I REMEMBERED! So about the 読むトレーニング 応用編 book you mentioned. Did you find the metaphors in there useful? I feel like metaphors and idioms is one of those things that can get even advanced learners, because you might misinterpret them easily. If it doesn't make any sense, you can just simply look the whole sentence up and see the meaning. But if your misinterpretation kind of "makes sense" in the context, you might be understanding a very different thing from what is actually being told. What's your experience with this? I presume this is also something that gets more natural and easier the more you read and get more cultural awareness.
Yeah I've definitely been tricked by metaphors before! I think that book can be a decent way to spot some, but honestly just reading more helps too because the context usually helps clear it up. Or like, the more you read the more connections you're able to make to understand metaphors better. Perhaps one day I'll go back and finish that book, but it was the one I spent the least time on.
Oh also, if you have enough yomichan dictionaries you can sometimes find out that something is a metaphor by checking out the definitions! That's saved me a few times too. But yeah, totally gets more natural and easier the more you read!
The only JLPT prep book I physically own is the 日本語総まとめN3読解, which I didn't use for prep in the end because I had a bit of a hard time understanding it back in the day (this was 2017 when I took the N3). And I still somehow got 60/60 points in the 読解!!? (still not sure how, I did find the readings and the questions on the easier side of things but I recall answering some questions with a "this is my best guess" strategy).
Anyways, going back on topic, I still plan on reading the 総まとめN3読解 sometime because I found what I read pretty nice: the readings in it feel like helpful examples of day-to-day Japanese including reading directions/dates/signposts, letters or newspapers. Not sure how good of a prep those are, but I feel like I can learn useful things reading it, haha. I haven't heard many great things about the 総まとめ文法 ones, but I don't remember the exact criticisms (probably lackluster explanations of the grammar points). But I might still eventually get the 総まとめ読解 ones for N2 and N1.
I didn't know about the Meshclass Japanese YT channel! Looks good!
On the news reading side of things, which newspapers (I'm assuming online ones) or websites did/do you use? So far me being intermediate level I have only used NHK NEWS EASY, but I'm also not a huge news/newspaper enjoyer (not even in my native language) so I haven't read that too often either.
I think I wanted to ask you something else, but i forgor :c
Oooh lots of good questions and comments in here, thank you!
Congrats on the 60/60 for the 読解 section! that is huge! I do agree that some of the reading passages for the JLPT are pretty interesting and have definitely caused me to look up more about a certain topic before! Also yeah, a lot of them are super practical. I think overall the 総まとめ series is fine, but I agree that in my own experience sometimes the explanations were lackluster. Simple and to the point can be good most of the time though, but sometimes you just need to use another source!
I read a lot of NHK for news, unless I was trying to find a specific news article that used whatever grammar point I was looking up. Totally forgot about this until just now - but I tried finding an article for every grammar point I was studying! and I did haha. So at that point I just would use google search + the news tab to find what I needed. If I was just trying to find anything to read, I always went to NHK.
I REMEMBERED! So about the 読むトレーニング 応用編 book you mentioned. Did you find the metaphors in there useful? I feel like metaphors and idioms is one of those things that can get even advanced learners, because you might misinterpret them easily. If it doesn't make any sense, you can just simply look the whole sentence up and see the meaning. But if your misinterpretation kind of "makes sense" in the context, you might be understanding a very different thing from what is actually being told. What's your experience with this? I presume this is also something that gets more natural and easier the more you read and get more cultural awareness.
Yeah I've definitely been tricked by metaphors before! I think that book can be a decent way to spot some, but honestly just reading more helps too because the context usually helps clear it up. Or like, the more you read the more connections you're able to make to understand metaphors better. Perhaps one day I'll go back and finish that book, but it was the one I spent the least time on.
Oh also, if you have enough yomichan dictionaries you can sometimes find out that something is a metaphor by checking out the definitions! That's saved me a few times too. But yeah, totally gets more natural and easier the more you read!
The only JLPT prep book I physically own is the 日本語総まとめN3読解, which I didn't use for prep in the end because I had a bit of a hard time understanding it back in the day (this was 2017 when I took the N3). And I still somehow got 60/60 points in the 読解!!? (still not sure how, I did find the readings and the questions on the easier side of things but I recall answering some questions with a "this is my best guess" strategy).
Anyways, going back on topic, I still plan on reading the 総まとめN3読解 sometime because I found what I read pretty nice: the readings in it feel like helpful examples of day-to-day Japanese including reading directions/dates/signposts, letters or newspapers. Not sure how good of a prep those are, but I feel like I can learn useful things reading it, haha. I haven't heard many great things about the 総まとめ文法 ones, but I don't remember the exact criticisms (probably lackluster explanations of the grammar points). But I might still eventually get the 総まとめ読解 ones for N2 and N1.
I didn't know about the Meshclass Japanese YT channel! Looks good!
On the news reading side of things, which newspapers (I'm assuming online ones) or websites did/do you use? So far me being intermediate level I have only used NHK NEWS EASY, but I'm also not a huge news/newspaper enjoyer (not even in my native language) so I haven't read that too often either.
I think I wanted to ask you something else, but i forgor :c
Oooh lots of good questions and comments in here, thank you!
Congrats on the 60/60 for the 読解 section! that is huge! I do agree that some of the reading passages for the JLPT are pretty interesting and have definitely caused me to look up more about a certain topic before! Also yeah, a lot of them are super practical. I think overall the 総まとめ series is fine, but I agree that in my own experience sometimes the explanations were lackluster. Simple and to the point can be good most of the time though, but sometimes you just need to use another source!
I read a lot of NHK for news, unless I was trying to find a specific news article that used whatever grammar point I was looking up. Totally forgot about this until just now - but I tried finding an article for every grammar point I was studying! and I did haha. So at that point I just would use google search + the news tab to find what I needed. If I was just trying to find anything to read, I always went to NHK.