I am planning on taking the JLPT 1級 this December. I know that there is some good JLPT information on the forum but it is spread over a lot of different threads. If you are studying for the test or have passed it, please share your study methods.

I have never taken a JLPT and really know very little about it and what study resources are available. My first step is going to be to take a couple of practice exams to see how far away I am from passing. I bought a book from ALC: 日本語能力試験合格への道　１級対策模擬テスト。　It has 4 practice tests with CDs for the listening parts, but it doesn't have any sort of explanation of the answers.

I have the 2 Kyuu version of that book and I think the answers are in the audio - after the question has been read it will say "Number 2 is correct" - Or do you mean there's no explanation of what's going on? That particular book is just the practice tests, and there's more in the series, I have the Kanzen Master book for the Grammar aswell, but I probably wouldn't use it for study normally, just for JPLT - it's page after page after page of grammar forms with one or two example sentences.

I meant that the book tells you only the answer. It doesn't tell you why that is the answer or why the other choices are wrong.

After talking with brose at the 2nd Kamakura get together he struck me as the kind of gaijin that probably already had 1級. Giving presentations in Japanese struck me as a pretty hard core thing to be doing. Now I find out you don't already have 1級 I'm sure with a bit of study you'll be fine...

Anyway, the the texts that got me through 2級 were the UNICOM books. I'm not against 完全マスター but although the books cover the same material, I found the UNICOM ones easier for some reason. The UNICOM books are all in Japanese. The 文法編 books give a brief explanation of a structure and some example sentences. 読解編 have passages that you have to read then some questions about the text (similar to the exam). This book also gives some explanation of various points.

Now I'm also going through Kan Ken 学習ステップ books to sort my kanji readings out. I put compounds and example sentences into Twinkle for review. I aim to get through the 5級 book before taking the JLPT this year.

There was a thread somewhere that JimmySeal posted a link about reading (without a dictionary) in the target language. I was sceptical at first but I'm quite into Detective Conan manga and, unlike some manga, is easy to understand without stopping to look up words. What I love about this type of studying is that it doesn't really feel like studying but at the same time I am definitely picking up vocab, readings and getting a feel for language that I haven't yet studied formally.

I doubt you'll have much trouble with the listening section. For those of us living in Japan it is pretty straight forward. As long as you listen to the question and then listen to the text for the info you need, that is. Some of the questions don't actually tell you the answer, they just tell you what it's not so you have to use your powers of deduction!

As for why the answers are correct, you just have to go back and re-read the section for the correct grammar point and figure out why it made sense.

Actually, I think a better method is to go through ALL of the choices and explain to yourself why each choice is correct or incorrect.

chamcham Wrote:As for why the answers are correct, you just have to go back and re-read the section for the correct grammar point and figure out why it made sense.

Actually, I think a better method is to go through ALL of the choices and explain to yourself why each choice is correct or incorrect.

Yep, most should make sense after you look at the correct answer and the answer choices. And if you really can't figure it out, you can always ask a 日本人.

I've never heard of anyone else using the following book but it really helped me prepare for the grammar section on 1Q and 2Q. I recommend it:
日本語能力試験に出る文法 (there's an 1Q version and a 2Q version).

I just took the first practice exam:
文学・語彙　５２点
聴解　　　　　８８点
読解・文法　１３３点
合計　　　　　２７３点 (280 needed to pass)

So overall it seems I am not far away from being able to pass. The 文学・語彙 was really hard, with lots of words (and even some kanji like 些 and 氾) that I don't know. Another obvious problem is that I don't distinguish well between long vowels and short vowels (is 崩壊　ほかい　or ほうかい?).

The listening part was pretty easy, but you really have to concentrate because you don't get any second chances at the script or the answers, and the next question starts in just a few seconds. I found the reading comprehension pretty easy and the area where RTK helps the most. But is also seems that you could burn through all of your time trying to figure out the reading comprehension and end up not being able to finish the exam. So maybe it is better to do the other parts first then come back to reading comprehension?

The fill in the blank sentences were really hard. I could read the sentences but I didn't know most of the choices for the answers. For example, I have no idea how phrases like 「でなくてなんだろう」、「しないにこしたことはない」,「いかんでは」 and 「ではあるまいし」 are used. Is this the sort of thing that is explained in the study guides?

brose Wrote:The fill in the blank sentences were really hard. I could read the sentences but I didn't know most of the choices for the answers. For example, I have no idea how phrases like 「でなくてなんだろう」、「しないにこしたことはない」,「いかんでは」 and 「ではあるまいし」 are used. Is this the sort of thing that is explained in the study guides?

Yes. The book I recommended covers 「でなくてなんだろう」, 「いかんでは」 and 「ではあるまいし」.

i think that there is no need to take the jlpt because i don't think it accurately reflects one's abilities. assuming that everyone's goal is to be as close to native as possible, even a perfect score at level one is still several steps behind your goal. i think studying the materials is great, but the test itself seems pretty irrelevant. i don't need to take the test to know how bad i am; i already know. anyways, here is the rest of my rant here (shameless plug for blog):

http://houhousihk.blogspot.com/2006/12/l...-they.html

You make some very valid points, but you overlook a very important aspect of the JLPT and other tests: motivation. Though it's quite an intangible concept, motivation is tremendously valuable in learning of all kinds, but especially so in language acquisition.
Artificial though the test may be, having one's sights set on the test in early December drives people to study and gain actual, useful knowledge, even if they do have to learn some things that aren't so important. Aside from that, research has shown that people who have a strong motivating factor actually have an easier time absorbing the knowledge that they do study, as compared to people who don't have a reason to push forward.
The important thing is to not get bogged down in letting the test be one's sole motivation, and not let preparation for the test be one's only manner of study. I know of one person who lost all his motivation when he passed the 1Q sooner than he expected to, blaming the test for being too easy. That's not good, but for people who can avoid that, the JLPT can be a great thing.

i think motivation is relative. most tests serve as a means to an end, ie sat's for college, etc. but i don't see how the jlpt is the means to any end nor can i see how the jlpt is an end in of itself. but then again, we all have our own motivations and if the jlpt helps some keep going in their studies, then i can't argue with that. i guess what bothers me the most is that i think it is near impossible to quantitate one's language abilities, especially if the test doesn't cover colloquial speech and whose top score represents anything less than a native speaker. it might tell us how bad we are, but it definitely can't measure how good anyone is.

Studying for the JLPT gives you a goal-- not a particularly important goal I admit, but still a goal. Just taking the practice test has given me an idea of some holes in my knowledge of Japanese. To score well on the test I will have to fill in those holes. As you suggest, native speakers could score pretty close to 100% on JLPT1. Even if some of the words and phrases aren't used very often, natives know them, so they are worth knowing as far as I'm concerned.

i would say the practice tests for the jlpt is far more productive than the jlpt itself. i admit that i have no intention of taking the test, but i do have the study materials. mostly for the same reason you mentioned, to find out where the holes are in my japanese because i can get immediate feedback from a practice test and find out where i need to improve. for the jlpt itself, it might say that my reading could be better but it doesn't give any targeted feedback as to what specific mistakes i've made. actually, i could be wrong about that since i never took the test. please correct me if i'm wrong. then i'd have to argue that it is cheaper to just take the practice quizzes.

I figured I would go and take the level 1 at some point in the future when, in an accidental and round-about way, I had managed to memorize enough of what it takes to pass the test. Anything less than level 1 seemed pointless since it meant I was good enough at some of Japanese %{, which is good for, what, reading 1/2 a newspaper? I didn't know until now that the certification expired (wonderful), so unless I need it for entry to some club at some point, I guess I now have absolutely no motivation. All I know is I speak better Japanese than the Japanese who in Japanese tell me their scores on the English proficiency exams (as if foreigners understood what points/level entail or signify!) They might get "respect" from their coworkers, but its lost on me. I spend all of my free time during the work day studying, just because the act of learning is fun, and Japanese is now one of my favorite hobbies. Getting into kanji last year was really refreshing, and making stories is one of my absolute favorite puzzles/games these days. Readings are not fun - just more wrote memorization, and not engaging to me. When I get to the point where I can read a menu completely without the help of the waiter, I guess I will feel satisfied that I know the language. If I were learning Japanese at gunpoint, I think I would have a real problem... ;-)

JLPT certification doesn't expire. Who said it does?

http://houhousihk.blogspot.com/2006/12/l...-they.html

I got that from the blog entry cited in a previous post

I believe you're referring to this line

Quote:Another thing, most of these test scores have an expiration date.

The writer is speaking in general about proficiency tests in that sentence, not about the JLPT.

I've lived in Japan for 10 years and never got around to taking any of the JLPT, so obviously I didn't consider it a huge priority. My Japanese has finally reached the point where I can probably pass １級 without studying too much, and it would give me some personal satisfaction to have it. I'm working my way though one of the UNICOM books and I really like it. I know some people claim that you really don't need a lot of the phrases on the exam, but I've already seen plenty of them in my reading. I also thought it was unfair that 些細 was on the exam, but I have already seen it a couple of times, and if it weren't for the exam I probably still wouldn't know it. At least in my case there is no reason to be obsessed with the exam, but I still think it is a useful part of my overall studies.

I checked up on how long the tests were effective for regarding the major tests. I think I need to change the sentence to a FEW of the tests have expiration dates. However, in terms of applying them to some end (school enrollment, etc.), the test usually has to have been taken within a certain period. For the HSK, according to the website, the test is valid forever, but in regards to applying to a university, it needs to have been taken within 2 years. Sorry for all the confusion.

I'm taking Level 1 this year and after taking level 2 a couple of years ago, I'm pretty sure I know which areas to focus my efforts: kanji and grammar. I'm assembling a spreadsheet of the grammar points using the 実力アップ book (which I consider to be very good). You can see the work that I've done so far here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p...C9EaR1PHVA

I then take the data from this spreadsheet and create some flashcards in Anki. Since it's in spreadsheet format, it should be easy for anyone to export it to whatever software you want, Anki or otherwise. It's still got quite a long way to go so if there's anyone else using a grammar book, who'd like to contribute or use the data, please let me know.

Google spreadsheets seems to be an excellent way of working together on this.

Anyone else taking the exam at Waseda?

brose Wrote:Anyone else taking the exam at Waseda?

See you there! (but I'm not taking level 1)

Posted in another thread but added here too: I'll be taking the JLPT in Ichikawa, Chiba

FudoMyo Wrote:Good idea. Can you send me a link?
Also I'm curious as to how your model looks. Mine has 4 fields, on the front is "expression" and "example sentence" and on the back is "meaning" and "notes."

You can see a link to an earlier version above. It's quite different now and if you'd like to edit it with me then please send me an email. I get all of my info from one of the unicom books or 実力アップ as it says on the cover. Where do you get your info from?

In Anki, my model has 7 fields:

実力アップ番号 - the number of the grammar point in the book
表現
意味
例
答え
形
注意

You can see examples in the spreadsheet above.

I then have two cards:

1. Fill in the gap (like in the exam). So I see the sentence with the grammar point missing and I have to remember the answer. I also see the 形, 意味 and 注意 fields in the answer.
2. Recognition. Where I see the 表現 field and I have to remember what it means and if I can, the general idea of the sentence that goes with it.

EDIT: Neither of my cards show me the 実力アップ番号 field, I use this for reference when sorting through the deck.

Great, so can I steal your cards? I don't see how I can add to them, as I'm not using　実力アップ！　I've hired a private tutor (who's fantastic, btw), and she recommended
どんな時どう使う日本語表現文型５００, subtitled 500 Essential Japanese Expressions: a Guide to Correct Usage of Key Sentence Patterns. It's by アルク, and it's excellent, very thorough. I'm making my way throught that plus 完全マスター series grammar book, the yellow cover. I'm willing to offer vocabulary cards, though, whatever I have in exchange for what you're willing to offer. My friends all reckon at this late stage, the Speedanki website is the way to go.