening seems hard especially if you don't get to use it much, but I did way better than I thought I did. Even if you don't do well, at your level N2 grammar and reading sections should be fine and you will very likely pass.

Absolutely disgusting.
Stroke order is shit anyway.

Get out, mongrel.

nah, but really, stroke order is pretty important. It's maybe hard to see if you didn't grow up learning characters but like, 90% of people who learn Chinese/Japanese late in life as a foreign language, even those who have been doing it for a long time, have really robotic and misproportioned handwriting to me.

Also if you don't know stroke order, good luck looking anything up in a real dictionary.

I guess it's shit in terms of how it affects ease of learning. Calligraphy's mostly dead in English, for better or worse.

[mewarmo990]

AH FUCK

Just venting. Writing a paper. I hate reading pre-WW2 literature. Shit's hard.

[BananaShiki]

Yeah

[mewarmo990]

impressive, is all I have to say

[Mcjon01]

No matter how many times I see that I still have no idea what piggy was supposed to be.

[mewarmo990]

Where can I find more of that? What book is it anyway?

[Mcjon01]

I don't know, I just see different pages posted on 4chan sometimes. It's, like, a dictionary compiled by 18th century Portuguese merchants or something.

[Kotonoha]

Yeah

Die job

[Mcjon01]

Or something, adjust the fact to be in line with Japanese history if you actually know it because I don't even.

[Kotonoha]

piggy arimas