Using a Japanese newspaper for kids, like Mainichi Shogakusei Shinbun above, I developed a 5 step study method designed to increase vocabulary and kanji identification, reading comprehension, and confidence for taking the JLPT!  Reading at the appropriate level makes it possible to practice reading similar paragraphs that will appear in the test and gives you the chance to identify vocabulary and kanji that are likely to appear in the JLPT.

1. Read the article without any helpful hiragana

2. Identify and list unknown words

3. Identify and list unknown kanji

4. Study the new lists

5. Re-read the article

Paired with Evernote and Jisho.org, this 5 step method should give you a good head start in your studying!

Step 1:  Read the article without any helpful hiragana

I know it’s frustrating, sad, and hard, but reading the article first without any help will help you out in a lot of ways in the long run so stick with it and don’t cry!  The first thing that will result from reading the article without any hiragana is helping you to honestly assess your reading ability.  It will show you the words you know and the ones you don’t in black and white.  The other important thing this step accomplishes is simulating the actual test.  There will be no helpful hiragana in the real test, so why practice with it?  If you are really serious about taking the test, you might also want to time yourself to see how long it takes to read a short article.

Using Evernote, I selected and added this text from an article on Mainichi Shogakusei Shinbun resulting in the above picture.  The rockin thing about Evernote in this example is that it automatically makes a title and takes note of the original page you visited so you wont forget later!  I then removed the pesky hiragana and gave reading the article my best shot.

Step 2:  Identify and list unknown words

Crap…as you can see I’ve got a LONG way to go!  In this step, highlight the words you don’t know in red and hope you don’t get an atomic red ink bomb like I did!  It is important to be HONEST with yourself here.  If you can’t read it without any help from hiragana, or if you look it up in the dictionary and say “Oh, right, duh!  I know this one!” mark it red Donny, because you are OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT! lol.  More seriously, just be conservative, if you don’t guess right the first time, it won’t hurt you to practice those borderline words a few times.  In the end, it is really good practice to identify difficult words as they are used in a paragraph.  When you are finished, your list should look something like this:

Step 3:  Identify and list unknown kanji

In the vocabulary list, find and highlight kanji in red that you can’t recognize right away as demonstrated in the example above.  Once identified, use a Japanese dictionary to make a list of kanji for future reference.  I found the website jisho.org VERY useful in completing this step.  Copy and paste the unknown kanji from the vocab list to the kanji list and as long as you don’t cut and paste anything else, you can simply paste it again into the kanji search page of jisho.org.  Once you look up the kanji, the website spits out more information than anyone can dream about that specific kanji.  I recommend at least taking note of all the different readings for the kanji and the definition in English.  One extra step I took was to include other words that that kanji appears in to practice recognition in general.  Jisho.org has a great feature to do this by pressing on the link in the “Kanji” page called “Words Containing” and usually zillions of words will come up that use this kanji, which can then be paired down to common words if desired.  Here is an example of a finished kanji list made from an article:

Step 4: Study the new lists

Now we get to the hard part: you have to remember all the stuff you just wrote down!  Making lots of lists is a waste of time if you don’t actually go back through them to learn the material.  Try to use the words in a sentence, look up more kanji combination, use them in a diary or homework assignment, or use Textfugu to learn about remembering radicals to help you retain the lists you just wrote.  Whatever you decide to do, be proactive and do something…anything!  It will pay off for the text and for the next step in this method.

Step 5: Re-read the article

Now that you are the master of all the vocabulary and kanji that stumped you in the article you read, go back and rock it!  Of course leave out the hiragana, and see how much you retained.  If there are still words and kanji that you miss, go back to the lists you made and study them for a while and re-read the article again.  Hopefully by the end of this process you will understand the meaning of the article, which will be a critical part in the new test.  Practicing reading full paragraphs will make life a lot easier for you when you actually sit down for the JLPT.  Good luck passing the JLPT!

LINKS

Newspapers for Kids:

• http://mainichi.jp/life/edu/maishou/index.html
• http://yomoyomo.jp/index.php
• http://kids.goo.ne.jp/index.html?SY=0&MD=2

Dictionaries:

• http://www.jisho.org
• http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C

Other Resources:

• http://www.textfugu.com
• http://www.tofugu.com/2010/04/06/tofugu-100-best-japanese-learning-resources/
• http://www.tofugu.com/2010/03/09/how-to-use-evernote-to-study-japanese-or-any-other-language/

This post was written by Nick W., who has traveled throughout many regions of Japan in search of unique cultural gems.  He is currently earning his MBA and has researched topics like folk music in WWII Japan and Ainu cultural revival through music.  His favorite Japanese musician is the late Nujabes.  Currently, he is studying for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) Level 2.

What Is Evernote?

First off, you should probably learn more about how Evernote works, on a whole, before I dive into how you can use it to study Japanese. Evernote is a tool that helps you capture and remember everything. Because it syncs with your phone, computer, and so on, no matter how or where you gather the information, it will appear on all of your devices. These can be things like grocery lists (I write down my grocery list in Evernote on my computer, and it syncs with my iPhone, which I use in the store), remembering your favorite vintage of wine (take a picture of the bottle in the restaurant), or even saving entire articles with the click of a button (if you have a plugin installed in your browser). Because the organization and search features (you can separate your notes into notebooks, and then further break them up with tags) it’s easy to find your notes later. I use Evernote to take pictures of books I want to buy, movies I want to watch, to copy and paste articles I’ll read on my phone later, backups of newsletters / important information, shortcut keys for different applications, instructions on pieces of paper I don’t want to physically keep, my license plate number (in case I need to remember it), and more. Really, it’s good for almost any type of information you could ever want to store and have easy access to later. It’s not the prettiest UI in the world, but it does its job really well (that job being storing information and allowing me to retrieve it easily later). Best part is that it’s free unless you want to upgrade to a bigger plan, which I may actually have to do pretty soon.

So how about using it to learn Japanese, or perhaps some other language? I haven’t started doing this yet personally (I told you, I just had my epiphany today!), but I’ve thought about it, and here are some great ways to use Evernote to practice your Japanese. After I’m done, I’d love to hear from Evernote users out there on how you would use it for Japanese practice as well. I feel like there’s a lot of untapped potential in this simple little app!

Copying Articles To Practice Later

A lot of times when I’m scrolling through Japanese content, I find something I want to read and use as study material, but don’t have the time to study it right then. There are a couple of problems with this. 1. A lot of newspaper sites pull their content after a little while, which means bookmarking it won’t work. 2. I’m not going to remember it if I just bookmark it anyways.

With Evernote, you can install their browser plugin, highlight the text you want, and then click the Evernote button. From there, a popup will appear allowing you to add it to a particular notebook (I’d create a “Japanese” notebook) and then add tags (highly recommend you tag everything! In this case, I might tag it as “asahi,” “readlater,” and “Japanese.”

By using Evernote, it’s easy to gather a lot of content (and only the content you want, i.e. the article) and store it away for later in a place that’s easily searchable. Other options besides newspapers are Japanese blogs, Japanese Tweets, and any other sites that have regularly updated Japanese content.

Studying Vocabulary

Vocabulary study on it’s own probably shouldn’t be done on Evernote (use Smart.fm or Anki if you want to do that). There is, however, a lot of potential for compiling sentences that use the vocabulary that you’re learning. There’s probably a couple of ways you could do it.

1. Create a new note for every vocabulary word that you’re studying. As you come across sentences (either through dictionary searches, or Smart.fm example sentences) that use the word you’re studying, add them to that vocab’s note. That way, whenever you search for that vocab word, you’ll be able to find sentences that go along with it, and you can use that to study.

2. Just create one big note that has all your practice sentences in it. Using the search feature, you can find sentences that use the word you’re looking for and just scroll through looking at those. Not quite as organized, but less time-intensive as well.

Another thing you could try is using the tag feature to tag notes with the vocab you are learning. This, I imagine, could get kind of overwhelming, though, so try it at your own risk.

Keeping Track Of Grammar

One really neat thing you could do with Evernote is use it to keep track of grammar you’ve learned. All you would need to do is create a “Grammar” notebook (or even a note) and put all the grammar you’ve learned in one place. This way, if you’re having trouble with a particular grammar point (or just learned something new about a grammar point), you can open up Evernote no matter where you are, get the information you need, and move on with your life. No more searching your textbook or searching the Internet. It’s all there at your fingertips and you can always add more info whenever you need to, and it’s written in your own style, which means you’ll understand it.

Personally, I think this would be a great way to study for the JLPT, since a lot of the learning is pretty grammar-centric. As you’re going through other study material, this could be a great reference and help you study faster and more effectively.

Keeping A Language Log

Keeping track of the things you’ve done, the things you had trouble with, and then everything in between is pretty important, I think. Normally, I’d recommend using a blog platform (like WordPress) to do this, since being “public” with your log should help motivate you more, but this article is about Evernote, so let’s stick to that. Keeping a log with Evernote is fairly easy, and it’s a good way to keep track of what you had trouble with and what you should study more of. Here is a list of things you could log in Evernote in regards to your Japanese learning:

• What you did today / What you studied today
• What was giving you trouble? Can you write more about it and figure out the root cause of the problem?
• Breakthroughs
• Vocabulary words you learned / studied / need to study more
• What you’ll be studying next (so you don’t forget the next day)
• Sentences, paragraphs, etc., that you wrote today
• Ideas for studying better based on what happened earlier
• etc.

There’s a lot to keep track of when you’re learning a new language, and Evernote is a great platform to help you do it. By keeping a language log, you’re deconstructing a lot of what you’re doing, which is actually really helpful and will assist you in understanding what you’ve done and what you need to do. I’d recommend trying it out for a week or two if you haven’t before. It does a lot more than you might think!

Collecting Inspiration

Staying inspired and motivated is one of the most difficult things when learning a new language (especially on your own). This is something that TextFugu does a pretty good job tackling and taking care of – but you can find and compile the things that inspire you personally, right in Evernote! By collecting articles, quotes, notes, etc., into an “inspiration” notebook or tag, anytime you’re feeling down, or feeling like you can’t do it anymore, you can go straight to that section of Evernote and get a boost of energy.

Although I haven’t done this with Evernote myself, I do have a stack of books with chapters marked off anytime I need an inspirational “you can do it” lift. If those books were in Evernote, it would be that much easier. You’d be surprised at how much of a pick-me-up something like this can do, especially with something that really does need a lot of motivation, like language learning (especially if you study on your own).

Taking Plain Ol’ Notes

I wish I had Evernote when I was in school. I would have used it to take notes in class (well, actually, I’d probably have used Google Wave, and just collaborated on notes with 3-4 other people). If you’re in a class, though, Evernote is a pretty sweet way to do it, especially since you can sync your notes between computers and study no matter where you are (of course, there are things like Google Docs, Dropbox, and others which can do this part pretty well too). Still, it’s a pretty good way to do things. At the end of class (or during class, if you sit in the front), you can even take a picture of the whiteboard and save it to your note (it will even make the words in the image searchable!), that way you have the teacher’s scrobbles, your own scrobbles, and all the scrobbles in between right in one place. It certainly beats pen and paper, at least in terms of searching for things later. If anything, the tagging system makes Evernote a really worthwhile option for taking notes in class.

Sharing And Collaborating

One cool little feature that Evernote has is the ability to share your notes with others. If you want to allow people to modify your notes, you do have to be a premium member (which may or may not be worth it to you). I could see this being useful for people who are studying Japanese with others and want to share notes and ideas. I can also see this being useful for those of you who are learning in a class and taking class notes (and want to share those as well). There are any number of ways to use the share / collaborate feature of Evernote to your advantage. Other alternatives which also let you collaborate include Google Docs and Google Wave, which I would probably recommend more for the collaboration angle of things.

What Are Your Ideas?

Contribute to the Evernote-Japanese-Studying Idea-Pool by commenting below. I’m curious how you use or would use Evernote to your advantage when it comes to language learning. Like I’ve said a couple times already, I think there’s a ton of untapped Japanese-studying potential hidden away in Evernote, and it’s only a matter of figuring out the different uses. So, how would you use the big green elephant? [Evernote]

P.S. If you like elephants, you should follow me on Twitter