"Ryan Ginstrom" <ginstrom@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<c241p3$1pa6ee$1@ID-101276.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> If it's any consolation that was probably the last of them. Now it's on to
> the BBQ parties.

Grrr!! This weekend's going to see 0 degree weather again around
Osaka.

> Nevertheless, it seems just a few short years ago that you were having
> trouble with some fairly simple Japanese. To be able to gist-read a
> newspaper is quite a step up from that. Have you been doing anything in
> particular to study?

Well, it's not like it's the Nikkei Keizai (or whatever it's called)
I'm reading, it's a much simpler level. The typical 75% kanji serious
articles (like our Union newsletters) still make my eyes glaze over.
Depending on the exact article in the wife's paper (Seikyo Shinbun),
it varies from 25% (say, Chinese philosophy) to 90% (nice weather for
sakura) understanding, including kanji readings, aided by the generous
helping of furigana used by the paper.

I plodded along for two years at a JPT2.5 (~600 kanji) level after my
free lessons ran out, just improving conversational skills with the
BYJW (although we usually talk Japlish - "donna tea hoshii?", "Green
ga ii, please"), then for the JPT2 test, I picked up KanjiLab round
about last September and after mastering the first 1006, I just
decided to go the whole hog and get them all done - currently at
2/3rds perfect getting readings from kanji+English gloss. Also, rather
than sleeping or playing games on my handheld, now at meetings I bring
my dictionary and try to read the slides, looking up words I don't
recognise, etc, etc.

Ken