Woot! JLPT results just came out today and I managed to pass JLPT N2 with one week of doing practice exams! N2 is the second hardest level so only N1 left. I barely passed my comprehension which is the biggest jump from N3. FYI if you fail any section of the JLPT, you fail the whole exam. N2 makes N3 look like cakewalk because there was not enough time and you have to speedread like crazy and learn to extract points from skimming
Glad I got perfect for listening which is my strongest point. I need to get my hands on some N1 practice exams and see whether I want to do N1 this year. For reference I don't study, I just watch lots of doramas and play games in Japanese so this was a let's see why far watching Japanese entertainment can take me and I cbf studying.
I think N1 comprehension is going to be killer since the jump from N3 to N2 is huge and the paragraphs are going to be even confusing and dense. Plenty of time to decide. It doesn't help that they moved the exam venue to 1 hour away.
One thing I learned from the N2 exam is trust your first instinct and do not second guess because there is not enough time for the reading section.
Congratulations! \(ツ)/
ReplyDeleteCongratulations!
ReplyDeleteWow, that's pretty amazing! Huge congratulations. Having watched J-dramas for around a decade, it's sad to realize that I couldn't even come close to pass level 5. It's clear that, for me, simply viewing copious amounts of Japanese dialog has done nothing, other than familiarize myself with some vocabulary and sentence structure. So, learning by osmosis is not a viable method for me. When I retire in a few years (yeah, I'm that old), I would like to take a Japanese language course at a local university. Old people usually can take courses for free!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations :) That gives me hope I might give some JLPT tests a try again after like 10 years, when I passed the old N3 when there were only 4 levels :P
ReplyDeleteAs I also watch a lot of jdramas I wonder how far I'll get .. but my Kanji reading is surely detoriated overr the years :P
@jeff-tiger
ReplyDelete@hamanosilence
passively watching dramas alone won't make you learn japanese, but playing games will. you are forced to interact with the language in order to complete the game after all. i know several people who has excellent japanese thanks to games
Congratulations. I just have basic Japanese, but that gives me a bit of an idea what this has involved for you. As you would be aware, increasing to higher levels in a language is a big step because the vocab and grammar is much lower frequency.
ReplyDelete@HamsapSukebe
ReplyDeleteAs this is a general post...and most people will have finished commenting on the actual topic, hope you don't mind if I post the following here. (Feel free to delete if it doesn't suit you)
A recent drama viewing and I couldn't focus on the drama at all. The almost ubiquitous see of frozen faces, and actors who now just look a little familiar to people who used to be able to move me by the smallest gesture.
All I could think of was we have reached the point where the plastic surgeon giveth, the plastic surgeon taketh away.
@jeff-tiger and @hamanosilence: The most fun way for me to learn to read is karaoke.
ReplyDeleteGaming can be useless as well for example I play fantasy games and today I learned two other ways to say swamp but don't know the difference between 3 of them.
@Rick: I have poor grammar because I never went to class.
@Anon: Which dorama are you talking about?
Re: @Rick: I have poor grammar because I never went to class.
ReplyDeleteSeveral of the language learning enthusiasts on the net are asserting that we can incorporate grammar by osmosis, inductively by lots of input (reading and/or writing) just as we learn our native language. I'm still not sure yet about this from personal experience. But I do think that the more sophisticated and literary grammatical forms, whether in our native language or L2, need conscious explanation and study.
over 18 years of watching jdramas, kdramas and cdramas, and i am not proficient in any. theres just some people who cant learn by osmosis. hard to rewire my brain to remember words. also too much things to do, not enough time to study.
ReplyDeletegratz on passing on your jlpt mike!
@Rick: I also did a lot of practice by making Japanese friends and going out every night in Japan and talking to people and karaoke. However I feel I have many holes because I skipped many steps.
ReplyDelete@dgundam: I think talking to people is the most important thing about learning a language and I have very far to go because there are many things I don't understand.