しあわせ

Another interesting set of handwritten 2byte fonts with what seems to be a full set of kanji.
Its available in 8 various weights and styles. The site, Sana’s Original Font Box however is written in Japanese.

日本語能力試験　直前対策　文字・語彙 ３級 (国書刊行会）

I decided that 直前対策 translates best as “cram session”.

This is another interesting little A5 sized book for JLPT3. It covers the first paper that tests vocabulary and kanji. It does this by giving you 15 mock tests. Intersperesed among these tests are vocabulary lists. No english. No explanations. But lot’s of practice. Lot’s of exposure to the words you need to know.

The tests are standard stuff.
The only slightly dissapointing note is they seem to be modelled on the test before the changes made 2 years ago. This means that there could be about 20 or so kanji omitted and the form of the questions in the end sections are slightly different.

In the actual test there are 5 questions in section IV where you are given a sentence then have to choose a sentence with a similar meaning from the four presented. In section V there are 5 questions where you are given a word and have to pick the sentence where that word is used correctly.
In this book there are 10 questions of the type found in Section IV and no section V.

That said this is still a useful book so you can concentrate on a particular part of the test. The word lists are useful as they are broken down by type and grouped by theme. This is much easier to memorise than a list of unrelated words.

As usual try to do these tests against the clock. 35 mins each. Then check your wrong and guessed answers. Check unknown words. Check what the sentences mean.

二十四の瞳 dir: 木下恵介 1954

I saw this today on a Eureka Masters of Cinema DVD release. I quite liked it. I was interested in what film could beat Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai in an Awards competition. However despite enjoying it I don’t think it has the classic quality of the former.

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3級編　例文で学ぶ漢字と言葉 - 西口 光一 (著)　（スリーエーネットワーク）

These books could do with snappier titles. What we have here is another learn to read and write kanji book. The difference is this is the first one I’ve found that specifically covers kanji for JLPT and the vocabulary for JLPT. And it does this through reading passages. That’s what really inticed me to buy it.

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Do you have Japanese friends? If so ask them if they use Mixi and see if they’ll give you an invitation.

Mixi is a Japanese social networking site. Although there are a fair amount of gaijin on it, it is totally japanese. It is also invitation only. Someone who is already a member has to invite you in; you can’t set up an account yourself.

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