しあわせ

３級問題種
Komoku Seiri Hyojyun Mondaishu 3kyu　(Bonjinsha)

This is an excellent book for revision. It consists almost solely of questions with no explanations. It’s completely in Japanese but understanding what you have to do is no problem. The useful idea behind the book is a short test you take at the start. Depending on the questions you get wrong it points you toward other sections of the book with the aim of improving your score. If you have already covered the material it would be a good book for the last 4 to 6 weeks of your JLPT study. It will help you focus on your weak points and consolidate your studies. I used an earlier version when I sat JLPT4 and found it very useful.

There are also audio tapes (I don’t think CDs are available) that go with this for the listening questions but they were so expensive I didn’t buy them.

完全マスター３級日本語能力試験文法問題対策
Mie Shigeno, Kaoru Seki, Shizue Nishikimi (スリーエーネットワーク)

By the same publisher as Minna No Nihongo series, this is a fantastic little book. It is very well designed and laid out and easy to use.

It covers all the grammar needed for JLPT3. It is very hard to get hold of a list of what grammar is needed, unlike the lists of kanji you can find. This book has it. For that alone you should buy it. (It’s fairly cheap at 1200 円 )

Read the rest of this entry »

日本語能力試験試験問題と正解３・４級
(Japan Educational Exchanges and Services and The Japan Foundation)

Every year JEES and the Japan Foundation publish the previous December’s test papers. They come in 2 volumes. One with level 4 and 3, one with level 2 and 1. You can usually find some past years but they do go out of print. I wonder if I shouldn’t start buying level 2 test papers now, but it’ll be a few years before I’m ready for level 2.

Basically what you get is the test paper reproduced exactly; A CD of the listening section; the answers and marking scheme; transcripts of the listening dialogues and statistics on the years scores.

Read the rest of this entry »

あなたの弱点がわかる!日本語能力試験3級模試×2
(Unicom)

This book has 2 mock exam papers for JLPT level 3. Complete with sheets for you to mark answers on by filling in boxes just like the actual test and a CD for the listening portion.

Where it is better than the official past exam papers you can buy is the extras.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a language school in Tokyo which quite generously makes a lot of materials available for free on it’s web site. Among these are a series of very short dialogues that are suitable for beginners through to intermediate learners. It’s very hard to find recordings that are suitable for learners so it’s great to have a large amount of recorded material that you might be able to completely understand.

This is a fantastic resource. Every week JapanesePod101.com podcast a survival lesson, 3 basic lessons, an intermediate lesson and on alternate weeks a culture lesson and a news podcast. Like a lot of audio language classes the programs are based around a conversation that is then broken down and analysed. Usually a single topic or grammar point is covered.

The host is an American, Peter-san and there is a team of Japanese, including Yoshi-san, Sakura-san, Takase-san, Chigusa-san, Take-san and others that I can’t keep up with. The tone is light and fun. It took a little while for me to get used to it but it grew on me. The lessons are at a level that’s easy to understand. There is a fair amount of repetition and key words are broken down syllable by syllable. There is perhaps a bit too much padding for repeated listening and I often feel like editing them down to just the core conversation. The biggest problem for newcomers is to catch up on the large back catalogue of podcasts. As of October 2006 they have over 140 lessons and it’s growing each week.

The audio content is free but there is also backup material that they charge for as a subscription service.
There are two levels. Basic which gives you transcripts and notes in pdf format. Advanced that adds a learning centre where there are quizzes and vocabulary lists. Also there is a fairly neat feature which puts a line by line transcript with audio onto your iPod which makes for a very compact way of reviewing episodes
There is a fee trial subscription so you can check it out before you get out your credit card.

Finally there is a bulletin board that has a friendly core of users. As yet it’s not as busy as some boards out there but because of that, overall it seems friendlier. If you need any help about things Japanese I’m sure you could find it here.

Check it out.