[RawToast]

The deadline for applications is the 4th of this month (well it is in the UK).

So who here has applied/is going to apply for the summer tests?

7th here in Russia (or at least here in Moscow). I have applied for N2 (well, almost: I've filled in the forms and paid the invoice, so now I gotta hand them in).

Have fun

*shakes fist at Japan Foundation Los Angeles*

JFLA Wrote:We currently do not offer the July test and have no plans to do so in the near future.

Khakionion Wrote:Have fun

*shakes fist at Japan Foundation Los Angeles*

JFLA Wrote:We currently do not offer the July test and have no plans to do so in the near future.

I'm with you dude :'( That would be my JLPT testing site too

They need to change this and soon. with how fast the world moves not everyone can wait until december to take it if for some reason they are applying for a job that does require it. Especially big population cities in other countries where more of the applicants would be centered around. Its not like it can really be that hard to grade a multiple choice test and if it is they need to hire someone that can streamline their whole system and get test results in and out the door in less than a day. They would probably save money this way after firing people that aren't necessary or productive and the test would get cheaper and then more people would take it until it reaches equilibrium.

[RawToast]

It's pretty bad for you guys to only have the December test, especially when people usually use that time of year for holidays -- not tests!

Messed up my application, somehow managed to enter an invalid 8-digit passcode :S

[Zgarbas]

We also only have the December test, but with ~300 applicants per year (and only ~10 for the N1) you can't expect much.
At least we have some way of taking it! People who study Swedish and a few other languages don't get that luxury.

I'm kind of glad that some places (such as here in Chicago) only do it once a year. After taking it for the first time in December I'm not sure I'd want to take it again in 6 months. Perhaps because I passed the N2 and am aiming for the N1 now, so I need more time; however, I'm also not a fan of tests so I'm not exactly ecstatic about taking it again at any rate.

The only problem with taking it once every 6 months is that they're way too slow with the results. By the time you get them you have very little time to formulate and execute any sort of study plan in response to those results.

If they actually graded the tests in a timely fashion where you only had to wait 3-4 weeks to receive your score online then you would easily have enough time between tests to make serious progress.

I take it every 6 months just out of habit. I'm petrified that if I don't take the test then I'll have no proof that my Japanese isn't actually getting worse. JLPT study doesn't take up a whole lot of time for me now, though. Mostly it's just burning 2 Sundays and 11,000円 a year to calm my nerves. I really should do a listening drill book for this round. Reviewing grammar couldn't hurt either.

I agree that getting the results sooner would be better.

I'm signed up for the July test N2 (again). I pretty much expected to fail the N2 last time, but wanted to get a baseline score on it to have some sort of gauge to go against when I took it "for real". I'm in a situation where being able to point to some numbers to show some sort of improvement, for whatever else it's worth, is not a bad thing.

This year is actually the first time ever that the Moscow test centre does the summer test. Before that the only site in Russia where it was offered twice a year was Vladivostok. I really wish I could have taken the test in July 2011 because I had conflicting appointments in December, but scheduling a commute to the Russian Far East just to take a four hour test would have been somewhat impractical (my hometown is actually closer to NYC than it is to Vladik).

Good luck to everyone taking the July exam tomorrow!!

[RawToast]

It must have been the hottest day of the year in London. No air-con and Murray in the Wimbledon final, I don't think many people wanted to be there!!!

RawrPk Wrote:

Khakionion Wrote:Have fun

*shakes fist at Japan Foundation Los Angeles*

JFLA Wrote:We currently do not offer the July test and have no plans to do so in the near future.

I'm with you dude :'( That would be my JLPT testing site too

Japan Foundation Los Angeles sets the rules for the whole county and kind of runs it. So it's the whole US that has only December. Yes it would make more sense if it was Romania.

Just got home from N4 London.

Difficult. Hot. Difficult.

[s0apgun]

Sorry to hear about the heat! I hope everyone here did their best. I've got my fingers crossed for your results

Tokyo (Kunitachi). Hot outside, but the room was fairly temp controlled. 2nd attempt at N2, I think it was harder this time after the extra 6 months of studying- I probably did better last time. If anyone randomly guessed on all the answers, please tell me your score when the results come so I know how much you beat me by.

[RawToast]

RondonDan01 Wrote:Just got home from N4 London.

Difficult. Hot. Difficult.

Definitely hot, it was 29.5C/85F outside! The SOAS building is meant to have air-con in some rooms. I think that the N1/N2 guys will have been in those rooms.

I found the vocab ridiculously easy, the first part of the grammar/reading section hard but the reading was okay, and the listening average. The small rooms have bad acoustics making longer words harder to recognise Still luckily for me N4/N5 score the vocab and grammar together, so I should be okay...

I think if I do another test in the summer, I will be going to Edinburgh instead. So, it'll either be N3 next July Scotland, or N2/N3 in December in London.

For the Vocabulary/Grammar part (N2), I just blazed through it. Like that I had more time for the 読解, which was, in terms of difficulty of texts, easier than what I have practiced, however, I don't know if I could choose the right answers so quickly.

The listening was ways more difficult than I had imagined. The materials I had for practicing were easier (speed of conversation slower, content easier), but I hope I will get enough points in every section for a pass

Tori-kun Wrote:For the Vocabulary/Grammar part (N2), I just blazed through it. Like that I had more time for the 読解, which was, in terms of difficulty of texts, easier than what I have practiced, however, I don't know if I could choose the right answers so quickly.

The listening was ways more difficult than I had imagined. The materials I had for practicing were easier (speed of conversation slower, content easier), but I hope I will get enough points in every section for a pass

I bet that you and all the others have passed the test, no doubt about it. *Keeps fingers crossed for everyone* Just curious about the reading section. Can you remember any of the topics?

My experience with N2 was pretty much the same as Tori-kun's. Well, maybe I didn't so much "blaze through" the first section as I simply skipped all questions where I had the slightest bit of doubt about the correct answer, to come back to them after finishing the reading section. But yeah, the reading was a bit easier and the listening a bit harder than what I was (rather half-assedly) preparing for. I especially didn't expect to miss so much in the "choose the right response" section in listening, because in the ones I did previously the wrong responses most of the time were hilariously wrong.

@Nagareboshi: 久しぶりー

Well, the last long text before the "advertisement" was an excerpt from 潰れない生き方 and it kind of matched with my life phase now and that's why it was really nice reading it in the text. I don't know if I got the answers right. With me it's never about understanding the content of the text, or understanding phrases, kanjis, but rather understanding the question and picking the relevant, correct, answer...

Other topics where about e.g. a study on when to learn best, how to optimise your learning and memory.

@vonPeterhof: I think I got 90% of the vocab/grammar things correct, but I wasn't sure about the 敬語 question What was the right answer? いただきます・差し上げます or ???

I think I went with 差し上げます, but I'm also not entirely sure. I still can't believe I got こうぎ wrong! I was certain about the first kanji thanks to RTK, but for some reason I thought the bare 義 was wrong and picked 議 instead.

Yeah, the response section of the listening is absolutely brutal, and I say this as someone who's studied Japanese for 6 years, has passed N1 multiple times, and has lived in Japan for 3 years.

The answers are always structured with 1 opposite, 1 silly, and 1 correct. Recently, I've gotten better at puzzling out which one is the silly decoy answer, but the lack of context in that section makes it hard. Keeping concentration is also really difficult because it's easy to be distracted by mulling over the previous question.

There's also some of that section that comes down to sheer vocabulary.

vonPeterhof Wrote:I think I went with 差し上げます, but I'm also not entirely sure. I still can't believe I got こうぎ wrong! I was certain about the first kanji thanks to RTK, but for some reason I thought the bare 義 was wrong and picked 議 instead.

High five for the こうぎ man! I made the same mistake as you did >_<