(2016-05-22, 6:33 am)umrafael Wrote: A brief story about me: started studying japanese from scratch in october, 2013. Then, KanKen 10 in 2014 (148/150), JLPT N5 in 2014 (172/180), KanKen 9 in 2015 (150/150) and JLPT N4 in 2015 (139/180). I struggled a lot going through N4 grammar and have been like that with grammar and kanji ever since. I am a very sloooow learner. Anki and RTK just don't work for me at all and I have to keep writing down the same kanji again and again, making memorization at my own pace. I hired a different native tutor in italki in 2016 but I lack confidence for taking N3 this december. I bought Kanzen Master N3 but I'm still reviewing Genki 2 with my tutor... But before N3, I promised a good friend that I would give a shot at both KanKen 8 and 7 this october! My question is: will my kanken studies at such low levels hinder my performace at N3 (with a whole bunch of high level kanji)? The thing is I ENJOY doing kanken drills. KanKen DS3 game makes me kinda motivated to go on and ever since I found Bret Mayer's (first american to pass KanKen 1) YouTube channel ("Bu Sensei" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCekKfzx...cpI9HoUGSA ) going through each KanKen level, I feel like I'm getting pumped up to take on the challenge..! So, what do you guys think? If I don't ditch doing both KanKen tests this year I might fail N3 or I just might fail at everything anyways?
Here's my 2 cents: it sounds like you enjoy doing kanken. So why not keep doing kanken? Unless you need Japanese for work, it should be about enjoyment and enjoying the journey.
I failed N3 last December. I knew that I would fail going in. I dreaded it. But once I was in the exam room it didn't matter much. The exam itself is very short considering all the preparation that you do. And now I have a score that I can try to beat this year, which is very useful for me. In fact, while I have no idea whether I'll pass this year, I'm almost certain that I will get a much better score, and that is very useful to me.
Are you able to take it in the summer of 2017 where you live? I wish that that was an option for me. If it was, I probably wouldn't have signed up for the exam in December.