J10 Students

• Kanji - Writing kanji over and over to memorize them works for some people, but not for others. If it doesn't work for you, it's helpful to try to understand the meanings of the components for each individual kanji. For instance, the kanji for えいきょう (影響) seems very complicated at first. However, the first character of this word means "shadow" and the second character means "sound", so "shadow sound" can be a way to say "influence".

  If you look at the individual components of this first character, there is the character for sun/day (ひ、日) and part of the character for shape (かたち、形). A shadow is a shape that is made in the sun, so this makes sense for the first character. The second character means "sound". The character for sound, (おと、音) is part of this kanji. In this way, you can dissect many kanji characters that look complicated and make "stories" for each kanji so that they are easier to memorize.

  Even if you do prefer writing the kanji over and over, don't do it mindlessly; make sure to think about what each component might represent.

• Grammar - Before class, skim over all of the explanations of the grammar for that lesson. Even if you don't understand every point, read through the grammar explanations so you get the gist. After class, as soon as possible (on the same day is the best) go over the day's lesson and re-read that portion in the book. If you go over the lesson right before the test, you will probably have forgotten a lot and will waste time trying to recall information.
• Conversation - It is hard to practice conversation in class because time is limited, so office hours/tutorial sessions/conversation table are highly suggested. Often when people learn foreign languages they become proficient in reading and writing, but not as much in speaking, so try to fit in these extra tutorials etc. in your schedule.
• Vocabulary - For me, what works best is to make a vocabulary list with the English words on one side and the Japanese words on the other side. When I write down each word, I say it out loud and try to make a connection between the English and Japanese words; for instance, I ask myself if I have heard something similar to this word before. After making the list, I say the entire list out loud again and repeat this every day until the quiz. Saying the list out loud takes less than 5 minutes but it helps to memorize the words.

In order to attain a good grade, I really had to be on the ball.

Before every kaiwa and vocabulary quiz, I would memorize the necessary vocabulary the night before. I find it also very helpful to study right before class, the morning of.

Before the kanji quizzes I'd practice remembering the hiragana by looking at the characters and then after that, I would try to write the kanji characters just by looking at the hiragana. After repeating this process a few times, I find that I know it perfectly. I also found it useful to memorize kanji radicals as helpful hints.

Completing the homework packets at least a day before the due date help greatly because it gave me a chance to ask fellow classmates about certain things I didn't understand, such as the kanji on the homework that I didn't recognize or something.

For the listening exercises, I found that knowing the vocabulary is essential to understanding the conversations more easily.

For the oral quizzes and such, my partner(s) and I always wrote it up early in order to make necessary changes before memorizing and talking through my writing with the Senseis really helped.

I think keeping up and asking for help when I need it, allows me to do well in the class.

Unlike some students I know who have a knack for picking up foreign languages, learning a new language doesn't come easily to me. I have to put in a lot of effort to master any significant amount of material.

When I took the J10 series at Berkeley, I tried to take advantage of all the learning resources made available to the students by the Japanese department. In particular, the supplementary grammar and kanji classes were very useful. These classes were pretty low-key, meeting only once a week. However, they provided fun and valuable exercises and introduced new approaches to learning the material that were not covered in the regular lectures.

In particular, the grammar class taught us how to deconstruct sentences into components that facilitate their comprehension. I found this to be extremely useful as Japanese sentence construction is quite different from what we are used to in English.

Similarly, the kanji class provided a unique opportunity to work on various kanji exercises with other students.

In addition to these supplementary classes, the tutorial sessions and conversation tables were another valuable, and somewhat underutilized learning resource. I often found myself to be one of only a handful of students at these sessions, which often resulted in a personal and engaging learning environment for interacting with native speakers. It’s a good idea to go to tutorial sessions with a couple of questions or an idea of what material you'd like to be discussed.

I found that one of my major barriers in learning how to speak Japanese was getting over my embarrassment and fear of saying things the wrong way, but the friendly environment of tutorial sessions have helped me realize the importance of learning how to articulate my own ideas.

The Japanese classes cover a lot of useful grammatical structures, kanji, and vocabulary, but busy with the demands of other classes and obligations. I later ended up forgetting some of this material if I didn't put effort into reinforcing it.

I'd highly recommend doing what you can to increase your exposure to the language as much as possible, and for me that means trying to speak up in class and taking advantage of the various additional learning resources provided by the Japanese department.

Everyone knows that in order to learn a language well, they must devote many hours to studying and practicing it. However, it is not always clear how these hours should be spent. I will discuss this issue and suggest some solutions to this problem in the context of Japanese at Berkeley.

The Japanese language program at Berkeley is structured in a way that facilitates learning at a rapid pace, combining reading comprehension, grammar, written and oral communication into a different semester programs. This is especially true of the Japanese 10A and 10B curriculum, which concentrates greatly on the comprehension and application, rather than simple acquisition of vocabulary and basic grammar patterns. Thus, Japanese 10A and 10B is a large jump from Japanese 1A and 1B, where the focus is on memorization of vocabulary and solidifying the basics. However, with sufficient studying and preparation, this leap is not problematic.

So the question is posed: How does one study for Japanese? From my experience, studying for Japanese requires dividing the language into its different constituents. Acquisition of new vocabulary, comprehension of material, and written, oral communication are three general areas that come to my mind. Studying for each of these areas requires different approaches and techniques.

Acquisition of new vocabulary seems very simple. You simply memorize the words, how to read them, and what they mean, right? This is what I thought when I started learning Japanese. For quizzes and tests, I would simply go over the words, their meanings, cover up the meanings, and then try to recall them. At first, this method worked very well, but, eventually, this rote memorization method began to fail me. I would take the quiz and then all of it would drain out of my brain, so when I saw those same words in a sentence, I wouldn’t have the faintest clue what it meant. Now, after a year and a half of Japanese, I have learned that the easiest way to learn and retain new vocabulary is to remember them in context of reading material or sentences. In the second year textbook, the vocabulary comes from conversation skits and a reading at the middle of the chapter. It helps a lot to write down the pronunciation of new words in the conversation skits, look up their meanings, and then reading over the conversations two or three more times. After doing this, I find that I have a better understanding of the conversations in the book and of the vocabulary words.

Reading things more than twice is very important. By making it a habit when approaching the textbook and other reading materials, you will greatly improve your reading comprehension. Usually, after looking over the conversations and filling in readings of new vocabulary, you can get a general sense of what the writings discuss. However, more often than not, the details of what is being said are not very clear. This is where repeated readings help. With each reading, you can figure out what specific parts or phrases you cannot understand. Usually, when I don’t understand a sentence, it is because I am reading it wrong, or because I forgot the meaning of a verb tense. Another possibility is that I am not thinking about what I just read. These kinds of comprehension problems are usually solved after I read the material over a few more times. But, sometimes there are just certain portions that make absolutely no sense. This is where asking questions becomes important.

When you run into things that you cannot understand even after repeated tries and much thought, the best thing to do is make a physical note of it and go to office hours. Usually, I underline the unknown phrase or sentence in the book and tag the page with a post-it. At office hours, the teachers are more than happy to go over the day’s grammar points and answer questions. Sometimes it may be an example used to explain something during the day’s lesson, or something the teacher mentioned briefly in class. If you have any questions, the teachers are always the best people to answer them. Additionally, in going to office hours, you can practice speaking Japanese.

As a Japanese language student in America, there are not many instances in which you can practice speaking Japanese. Office hours is a very good opportunity and environment to help you improve your speaking skills. Often, asking the teachers your questions in Japanese forces you to compose your own sentences and think of methods to use your vocabulary to make the teachers understand you. It also gives you the courage to begin speaking in Japanese, however broken it may be. The teachers are perfectly happy to sit and chat with you so you can practice your speaking skills.

This year, because I had a lot of questions about readings and grammar examples, I began go to office hours more frequently. In the office, I would pull out my book and try to articulate my question in Japanese. The results were often broken sentences with long pauses in between with much pointing and gesturing. Getting myself to speak in Japanese was often very hard, because I was scared of making mistakes. But, because I didn’t understand material and had questions, I had to force myself to speak understandable Japanese. The teacher would always wait patiently while I paused and stared into space, sometimes suggesting verbs or helping me complete my sentences. After making over ten or twenty mistakes during the course of the hour, you learn to overcome your fear of saying things wrong. Also, saying the wrong things allows you to learn how to say things correctly. Listening to the teachers and the way they talk, you learn to emulate their speaking and verb pattern usage. Every time I go to office hours, I make lots of blunders, but I also learn how to say more things in Japanese and feel more comfortable with the language.

Written Japanese is another story altogether. Oftentimes the amount of writing you need to do when completing homework assignments gives you sufficient practice of grammar patterns and their applications. However, remembering how to write Kanji and incorporating them into your writing is a slow process. The reason for this is probably because you do not use all the Kanji you learn every day, so you forget them very easily. The same goes for old grammar patterns that you learned on day one of Japanese 1A or 1B. I’ve found that it is much easier to learn and review grammar points or Kanji if you use them in your daily life. What do I mean by that? The easiest way for me to remember something is if I put it into my own words. If I create a sentence using a new grammar pattern that allows me to understand it thoroughly, I find that I can remember and utilize it better than if I don’t. The easiest way to go about doing this that I can think of is to write in Japanese atleast a few times a week. I often utilize my online blog for this purpose, composing entire entries in Japanese about my day and my thoughts. In writing these entries, I try to use as many new grammar points as I can. Even if the sentences are very simple, by applying the grammar from class to express your own thoughts, you can increase the speed at which you can compose Japanese sentences in your head. At the same time, you are reviewing old Kanji, new Kanji, old and new sentence patterns. Review of old words and vocabulary is often just as important as learning new ones in maximizing your ability to understand the language in written and spoken form.

In conclusion, reading things over many many times, taking notes, asking questions, practicing speaking and writing, and going to office hours will maximize your ability to learn Japanese well.