JLPT Boot Camp – The Ultimate Study Guide to passing the Japanese Language Proficiency Test — The Ultimate Study Guide to Passing the JLPT in Less Time and With Less Pain.

2013 Bab.la Language Lovers Competition

by Clayton MacKnight on May 23, 2013

Every year, bab.la puts on a competition for the best language lovers blog. I have once again received the honor of being nominated. It is a great feeling to be able to compete against so many other great bloggers. I have some cool resources I want to share with you. But first, take the time [...]

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The Biggest Secret about Learning Japanese

by Clayton MacKnight on May 18, 2013

Some people study Japanese for hours a day. Others might only spend a few minutes of daily practice. Either way that is a good amount of time to use for something. Time that could be used vegging out in front of the TV or playing iPhone games. And everyone knows those are essential life-changing activities. [...]

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JLPT BC 113 | The Top 10 Things I wish I had Known Part 2

May 15, 2013

A month ago, I published the first half of this top 10 list of things I wish I had known before coming to Japan. And a few of you commented on some other things that you wish you had known as well. But, as promised here’s the rest of the things I wish I had [...]

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What would a Japanese Speaking Test look like?

May 11, 2013

How can you measure your level of speaking? The Japanese Language Proficiency Test will grill you on your reading and listening, but what about speaking? I’ve met a few people that passed N2 and N1, but don’t quite speak tat that level. I can easily include myself in that group as well. I have a [...]

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JLPT N5 Grammar – Present Tense Verbs

May 8, 2013

This month I’m taking a break from going over particles to shed some light on the present tense of verbs. The most difficult part of these is remembering how to conjugate them in my opinion. I hope you like this latest video, and let me know in the comments what you think of it: For [...]

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JLPT N5 Online Practice Test

May 4, 2013

Who has time anymore to download stuff and print it out? And then you have to look up answers on the separate answer sheet. The whole thing is a bit of a pain. So, to make things easier I have put the whole N5 practice test online. If you are not familiar, the JEES has [...]

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JLPT BC 112 | Putting Down the Drills

May 1, 2013

We are just a couple of months away from the July test here in Japan and I’m starting to look forward to it actually. I’ve started a slow change to the way I study and I’m interested in seeing if it makes a difference for better or worse. One dramatic change I’ve been working on [...]

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What is the best way to study Japanese vocabulary?

April 27, 2013

All languages are made of 1000s of building blocks called words, i.e. vocabulary. Most people believe that to become really fluent in a language you need to know about 20,000 words. To be conversational, you probably need around 2000. That’s a lot of words to get into your head. So if you could save any [...]

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How to Test with Japanese Flashcards

April 20, 2013

Flashcards of some kind are a necessary evil of language study. The question is, what do you put on the flashcards? What do you prompt yourself with and what is the answer? For example, do you start with English and the answer is Japanese (in Kanji)? Or do you prompt with kanji and answer with [...]

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JLPT BC 111 | Top 10 Things I Wish I had Known

April 17, 2013

If you are going to be staying or living in Japan for any length of time. You want to make the most of it. The problem is there are a few things that the natives know that don’t show up in too many guidebooks. Things that I found out about the hard way more often [...]

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Why are there so many Languages?

April 13, 2013

Why would the world ever need 1000s of languages? If you believe we all evolved together as a species, why did we start speaking so many strange tongues? I mean, it’s certainly easier for us to just all speak one language, so why did things evolve differently than they did? Especially since there is no [...]

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JLPT N5 Grammar – Japanese Particles ka, yo, wa, and ne (か、よ、わ、ね)

April 10, 2013

For the JLPT N5 test, you really need to know the difference between the key particles of the language. As matter of fact, you’ll see some of these particles on the higher levels of the test as well. This month we are going to look at ka, yo, wa, and ne: For more videos like [...]

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