JLPT BC 50 | Where do I go from here?

First off, I can’t believe this is my 50^th episode! Thanks everyone for making the podcast a success and for supporting me and the site through this process. I hope to be delivering another 50 podcasts with better than ever quality of content.

Recent Studying

I’ve been talking about picking up a listening book because I scored lower than my expectations on the listening section on the N2 in July. I thought about picking up the 試験に出る聴解N1/N2 because I recently finished the 試験に出る読解N1/N2 and found it to be a good book that was really on target with how difficult the test was.

Well, I went to the bookstore and did some looking around at all the books available for listening practice at this level. There were basically only two available, the previously mentioned 試験に出る聴解N1/N2 and the 新完全マスター聴解N2 (New Kanzen Master). I took a look through both of these books and decided on the Kanzen Master book.

Why? Well, mostly because it looks like the Kanzen Master book has a lot more bang for your buck. It also goes over numerous listening strategies and general listening practice to help you really improve your listening, not just for the test but also in real life situations. Or at least that’s what it looks like right now. As always, after I’ve gone through the entire book, I’ll be sure to post up a video review going over what it is like.

50 Episodes, Where do I go from here?

I started this podcast about a year ago with the mission of helping others that are studying for the JLPT be more successful. I really want to create something that is useful and benefits the community. So, I need some help from you, the listener.

Right now, there is about 1000ish of you that listen to the podcast on a regular basis. Although, I’d like to have a community more like 10,000ish, this smaller size is a big advantage for you. Why? Because your voice will be heard more clearly.

So, I want to create a podcast that is more in tune with what you want to hear about. What is going to benefit you and help you study Japanese, pass the test, and be excited when the next podcast comes out. And in order to do that, I need just like 1 minute of your time.

Some Ideas for What to have on the Podcast

But, I’m not going to just leave it completely open-ended, I’m going to give you a little help with some ideas that I thought up. However, if you have any other ideas, no matter how crazy, I’d love to hear them.

Updates on what I’m doing to prepare – I’m essentially already trying to do this in the first 2 or 3 minutes of the podcast and I’ll probably continue to do that, but would you like to hear more?

Interviews with test takers – I’ve been trying to contact a few test takers for some interviews for the podcast. Would you like to hear what other test takers have to say? How they study? Does anybody want to volunteer for an interview?

Mnemonics for kanji/vocab/grammar – Mnemonics are incredibly useful for memorizing key grammar, vocab or kanji, but they are a bit of a pain to come up with. Would you appreciate some mnemonics to help with those troublesome points?

What’s it like to live/work/study in Japan – I’ve been in Japan for over 7 years now, so I know the place fairly well. Would you like some insights into life here? Are you interested in the job scene and what it is like?

Japanese culture – Although I think there are numerous blogs out there that cover this topic quite well, would you like to hear about some local culture? ‘behind the scenes’ culture that you can’t really see on the surface. I’ve been tempted to do a few myth busting episodes that bust typical myths about Japan.

Focus on the vocab/kanji/grammar for one level of the test – Until now I’ve shied away from focusing on one particular level because there are people of several levels listening to the podcast, but would you like it if I focused on one particular level every year and did a few podcasts on that? I would probably start with N5 (in 2012) and just move up from there. Hopefully by the time I get to N1 I’ll have passed the test!

Or is there something else I’m missing that you’d like to hear about? I’d love to hear any ideas you have. I like this community of listeners, and you’ve always been really helpful in providing suggestions and ideas, so thanks for that.

Make it Yours

Let me know what you think! Take the quick survey below or leave me a comment. I’d like to know what you think would be useful to you.

P.S. Do you want to be the first to know about new resources for the JLPT? You should join my newsletter!

P.S.S. Do you like helping people out? Then, you should leave me a comment on iTunes and leave me a review.  If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, by all means let me know in the comments below or contact me and let me know what I can do to improve the show.  Thanks!

P.S.S.S. I just got a Facebook Page.  There you can get up to the date info about the site and join the conversation.  Hope to see you there!

Music by Kevin MacLeod Photo by Wilhei55

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:49 — 10.8MB)

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