Japano-files
JLPT1 Left Me Devastated
…NOT! 
I didn’t pass JLPT1, 39 points short, and it’s not just because of my big booboo — Writing/Vocabulary section was BAD – 53/100, Listening was even WORSE – 40/100, Reading/Grammar was ok – 148/200 — BUT that’s not any reason to feel sad or anything. No way can this put my spirits down! Or something. In fact, I’m even brimming with optimism, knowing that my light novel reading (no matter how little) and grammar self-study efforts actually paid off! Need to focus on enhancing Listening skills, though, BADLY.
In light of this, I decided to make some sort of JLPT1 Post-Mortem Analysis, just so I can pinpoint what went wrong, regrets that I plan to remedy as I get myself ready to take JLPT1 again this year. And of course, this is no one else but for myself, I’m just taking advantage of my POWERS in the blog to post something as self-indulgent as this, heh.
The Good — to Continue
Novel reading
It all started with Kaze no Stigma, then came Saiunkoku, albeit cut short briefly as I lost the motivation to continue reading and I have no one else to blame but myself. Then there’s Kure-nai, the first volume of which I’ve read, and reread once in a while, when I feel like updating one post I have in queue for who knows how long now. Then there’s also Toshokan Sensou, only ‘finished’ volume 1, skipping a lot of stuff in this one, with the jargons I don’t know, so I doubt that helped me improve .___.;
Grammar self-study
We didn’t have class for JLPT1 in the office last year (since there’s like only 3 students — me and two of our managers in the office), so I decided to review on my own. I studied this Unicom book for the JLPT1 grammar, almost every day way back June, inside the train. The usage examples in the book helped a lot, so I was able to retain them in my memory despite not encountering the JLPT1 grammar patterns in stuff I read or watch and slacking off every now and then (hah!). Of course not 100% mastery, but enough to get a high(er) score in the Grammar section!
The Not so Good — To Remedy
Forced Kanji Memorization
Instead of acquiring kanjis and vocabs from reading and stuff I expose myself to (like the way it was for the past years, acquired from reading/translating mangas, playing games, etc), I decided to go through the 1000 common newspaper kanji compounds list, which, after hours of memorizing and writing, didn’t really stick to my mind as much as I wanted. And like what, only 3 of the compounds I learned actually came out in the exam! Not sure how many times I should encounter a kanji before it sticks to my head, but I find the best way to go about memorizing is still… by association, which is why kanjis/vocabs found in titles are so much easier to remember. Oh, and not having known about Tools to aid in memorization beforehand was a total downer.
The Late Listening Study
I started brushing up on my Listening a tad bit too late, like only 2 months before the exam, with the usual slacking off from studying and/or sleeping inside the train when I’m supposed to be answering the exercises in this Listening Studying workbook I borrowed from our office library. Then, after I bid goodbye to making episodic summaries in the blog, I found myself being reliant to fansubs more and more, which made me get better in Reading English Text instead of Listening to the Japanese Audio orz. One of these days I’m gonna force myself to watch stuff in raw again, or better yet, watch Chinese subs. Listen to audio, and learn kanjis at the same time. Would be so much better if there’s Japanese subtitles, but alas, I have no idea where to find that.
Plan of Action
Translate MOAR
I fell behind in translating after I passed JLPT3 and got busy with work. To think that I haven’t even translated all that much, I didn’t even finish the Maimiko Touko no Jikenbo one-volume manga I was working on some years ago T__T FFAILLL. I got lazy and complacent, became contented with being able to understand the gist of what I read, which made me learn less vocabs/kanjis (since I’d have to stop reading and search for the meaning of the kanjis I don’t know if I were to do it the ‘hardcore super geek way’). Basically, it made me less of an “active reader”, since I wasn’t ‘forced’ to understand every bit of what’s being said, something like that.
I should get my lazy ass to translate again, work for scanlation groups like before perhaps? Or even venture into translating light novels. Just have to find a way to balance this with blogging, among other things.
Note to self: Grow out of translating fluff, and work on more serious stuff. Minako Narita works will do, perhaps. Toshokan Sensou is something far behind my league atm, can probably start with something more slice-of-lifey than militar-y. Or better yet, translate the Kaze no Stigma novel, especially the Ignition short stories 
Nothing is certain yet at this point, but we’ll see. Or better yet, be an active translator in the scanlation groups I’m supposed to be part of! >_<;
Read MOAR Novels
This year, I only read the 1st volume of Kure-nai, the 1st volume of Toshokan Sensou, and also a bit of Nogizaka Haruka (lol). I think I either have to convince myself to go translate or bring back the Deep Frying feature in the blog to force myself to READ MOAR, and also understand almost every bit of what I read, not skip stuff like I do now. For JLPT1, there’s no other way but the HARDCORE WAY.
Listen to MOAR Drama CDs, Watch MOAR stuff RAW
I used to listen to Drama CDs, because zOMG they breathe life to the shoujo mangas I LURV (mangas that haven’t been adapted into an anime yet)! But I slacked off, like usual. After getting hooked on anime instead of mangas and games, I found myself being less hardcore about Drama CDs. In fact, I hardly ever listen to one anymore. Also because anime fansub is evilllllll, evil for people who are prone to resorting to the ‘easier way out’ of things. Why rely on raw/Chinese subs when there are English subs! Why bother listening to Drama CDs when you already have the anime?! This might entail listening to dialogues twice, thrice, or even more, just to get what’s being said in the Drama CDs and/or the anime, but if it’ll help enhance my sucky listening skills, then it’ll be more than worth it.
Watch MOAR JDramas
Watching JDramas ought to be the better way of enhancing Listening skillz for JLPT, because it’s close to what people really say in real life, unlike animes that is. But I’ve never been into JDramas, well I just watch one or two from time to time, but I usually fail to watch it till the end =/ I ought to find one or two JDramas I have to follow from start to end one of these days… and again, force myself to watch raw/csubbed. Or perhaps I can learn even with English subs, just have to pay extra
Play MOAR Games
I used to be a hardcore player of otome games, not the I WANT TO PLAY THEM ALL kind of hardcore (just to some extent), but the kind of geek who stops at almost every bit of dialogue, take down notes of unknown kanjis, trying to decipher what the heck the characters are saying. Heck, I wonder how long I played Corda before I really understood what the characters were saying. It’s hard, and quite a pain in the ass, but no pain no gain, right? Success gained by hard work is much more fulfilling after all.
Attend Class
Not sure if our company is going to hold a class for JLPT1 since there would be only be 3 possible students, but I really hope I can attend one this year. Even the class for JLPT2 will do. It’s more fun studying in a group, you can learn stuff by mentoring too! So yeah, hope we’ll also talk in Nihongo this time around, our previous sensei was fluent in English so there wasn’t much of a need to speak Nihongo =__=; so my Nihongo communication skillz get rustier and rustier as the days go by. Sigh.
And that’s it! Hope I can really get the motivation to study… SOON. To JLPT1 and beyond!
Credits to まきの, かみや, and ミサキ for the pics.
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19 comments for “JLPT1 Left Me Devastated”
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39 points is nothing! :3 Good luck for achieving the JLPT1 next year, you are going to do it!
By the way, I think novel translations would be great – everyone does scanlations anyways, and although there are a bunch of titles I want to see scanlated (especially josei), I think the novels are in dire of more attention.
Oh man, JLPT’s >_>
I really ought to be attending my classes if I want to pass level 3 or so, and maybe even the new level 3 or 2 next year. As for level 1, uh… yeah.
Like you I got hit bad in Listening too…
>>Listening Study
I used that as an excuse to watch raw anime–especially those that had slow subs like Aria Origination and Mouryou no Hako. I even listened to drama CDs of Hayate no Gotokou and Aria, though I have yet to finish them all.
>>Novel reading
I have the first Kino no Tabi novel and some Marimite manga though I really got lazy and never tried to really read. After the first few pages my brain begins to shut down. T_T
Anyway, I think self-study is OK as long as you’re disciplined. Good luck on JLPT1! (Wish me luck too on my JLPT2 retake ^_^;)
I think it’d be better to attend more classes than listening/viewing/reading MOAR RAW stuff… Because not everything is “RAW POWAH!” in this life. Anyways, I still have to wait for my results… I fuckin’ hate to live overseas when it comes to things like these =S
that’s interesting. i myself am realizing that rather than just reading, i should really practice writing kanji more(even if it’s a skill i never need as such) simply because they stay in your head much better that way. Translating is really good too, and it helps me out a lot. my own problem is i wanna read old classics, but it takes me a day to read a page, and given that classics tend to be 500 pages + i always drop out before the end…
@sasa
Rabbit Reich scanlators have been searching high and low for some yamada naito scans(queen of josei imho) for me to translate. so far nothing..
which made me get better in Reading English Text instead of Listening to the Japanese Audio orz
lol, yes… in the Autumn I was following 3-4 series raw, and when December came, I began marathoning earlier series with subs. The subs got annoying real quick! But I couldn’t take that much of the language in massive amounts (like 150-200 episodes), so I was trapped.
One of these days Im gonna force myself to watch stuff in raw again, or better yet, watch Chinese subs. Listen to audio, and learn kanjis at the same time.
Forcing is best. I find myself watching the raws of stuff that I was too busy to watch day of airing, and already has subs (Toradora). I would think the Chinese subs are definitely a good notion, but might get confusing for those that are really unfamiliar with Chinese (like me).
Would be so much better if theres Japanese subtitles, but alas, I have no idea where to find that.
Oh this is soooo true. Perhaps like Japanese closed-caption? But that might only be available on actual DVDs, not sure. I always thought it’d be so awesome if there were like 4 subtitles with a video, with various levels of language hints, say, the full subtitle in Japanese to a subtitle with only a few words noted. Might be a lot of work though hehe.
The J-Drama thing is a good bet, also there’s tons of radio shows and NHK. Sometimes I load the NHK daily news stream on my portable and fall asleep, often have no clue what is being said, but the objective is to make out the pronunciation without trying to thinking of the meaning in English.
I’m still doing the flashcards from listening to raws, but am finding it’s good to have example sentences with each card (read aloud) and to set the English meaning to a very light color. Also, mixing passive (or distractive) and active reviews makes the brain do all sort of things; when I can answer stuff passively it’s good, but it’s not like it can happen without reviewing actively.
You will so have JLPT1 in the next go! ^_^ I will has none lol… I think the closest test site for me is a couple hours flight away -_-
From failure to failure until complete victory! You can do it!
I’m not sure what kind of texts they test you on in the JLPT, though my guess is that there’s a variety which includes ’serious’ non-fiction articles. As much as I myself love learning through novels/manga/anime, it does seem that the language used is rather high-handed to be of actual use in RL/exams (so I tend to remember the most complicated of expressions that are too situational to be of actual use, when the more common ones aren’t even in my reach -_-”). The key is exposing yourself to a good variety I guess.
@Sasa: thanks ^^ We’ll see, I’ll probably work my way up to translating novels, one step at a time… by translating moar mangas first, in the meantime.
@hayase: it’s easy to get overwhelmed and lazy when reading novels, just… take it slowly, give yourself a kick from time to time, brainwash yourself to READ and try to understand things even if they make you @__@ sometimes, and you’ll eventually find yourself getting used to it
All the best to us!
@Captain Arepa: Well the classes we used here doesn’t quite have the ‘normal curriculum’ like those in language schools. Our previous sensei had his own curriculum, taught us the way he thought best, by focusing on JLPT, at a superrr fast rate, and not so holistically too. I’m positive it’ll be different this time around, much much better!
@animekritik: writing kanjis definitely help, as I’ve also realized lately. Helps you remember the kanjis by heart, every damn stroke!
and ugh, good luck reading old classics…
@Ryan: Closed caption Japanese subtitles! I think some broadcasting companies provide that for other shows, like this Detective Conan movie I saw one time in one electronic shop. The TV just has to support it. Would be great if they have that available for ALL programs, and if someone actually uploads the RAWS with Japanese subtitles!
And if you want sample sentences to go with the kanjis, you can always go to the handy dandy ALC! I guess that’s why my drastic kanji memorization didn’t work so well…
will certainly see to it that I’ll pass this year, because the exam’s gonna change next year! D:
@Kitsune: hai, ganbarimasu!!!
@issa-sa: hm, most of the essays in the reading section are all non-fiction actually. The topics vary, and so is my interest to read and understand them lol.
and haha, guess novels/manga/anime are great that way!
I was thinking about getting certification for Japanese too but, not too sure how I’d do. Some freely accessible past papers would be nice
I don’t think watching with Chinese subs to learn Kanji is a good idea because a good number of characters are used differently. For example, ?? is only used to refer to factors in maths whereas in Chinese, it is used to refer to factors as in reasons too. If you used the latter the Japanese way, it wouldn’t work. Learned this the hard way when I was chatting with a Japanese penpal.
Not to mention you’ll be looking at Traditional (??? or “???” as the Japanese call it? and Simplified Hanzi ?????, not Japanese Kanji.
@Xcomp: copies of the past exams float around the net, like in Chinese forums.
I find chinese subs helpful in deciphering which particular kanji matches the words you simply hear in animes/jdrama, like some sort of secondary reference? It helps better my understanding, having to rely on both Japanese and Chinese knowledge (and what little of it)
Well, if you understand the basics of both languages then yeah, it could be a secondary reference. Otherwise I think it would end in quite a bit of disaster
Guess I’ll go around scouting the Chinese forums for ??????? papers then!
Brrr, Chinese subs. I find it amazing that you can actually decipher them, usagijen.
@animekritik: Ah, Yamada Naito. I knew her name sounded familiar. Well, truth to be told, I flipped through her titles when I was in Paris last year and from what I can see, unfortunately, it’s totally not my style. She has a very chaotic-looking drawing style and loves to use these very artificial screen tones and backgrounds, which is a no-go for me. But good luck for finding scans for the series, I believe it’s going to be difficult indeed.
Good on you! Stiff upper lip, hold fast, tally-ho and all that. Your never-say-die attitude is an inspiration to us all.
Besides, you’ve already passed L2 and can read light novels on a regular basis. To a low-level life form like me, you’re practically an Olympian.
I intend to make good use of your Plan of Action for my L2 prep work, not least because it gives me a great excuse to watch and read more of the good stuff. (”Mum, for the last time I’m not wasting my money on comic books and cartoons. These are all ‘educational materials’.” ~cue winking~)
@Sasa: after a decade of forced Chinese school, this is one of those little ‘benefits’ I got, I guess? lol. You guys make me wanna know who this Yamada Naito author is.
@Diego: reading light novels is still not a breeze for me! I can only handle slice-of-life ones kthx
I do find games to be a lot of help, especially the full-voiced visual novels, whose dialogues you can repeat over and over till you get what’s being said, while seeing the actual text on the screen. And yess, great excuse for justifying this hobby!
Don’t be depressed my comrade. As I also took JLPT, in Malaysia….
Anyway, i just passed my Level 3 only and I have to say it is pretty tough and fun in the same time.
P.S. : Go read Shugo Chara chapter 38 now !!!!
You’re gonna scream fangirl scream like no tomorrow !!!! 
@Eijigawa: congrats for passing JLPT!! and wow, I’m so out of touch I no longer know what’s happening in Shugo Chara! Thanks for the heads up! Though I’ll probably fangirl in a quiet corner, than publicly announce it in the blog
Wow it’s been a while I was here. I took JLPT1 for fun and to try my luck last year too. Fell short by 24 points.
Don’t feel disappointed by it thought. JLPT is never a really good measure of true language ability. Multiple choice allows for guessing and with a written test like this, if you’re Chinese literate you usually make better guesses (which is what I did).
Honestly i wanted to go home and sleep mid-way through the exam because I was just guessing my way through. I never feel as if I know the language much better even if i pass the JLPTs anyway! What matters is REAL ability!
So don’t worry try again this year! I know I will since the cert is still a nice piece of paper to have hahaha.
oh sorry double post but some other study ideas you can try:
- look up the link of resources on http://www.tofugu.com they always list interesting stuffs
- make friends! need to speak! so many people who’ve passed JLPT can read but feel so unconfident about speaking…
my own agenda is to….read more magazines hahahah and use those NDS kanji training games.