And congratulations!! N1, wow... I'll work my self up to N2 some time next year... Are there any good books you can recommend? Especially for learning kanji? Or, any books you can say are bad?
For N2 I used the kanji, grammar and reading book from the soumatome series. I actually got the old 2級 books because they were on sale and I was a bit skint but the format of the books is still the same so I think they're a good choice.
For N1 I used a different book for grammar and I found I preferred the style of it over soumatome. It has more explanation of each grammar point. Soumatome doesn't really explain but gives English translations of example sentences instead. Aside from the N1 grammar book though they only have a joint N2/N3 grammar book (http://tinyurl.com/3pt7rwx) so I don't know how good that is,
I liked the soumatome kanji book as each chapter has a theme which makes it easier to remember the words.
For listening practice I mainly used a book of practice questions (http://tinyurl.com/3opyhrq) to get the hang of taking notes whilst listening.
I have the soumatome N3 kanji book and I quite like the way it's made too. I'll take your recommendations into consideration the next time I buy some new books to really prepare for N2.
Congratulations! Same as Shenau I'd like to know which books you used, even though I'm sure I asked you that already :) Or maybe you'd like to sell them to me :)=)
I just applied for N1 in December as it's the first time here in Vienna!
Thanks, I just ordered them (outch, high Yen HURTS). Let's see if I'll actually use them this time around. How many months before the test did you start learning?
The yen is far too strong at the moment! I was wincing every time I bought something in Japan :( My only comfort was knowing there was no shipping cost.
I started studying in January once all the Christmas/New Year stuff was over. I took a small break in March (I think) to apply for post-graduate courses but other than that I just studied away. I finished the grammar book and the kanji book, got about halfway through the vocab book and did the practice exam book about a week before the exam.
I honestly thought I was going to fail as my marks from the practice book didn't seem great but then again it's a weighted score so you can't tell from the raw mark how you've done. Good luck!
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And congratulations!! N1, wow...
I'll work my self up to N2 some time next year...
Are there any good books you can recommend? Especially for learning kanji? Or, any books you can say are bad?
Have fun catching up on drama *g*
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For N1 I used a different book for grammar and I found I preferred the style of it over soumatome. It has more explanation of each grammar point. Soumatome doesn't really explain but gives English translations of example sentences instead. Aside from the N1 grammar book though they only have a joint N2/N3 grammar book (http://tinyurl.com/3pt7rwx) so I don't know how good that is,
I liked the soumatome kanji book as each chapter has a theme which makes it easier to remember the words.
For listening practice I mainly used a book of practice questions (http://tinyurl.com/3opyhrq) to get the hang of taking notes whilst listening.
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I'll take your recommendations into consideration the next time I buy some new books to really prepare for N2.
Thank you^^
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I just applied for N1 in December as it's the first time here in Vienna!
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Grammar: http://tinyurl.com/44nnaed
Vocab: http://tinyurl.com/3hmnqma
Kanji: http://tinyurl.com/3oum6u8
Practice questions: http://tinyurl.com/3z2lhq4 It's called 合格できる！ How can you go wrong with a book like that :D
I'm afraid I'm too attached to sell them just yet! I still feel like I can learn from them :)
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I started studying in January once all the Christmas/New Year stuff was over. I took a small break in March (I think) to apply for post-graduate courses but other than that I just studied away. I finished the grammar book and the kanji book, got about halfway through the vocab book and did the practice exam book about a week before the exam.
I honestly thought I was going to fail as my marks from the practice book didn't seem great but then again it's a weighted score so you can't tell from the raw mark how you've done. Good luck!
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