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Japan GAF |OT| I'm not planning a trip; I live here!
- Thread starter RapidCancel
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You could aim for a 新卒 position in any company, what you graduated doesn't really matter since everyone (excluding science majors which have actual skills) starts fresh anyway. Visa costs the company around ~100k if they decide to use a lawyer to do all the paperwork iirc, so it's not a fortune.
The whole system is based on an assumption that university students don't have the specialist knowledge required for the job, but since they graduated university they aren't stupid and will learn everything if you teach them. Over 80% of Japanese graduates every year gets a job this way - most of them start as full time employees on starting positions アand get all the necessary knowledge during the first months/year of employment.
The employment process itself is based on your personality/being able to show that you care about the company and would be a valuable asset because of your attitude and general skills which you gained during your school years by doing stuff like being the leader of a circle or something.
Being an English speaker is a surprisingly huge thing (I personally was very surprised at how few people know English in the gaming industry here), so your chances aren't half bad.
If you still don't know what I'm talking about, just check a few company sites - all of them have a 新卒 category (example), where you probably can apply. Just remember that if you want to go through with it exactly like Japanese students, it will take quite a long time so you might be better off if you just keep checking regular sites like mynavi etc.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Ayup.
There's a pretty strict schedule for shinsotsu, and you almost never get to chose where you will work unless it is a really small company. Furthermore, the pay will be shitty for a few years, so I'd say it's quite the commitment to Japan.
There's eikaiwas everywhere and you could contact the big ones and see what they say.
Aizo
Banned
All right. I'm feeling less concerned. I'll make it work out! Thanks for the responses--
besides this one. haha
Well, as for medium-smaller companies with no "regulated" 新卒 system (like the previous one I was in), they hire people without work experience, treat them like graduates (trial period and all that stuff), but you don't have to go through the whole half year job hunting hell with a ton of explanatory meetings etc.
Also, this might be only my opinion, but despite eikaiwa paying better at the beginning, I really thing it's smart to start a regular career, even if it means lower starting salary, because if you get bored of teaching after a few years it might be hard to find another job since when you're older you're no longer treated as a fresh graduate and are expected to have some work experience.
Of course this might be different for each company, but all I hear about teaching in Japan is that despite it paying quite well it's a dead end career-wise.
Lord Ghirahim
Member
I need help with a gaming related thing. If anyone can help, please PM me asap. The campaign is free, but you need a 3DS to access the TSUTAYAでDS service.
I already asked for help in the appropriate thread on the gaming side of the forums, but that thread has been dead for a while now :/
I already asked for help in the appropriate thread on the gaming side of the forums, but that thread has been dead for a while now :/
What do you need help with exactly?
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Apparently he needs someone to connect to Tsutaya's thing and then send him the code so he can register it on his own SE account.
Lord Ghirahim
Member
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Man, if you guys ever needed some deep insight into how fulfilling and rewarding being an unqualified "teacher" in Japan can be, hop on over to the last ~10 posts of the ALT in Asia thread. I'm sold!
I wanted to know if anyone in JapanGAF has taken the N2 test and how much/how long you've been studying to get there, since I was told there might be a job opening for me if I manage to pass that level, but I'm at about N3.5 right now, so I'm kind of uneasy about whether I'd be able to get to N2 level in time for the end-of-year exams (since my next chance would be around July 2016).
On the spoken/hearing part, I've watched lots and lots of anime in the past few years so I'm able to understand most everyday phrases in different styles of speech, but there's a disconnect between the number of words I can spot from their pronounciation versus the written kanji, which is why I can understand less than half of what's written on the light novels I bought while in Japan last year, while I can do way better when reading stuff with furigana such as manga.
Then there's also the fact that anime dialogues tend to be full of impolite speech, so I need to conciously switch to keigo to avoid looking like a smug jerk, but that's something I've been getting better at as of late.
I'd really appreciate if anyone could give me advice on taking the exam, and how prepared you might've been at the time you were able to pass it.
On the spoken/hearing part, I've watched lots and lots of anime in the past few years so I'm able to understand most everyday phrases in different styles of speech, but there's a disconnect between the number of words I can spot from their pronounciation versus the written kanji, which is why I can understand less than half of what's written on the light novels I bought while in Japan last year, while I can do way better when reading stuff with furigana such as manga.
Then there's also the fact that anime dialogues tend to be full of impolite speech, so I need to conciously switch to keigo to avoid looking like a smug jerk, but that's something I've been getting better at as of late.
I'd really appreciate if anyone could give me advice on taking the exam, and how prepared you might've been at the time you were able to pass it.
I think they say 200 - 300 hours study for native English speakers?
It only tests passive ability, so it's really getting the kanji and grammar down (lists are online, textbooks are also there), and practicing reading every now and then.
Definitely possible if you put in the hours.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Don't know if this N stuff drastically changed 1/2, but I passed 1 with less than 8 weeks of study when I was 18. Back then 2 was like barely 1500 kanji, absolutely nothing compared to 1. Since it's probably easier now you could get it done in a few weeks if you actively study rather than passively.
I'm a native Spanish speaker, which is why I got the sounds faster. I believe you can read romaji in Argentine Spanish and have it be almost indistinguishable from the Japanese pronounciation, except for "shi"-"ji" (there's no "ji" sound in Argentine Spanish, at the very least) and long sounds such as "ei" or "ou" which almost sound like "ee" and "oo".
Still, it's great to hear that it's plausible. I'll be trying my best and will look into taking Japanese classes more than once a week to make sure I don't fall behind, because I'd love to have the experience of working at a Japanese games company.
Edit: A couple of weeks' worth of studies and around 1,500 kanji, you say? That seems a plausible goal before the end of the year, even when taking into account the time I've got to spend on my job every week.
Also, would you recommend my current method of reading LNs and slowly but organically picking up new kanji, or going for drills with flash cards and the such? For example, I spotted "genjitsu" (reality) after realizing the first kanji was the same one as in"rikai" (to come to understand something), and then "jitsu" (from the common "jitsu ha" phrase), and all that led me to realize that the first kanji could be read as both "gen" and "ri". Still, my reading of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is kind of like interspaced with lots of kanji I don't get, or maybe four-kanji words where I get only one or two of the characters and their meanings, but don't know how to properly pronounce them either.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
1500 was 2, jlpt1 back then was 3k+. I would recommend real studying, not anime/manga/whatever, but passing is passing, so whatever gets you there.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
If you study for it, you should be able to make it. I'd recommend buying materials specifically for the test to get you going. There are lots of JLPT study materials available, so just start from there.
Also, while they may look similar, the "gen" in "genjitsu" and the "ri" in "rikai" are different characters.
現実　→　現
理解　→　理
Gotta be careful with these differences, even if they may seem small.
So, in short, I think you should definitely do some formal drills to memorize the Kanji you need for the test. Reading lots of books and meticulously looking up words should help, too.
Woah, so that was basically a fluke! I guess it's good that I talked about it and you managed to catch my mistake, because otherwise I'd have kept thinking that way and mixing the two kanji up. I hate when I mix up some of the radicals.
As for memorizing words, would manga be better (since I can just type the furigana to look the kanji up), or should I try to read more LNs and stuff that ommit most furigana, forcing me to not rely on them? I found myself basically ignoring most of the kanji while reading most of the Umineko manga, for example, unless it was a particular word that appeared very frequently and caught my attention. Also, are there any particular kanji drills you guys would recommend?
Also, a final question: Is this actually the correct thread for this kind of stuff, or should I go and make a particular topic?
Pretty sure 一級 and N1 were both always all 常用漢字, which was about 2000, and it now about 100 more when they were updated. So really I think N1 has more kanji.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
There's the Japanese learning thread, but the conversation often seems to focus on more beginner topics.
Manga with furigana is good, too, of course, but it's hard to say what will be most effective for you. When I was first studying, I had an electronic dictionary, but it didn't have any kind of touch input. I would try to read a lot of novels and play games that didn't have any furigana, so I pretty much had to look up any Kanji I didn't know by searching for the radical + number of strokes in the Kanji to learn how to read it and then work from there to look up the compound word. It was time-consuming as all hell, but I think it really helped me learn a lot of the meaning behind the characters, which also made it easier to remember them.
One example that immediately comes to mind is how 「月」 might appear in a character, but that doesn't mean the radical is つきへん. It also includes the radicals of 肉（にくづき）and 舟（ふなづき）. They just got simplified to all be written as　月 in the current Kanji system.
Learning this really put into context the meaning behind characters like 育、肥、背、脳、腹、etc. when I realized they were using the にきづき（肉） radical that indicates "related to the flesh" rather than つきへん（月）, which would imply some "time" or "moon," etc. meaning as used in characters like 期、朝、etc.
Manga with furigana is good, too, of course, but it's hard to say what will be most effective for you. When I was first studying, I had an electronic dictionary, but it didn't have any kind of touch input. I would try to read a lot of novels and play games that didn't have any furigana, so I pretty much had to look up any Kanji I didn't know by searching for the radical + number of strokes in the Kanji to learn how to read it and then work from there to look up the compound word. It was time-consuming as all hell, but I think it really helped me learn a lot of the meaning behind the characters, which also made it easier to remember them.
One example that immediately comes to mind is how 「月」 might appear in a character, but that doesn't mean the radical is つきへん. It also includes the radicals of 肉（にくづき）and 舟（ふなづき）. They just got simplified to all be written as　月 in the current Kanji system.
Learning this really put into context the meaning behind characters like 育、肥、背、脳、腹、etc. when I realized they were using the にきづき（肉） radical that indicates "related to the flesh" rather than つきへん（月）, which would imply some "time" or "moon," etc. meaning as used in characters like 期、朝、etc.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Found the switch info: https://www.jlpt.jp/e/about/pdf/comparison01.pdf
There was a clear difference between 1 and 2, about 1000 kanji according to this. I took it like 15 years ago now so of course I can't remember specifics. Vocab is there bigger gap.
Where do you think the best place would be for me to try and pick up a wii controller + nunchuck + sensor bar on the cheap? Just trawl hardoffs, yeah? I've not seen one out in the wild for less than about 4500 yen or so.
I could go down to denden town at some point if you know any decent second-hand hardware stores down that way.
I could go down to denden town at some point if you know any decent second-hand hardware stores down that way.
I got a Nunchuck for ¥500 at a Book-Off (forgot which one it was, but I think most of them have at least a couple), and I think sensor bars are also around that price point. Dunno about wiimotes, though. I think Shinjuku has three book-offs within walking distance (two to the west of Shinjuku station and one on the east side), so that'd probably be your best bet for finding them all in a single trip.
twentytwo22
Member
In Osaka I would check out BookOff (I don't think there are any HardOffs in Osaka-Fu, at least there weren't a couple years ago). The two BookOffs I used to frequent are in Namba; there is one close to 551 down past Namba Marui, and then there is another one that is also down the road a different direction from Namba Marui (close to the Taito arcade). They are about a 10 minute walk from each other. BookOff tends to price their used game hardware very cheaply.
While in that area, you could also walk to Nipponbashi and check both Sofmaps, Super Potato (although the prices at Super Potato in Osaka suck), Game Tanteidan, etc.
thanks yo, I'll keep them in mind the next time I'm down that way.
I don't know if you know about the Video Game bar Space Station but I was disappointed to find out it was closed when I went down on Saturday... apparently there was a car accident badly damaging the shopfront... might've had casualties, too. :T
I don't know if you know about the Video Game bar Space Station but I was disappointed to find out it was closed when I went down on Saturday... apparently there was a car accident badly damaging the shopfront... might've had casualties, too. :T
twentytwo22
Member
Oh wow, that's too bad... I never went, but I knew about it and had friends that went there once in a while.
Well, since Book-Offs always have a hardware section, you'd do well to check them out. I believe Osaka has several ones you could go to.
There's an intercom in my apartment, and it was even louder than Softbank's alarm.
So two alarms at once really freaked me out. lol
Took about 45 minutes to calm myself down. ; w ;
At the moment western specialists agree that "earthquake prediction" isn't a thing.
That includes the person on whose research (or something like that) the current Japanese system is based on. As we've seen many times in the past, the system just doesn't work and we're getting surprised by earthquakes all the time.
Mailenstein
Member
Damn, a 5.6 quake. Scary stuff. Stay safe, guys.
Yeah, I think this is one of two ways depending on who you ask.
1) People became kinda immune towards anything less than a 7 after 3/11.
2) People freak out whenever there is an earthquake because of the flashbacks.
or
3) People (like me) cry regardless when it happens because earthquakes are very frightening.
Mailenstein
Member
The ones I hate the most are at night, being still drowsy when the iPhone alarm goes off and just waiting for the impact expecting the worst. But at the same time this force of nature is pretty impressive. Couldn't wrap my head around it when I experienced it the first time.
If you're talking about Shindo, the epicenter doesn't matter and its measuring the shaking where you are. 3/11 was a 6- where I was.
I've seen Wii's at book-off for around 4500 yen (unsure if with everything or not), so definitely check there.
Yeah, rather noticeable on the 16th floor as well.
Though no coworker who was in the street said he didn't notice a thing.
I actually didn't, I wouldn't know if I hadn't read about it online, though it oddly says the Intensity at Ueno was 3, while it was 5 in Saitama and 4 in most of Tokyo.
Which to, someone with no background on the field, is pretty odd.