Vocabulary Minna no Nihongo

[michel]

Hi there,

I read (in other topics) that to study for N5, chapters 1 to 30 from Minna no Nihongo are appropriate. I take it this refers to the grammar?

Is studying these 30 chapters sufficient for the N5 test when looking at vocabulary or would you suggest other materials to learn the needed vocabulary?

I recently bought "Quick mastery of vocabulary - in preparation of N4 and N5" when I was in Japan, but I don't know how to start with this. The book doesn't say which words are N4 and which words are N5.

And for my last question about learning vocabulary. When learning new words/kanji, how do you do it? Do you really study complete words or kanji alone? And if you study the kanji alone, what exactly do you study? Do you study all the different readings?

Thanks in advance!

[dimitri_can]

Shd be sufficient

[mac]

I personally use Anki, available at http://ankisrs.net/, it has some really handy decks for studying vocabulary for N5. You probably need to do a search for 4 kyuu though as the decks are still probably labeled as the old decks. Anki will test you on kanji and vocab.

I study kanji and vocab in a lot of different ways. I'll practice writing kanji with various software or I'll practice with flashcards. I also do a lot of reading in Japanese.

Tofugu's got a great post on how to learn kanji the right way -> http://www.tofugu.com/2010/03/25/the-5-biggest-mistakes-people-make-when-learning-kanji/

Hope that helps, and good luck!

[michel]

Thanks for the answers!

I also use Anki a lot and I think it's great. I don't really have a lot of problems with studying the kanji as in writing them. I actually studied Chinese in university for four yours and one year in China. Most of the times I already know the meaning.

The problem I have is that I don't know what exactly to study. For each kanji there can be a lot of readings and meanings. Do you study them all and try to learn them by heart?

Here's an example of what I mean:

下 has the following readings according to the N5 kanji page of this site:

した, しも, もと, さ.げる, さ.がる, くだ.る, くだ.り, くだ.す, -くだ.す, くだ.さる, お.ろす, お.りる
カ, ゲ

I know the reading depends on the use of the kanji but how do you guys handle this?

Do you just remember "below/down: 下: した" or do you learn the whole shebang by heart?

[NeWbY]

If you're being asked "How to read this kanji? 下" and then all the answers possible for the reading, it's hard to say which one is the 'correct' one.

It would help to know all the readings of the kanji however, but usually I learn it by reading a sentance with the kanji and thinking "Hey, how should I read it?", and looking it up. The more you see the kanji, the better you learn how to read it in the way as it's written.

[mac]

I would definitely go with what NeWbY said. There are a lot of variations especially for the up/down kanji. I learn the kanji readings by doing a lot of reading in Japanese. It's a bit difficult to do that for lower level students though.

I would suggest looking at some example sentences to help you get a general idea of how to use the different variations. You can find example sentences and their translations at Jim Breen's site http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C
After you look up a word, you can click on the [Ex] next to it and 10 random example sentences will pop up for your word (as long as it is commonly used).