Well, the JLPT is temporarily over and done with.
I really wouldn’t like to say how it went, it’s a tricky beast to gauge really. Either way I feel it’ll be a close run, I’ll either have scraped or pass or let it slip from my grasp by a few agonizing points.
The test is broken down into four sections:
1) Vocab/Kanji – Responsible for my failure last year actually went rather well this year. I would roughly hazard that I passed it.
2) Listening – My specialist section, I took 80% of the test last year, I doubt I took that much this year, maaaybe a pass but I think more likely just below the pass mark.
3) Reading – This was ass this year. The topics were boring and the wording vague on some of the shorter ones. Probably didn’t quite achieve a pass mark.
4) Grammar – Probably passed, the first 50% of the questions were very easy, the latter 50% were trickier but I probably managed to solve enough of them to pass overall.
So..that’s all she wrote for that. I guess I can take a couple of days study break before getting back to the drawing board and studying for something else (I need motivation more powerful than self improvement sadly).
Nothing else!
またねー
I failed the Japanese 1-kyuu test it appears. This in itself is not surprising, what IS surprising is that I failed it by only 4% scoring 66% overall, an extra 17 points would have sealed the deal for me.
This is one of the few times I’ve failed an exam of something and actually been rather pleased with the outcome. As expected I gave myself a massive boost in the listening weighing in at 80%. Unexpectedly I also weighed in impressively to the grammar and reading section with 66% but only achieved 51% in the vocabulary section.
Possibly the most ironic thing is that I actually scored higher on the 1kyuu this year than I did on the noticably easier 2kyuu last year. Last year I scraped by with 60.25% where a pass grade of 60 is required. This year I took 66 where 70 is needed. How does that work?
I need to pass this next time though because as James so wisely put it: “I’m sick of paying 6,000 yen plus travel expenses to take this shit.”
Embrace them, Magneto has apparently been at it again.
So last week I went to Shiga-ken to study how to be a translator and/or interpreter. Frankly I was as surprised as anyone that I was able to take part, my half assed brand of locally acquired Japanese is only appropriate for berating scallywags and drunken (or sober) karaoke and is in no way suitable for addressing dignitaries.
Even so, it was great fun and I didn’t embaress myself anywhere near the potential that I had to do so. The material was pretty tough, but after a couple of days of classes and getting to know my classmates the whole affair became much more relaxing. It was rather humbling to meet some of the people who are basically fluent as far as I can tell, but it gave me something to aim for and I came away from the whole thing with a lot more confidence and a greater will to study. Which was nice.
Anyway, a lot of it was thanks to the awesome teammates of our press team in the “Dodgy Times” all pictured below.
Fact x Importance = News
The Dodgy Times: Liberal in the face of fact.
