irishpolyglot Wrote:Do they at least give you a real spoken test in the N1? If not then I'm not interested in ever sitting these exams. Unless my answers are graded by a human being, and not a computer that scans which boxes I've ticked, then I'm not interested.

Nope, it's all multiple-choice. But you don't tick boxes, you color in circles.

Vempele Wrote:Nope, it's all multiple-choice. But you don't tick boxes, you color circles in.

Oh well that's completely different then :lol:
Makes sense because fully filled in circles are easier to scan by the computer that is testing you. Personally, I'm not interested in having HAL evaluate my Japanese

What I'll likely do is find some connection online from someone who works in a language school or similar, whose opinion people would respect, and have them evaluate me. I wouldn't get any certificate for it, but that's OK. I'll also upload a spontaneous video and people can come to their own conclusions.

irishpolyglot Wrote:"No such thing. The JLPT is all multiple choice questions. It only tests vocabulary, grammar, reading and listening."

Are you kidding? I'm sorry, but my opinion of the JLPT has just gone down dramatically. In CEFRL exams you have to sit down with someone and speak to them, and this real human being gauges your level through a series of questions that test your ability to truly communicate. In my German one I had to discuss deforestation and was thrown questions by the speaker at random to make sure that I could defend my point of view, and construct particular sentences. In the Spanish one, I was essentially given a job interview.

And then for the aural component you listen but your answers have to demonstrate some level of comprehension and you write them out. While it's true that up to B2 levels the questions aren't very challenging, at least you have to actually produce them yourself, rather than maybe recognizing something in print form that you've heard and just ticking it.

Multiple choice is a really lazy way to create an exam that makes it scalable, but doesn't really test the individual student on subtle communication abilities that can't be so clear cut. I sat a GRE exam in America when I considered doing my post graduate studies there and the fact that the test was multiple choice just made me roll my eyes in how many ways this is a failure to truly test people. I didn't even have to do many of the mathematics problems because I could eliminate certain answers as just definitely wrong immediately and guestimate the right answer without having really done any true mathematics.

Do they at least give you a real spoken test in the N1? If not then I'm not interested in ever sitting these exams. Unless my answers are graded by a human being, and not a computer that scans which boxes I've ticked, then I'm not interested.

Multiple choice, lol... oh Japan...

Anyway, a homo sapien will be helping me demonstrate my spoken and listening abilities in January thank you very much

Thanks for the welcome!

Hey welcome to the site!

The JLPT is all multiple choice, and there is NO speaking portion in the test.

I wish you the best of luck in achieving such a high level in only 3 months. I would be very jealous of you! In my 4 months of study, I was only able to reach N3-N4 and I was studying very intensely(I still am now). However I don't practicing speaking because, well it's not in my priority list at the moment. Maybe a year from now I will start practicing my speaking.

Haha, can't wait to see your weekly videos, Benny. I've read some of your blog posts in the past, and I remember liking the one about 20-something reasons why people quit languages. Maybe your Japanese journey will motivate me more because I've been a little sluggish with actual studying lately.

[Zgarbas]

It's not very nice to diss an exam that people take quite seriously and spend years preparing for. Just because it's multiple choice doesn't mean it's a simple obvious answer and everybody passes with a minimum amount of effort =/.

Also, I fancy my literacy more than my speaking skills, thank you very much. I abhor the speaking tests in CPE&other European tests, as you basically just memorize a few patterns of conversations and struggle to find adjectives which are not "nice" to describe nondescript images; just because there's a bit of flesh on the people who grade you does not make the process any more human.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the merits of the exam Zgarbas. I have a spoken focus in language learning, and this means of live communication and interactivity simply can't be tested via multiple choice. The use of multiple choice for a *language* just boggles my mind but in general I'm cynical of multiple choice exams anyway. Please note that I was by no means trying to imply that it was EASY - I mean that it's lazy for the examiner to create a test that way, simply because correcting it only takes a fraction of a second. Actually presenting the right answer could be the hardest thing in the world, so this doesn't take away from the tests difficulty. I'd definitely still fail it after my 3 months, and wouldn't claim otherwise. Your literacy prioritization puts you on the opposite end of the planet of language learning compared to my spoken focus, so we are bound to disagree on a lot.

I'm sure it tests the reading and grammar excellently, and if your goals are to demonstrate that then more power to you. But yes, if I'm to be honest I will continue to "diss an exam that people take quite seriously" because it's a language exam that doesn't test your ability to actually speak. I just can't get my head around that. It feels like someone's taking the piss to be honest...

I think you misunderstand the CEFRL tests if you think memorizing conversation patterns is what they are all about. I'm not sure what ones you've sat, I'm familiar with the French, German, Italian and Spanish ones. They have a very complex means of steering the conversation in directions that ensure you are being forced to use particular sentence structures or demonstrate understanding of various concepts.

Anyway, thanks for the very warm welcome everyone and sorry if my thoughts on the JLPT offend anyone! If I was to suggest testing your computer skills for an IT job, but give you a pencil and paper rather than a keyboard and a mouse, then you would understand my reaction to a language test that doesn't involve you actually use your mouth. Feel free to think "Benny is so wrong" - it happens a lot online

I took the IELTS two years ago, and the speaking test was not like that at all!

You were assigned an arbitrarily chosen topic which you were given one minute to think through before spending the same amount of time speaking about it. After that, the examiner would ask you a couple of questions and that was it. TOEFL, on the other hand, seems more like what you described...

I didn't practice at all for it beyond reading about how it worked, and managed to get a 7.5 (C1).

Not that the CEFR scale isn't flawed...

Benny, I am an avid follower of your blog and you have provided me with ample motivation to continue on my Japanese quest, even if I am concentrating on listening and reading. So thank you for that.
I think you'll find that with Japanese, and especially on this forum, many if not most people are focusing on listening and reading so as to appreciate the culture Japan is famous for. AJATT, the sentence method and the input hypothesis are other reasons.

Most people know that the JLPT is deeply flawed, however it is the most widely recognized Japanese examination out there, so prospective (Japanese) employers or schools etc. will be looking for it.
I'm sure you'll have great success in your spoken mission and I don't really understand the negative response towards you. You make it very clear that you're going for a spoken approach so to criticize you coming from a different angle is a bit... well it's a bit thick.
Good luck and I'll be following along closely!

irishpolyglot Wrote:We'll have to agree to disagree on the merits of the exam Zgarbas. I have a spoken focus in language learning, and this means of live communication and interactivity simply can't be tested via multiple choice. The use of multiple choice for a *language* just boggles my mind but in general I'm cynical of multiple choice exams anyway. Please note that I was by no means trying to imply that it was EASY - I mean that it's lazy for the examiner to create a test that way, simply because correcting it only takes a fraction of a second. Actually presenting the right answer could be the hardest thing in the world, so this doesn't take away from the tests difficulty. I'd definitely still fail it after my 3 months, and wouldn't claim otherwise. Your literacy prioritization puts you on the opposite end of the planet of language learning compared to my spoken focus, so we are bound to disagree on a lot.

I'm sure it tests the reading and grammar excellently, and if your goals are to demonstrate that then more power to you. But yes, if I'm to be honest I will continue to "diss an exam that people take quite seriously" because it's a language exam that doesn't test your ability to actually speak. I just can't get my head around that. It feels like someone's taking the piss to be honest...

I think you misunderstand the CEFRL tests if you think memorizing conversation patterns is what they are all about. I'm not sure what ones you've sat, I'm familiar with the French, German, Italian and Spanish ones. They have a very complex means of steering the conversation in directions that ensure you are being forced to use particular sentence structures or demonstrate understanding of various concepts.

Anyway, thanks for the very warm welcome everyone and sorry if my thoughts on the JLPT offend anyone! If I was to suggest testing your computer skills for an IT job, but give you a pencil and paper rather than a keyboard and a mouse, then you would understand my reaction to a language test that doesn't involve you actually use your mouth. Feel free to think "Benny is so wrong" - it happens a lot online

Well than I wish you the best of luck Benny, I'm sure you will do great! I'm looking forward to your videos. I'm sure your speaking skills are probably going to excel over mine, but are you planning to practicing reading in the near future? Also if I may ask, do you already have a lot of native friends with a lot of patience?

NightSky Wrote:I'm sorry but even in that video he says he wasn't interested in learning to read yet and only cared about speaking. And you think that the best way for him to study with that target in mind is to spend a whole month, so 1/3 of the entire time, memorizing keywords for Kanji symbols?

You are ridiculous.

EDIT - to add further, with your system its possible he could build a faster passive vocabulary but he is looking to SPEAK to a high level. For that, you need to practice speaking as much as possible. Thousands of flashcards isn't going to get the particular results that he is after here.

I'm quite sure a person can learn to speak quite well if they focus on that solely for 3 months. I'm looking forward to seeing his later videos and checking out his improvement.

It's a given that you complement it with adequate spoken/output (writing/speaking) as well as hearing. I thought that was assumed in immersion (forum posts in japanese, speaking in japanese, newspapers/novels in japanese, TV/radio/music etc etc).

I wish him best of luck on his quest. It'll be interesting to see how far he gets.

irishpolyglot Wrote:We'll have to agree to disagree on the merits of the exam Zgarbas. I have a spoken focus in language learning, and this means of live communication and interactivity simply can't be tested via multiple choice. The use of multiple choice for a *language* just boggles my mind but in general I'm cynical of multiple choice exams anyway. Please note that I was by no means trying to imply that it was EASY - I mean that it's lazy for the examiner to create a test that way, simply because correcting it only takes a fraction of a second. Actually presenting the right answer could be the hardest thing in the world, so this doesn't take away from the tests difficulty. I'd definitely still fail it after my 3 months, and wouldn't claim otherwise. Your literacy prioritization puts you on the opposite end of the planet of language learning compared to my spoken focus, so we are bound to disagree on a lot.

I'm sure it tests the reading and grammar excellently, and if your goals are to demonstrate that then more power to you. But yes, if I'm to be honest I will continue to "diss an exam that people take quite seriously" because it's a language exam that doesn't test your ability to actually speak. I just can't get my head around that. It feels like someone's taking the piss to be honest...

I think you misunderstand the CEFRL tests if you think memorizing conversation patterns is what they are all about. I'm not sure what ones you've sat, I'm familiar with the French, German, Italian and Spanish ones. They have a very complex means of steering the conversation in directions that ensure you are being forced to use particular sentence structures or demonstrate understanding of various concepts.

Anyway, thanks for the very warm welcome everyone and sorry if my thoughts on the JLPT offend anyone! If I was to suggest testing your computer skills for an IT job, but give you a pencil and paper rather than a keyboard and a mouse, then you would understand my reaction to a language test that doesn't involve you actually use your mouth. Feel free to think "Benny is so wrong" - it happens a lot online

Hi, I have a question.

I haven't read enough of your blog, but on these 3 month challenges you've done. If you don't reach your goal in 3 months of fluency, do you continue with the language to reach your goal? Or do you stop and try a new language without continuing?

If in Japanese you weren't up to the standard you've set for yourself will you continue until you reach it?

Hirakana Wrote:Most people know that the JLPT is deeply flawed, however it is the most widely recognized Japanese examination out there, so prospective (Japanese) employers or schools etc. will be looking for it.

You know, maybe I'm being too particular here, but I don't feel the JLPT is flawed at all. If anything, I'd say it's a well thought-out and organized test.

It does what it's designed to do, which is to gauge a person's vocabulary and grammar knowledge, as well as test reading and listening capabilities. It's not a test of communication skill, or how well you can get your point across using a mixture of katakana, Japanglish, body language, and napkin drawings. It's a standardized test that allows a wide range of people from various language backgrounds to be measured on the same scale.

Which isn't to say that I like it. Only that, for what it sets out to accomplish, it does pretty well.

Sorry for going off on a tangent.

I'm looking forward to following your progress Benny.

I think most of us on here are mainly interested in literacy, so the JLPT is actually decent at gauging our progress. Honestly, I only do tests to show other people my progress (and occasionally for fun); I have my own standards that I want to exceed and tests don't have anything to do with them.

Anyway, I think it'll be rather interesting to see how Benny handles all the homophones and homonyms (maybe not actual homonyms, but at least things that would show up together in a thesaurus) without kanji. I've always found that kanji helps me learn vocabulary quickly and easily, so thinking about learning vocabulary without them seems needlessly difficult.
Of course, that might just be because of my focus on literacy; anyway, it'll be interesting.

irishpolyglot Wrote:@NightSky Note that I've never claimed to be C1 in Chinese. Search for "Honest evaluation of Benny's Mandarin" to see a blog post written by an independent Mandarin school in Beijing where they critiqued my level after spending hours with me. The conclusion was B1, which was lower than my goal but something I was happy with nonetheless.

Ah fair enough, I was only going from what an earlier poster had claimed. I'm not criticising anyway, I know *exactly* how much effort it takes for that improvement in Mandarin because I had done the same thing! =)

irishpolyglot Wrote:Anyway, thanks for the very warm welcome everyone and sorry if my thoughts on the JLPT offend anyone! If I was to suggest testing your computer skills for an IT job, but give you a pencil and paper rather than a keyboard and a mouse, then you would understand my reaction to a language test that doesn't involve you actually use your mouth. Feel free to think "Benny is so wrong" - it happens a lot online

Putting JLPT to one side, I thought you might like to know that for programmer positions infact you nearly always *are* handed a paper and pencil, and you don't use a computer. Good eh?

Anyway the JLPT isn't all bad, but sadly its pretty much the most recognised and the best we Japanese learners have.

Best of luck to you!

.

irishpolyglot Wrote:No, that's Tim Ferriss. I've interviewed him about language learning though. He knows Japanese already, and I'm starting from scratch today.

He "knows" Japanese already? I guess that's the difference between 「知る」 and 「知っている」, but I digress. Good luck with your crash course. Sorry I wasn't aware of the difference between Tim Ferriss and yourself. Not really good with faces, and ya'll polyglots look alike.

Hopefully Japanese will leave such an impression on your that you'll stay with her for longer than three months, so you can actually get to know her.

Something you'll hear (though maybe not read- is my understanding correct?) a lot over the course of the next 90 odd days:

「頑張ってください！」 (^_^)v

JapaneseRuleOf7 Wrote:

Hirakana Wrote:Most people know that the JLPT is deeply flawed, however it is the most widely recognized Japanese examination out there, so prospective (Japanese) employers or schools etc. will be looking for it.

You know, maybe I'm being too particular here, but I don't feel the JLPT is flawed at all. If anything, I'd say it's a well thought-out and organized test.

It does what it's designed to do, which is to gauge a person's vocabulary and grammar knowledge, as well as test reading and listening capabilities. It's not a test of communication skill, or how well you can get your point across using a mixture of katakana, Japanglish, body language, and napkin drawings. It's a standardized test that allows a wide range of people from various language backgrounds to be measured on the same scale.

Which isn't to say that I like it. Only that, for what it sets out to accomplish, it does pretty well.

Sorry for going off on a tangent.

There aren't four answers to choose from when listening/reading in real life.

Maith an fear Benny! Go n-éirí leat!

Hirakana Wrote:There aren't four answers to choose from when listening/reading in real life.

That goes double if you're talking to a woman. Then there's between one and no right answers.

Sorry, just messing around.

On the real though, when I worked as a professor in Japanese universities, I had to administer tests to hundreds of students on a regular basis. Do that for a while and you'd quickly appreciate the reasons for using a standardized test.

Unless you want to read thousands of essays and conduct thousands of interviews over the course of a semester, you're gonna need to come up with another method of evaluating people. Is it optimal? No. But it's just a matter of resources. How many people take the JLPT in a year?

Passing Geometry doesn't guarantee you can build a birdhouse, but that doesn't mean a geometry test is useless. Don't confuse a test with real life. It's not a simulation.

The vast majority of exams don't simulate real life. They just test one component of ability, and hopefully provide an objective measure. That's also something that's extremely difficult to do on a written or oral test.

And that's the real problem with evaluating Benny. Quiet and shy people are often judged to be poor speakers, even when their grammar and vocabulary are good. Meanwhile, people who charge ahead confidently making mistakes are seen as being good communicators. Who needs grammar and vocabulary so long as you get your point across? What defines fluency? What defines competency? I'm willing to bet that Benny will be "fluent" from Day One.

Speaking "fluent Japanese" shouldn't be confused with selling used cars. That's why standards are established and tested against. Nobody likes it, but it eliminates the people who are just bluffing their way through.

irishpolyglot Wrote:if I'm to be honest I will continue to "diss an exam that people take quite seriously" because it's a language exam that doesn't test your ability to actually speak. I just can't get my head around that. It feels like someone's taking the piss to be honest...

I think you could argue that this a cultural difference, though. Even when the tests are for practical skills like languages, Japanese tests are almost always about proving you knowledge rather than demonstrating your practical skills. This is true even of skills where that seems completely ridiculous, such as driving tests.

In general, people from English speaking countries find this really strange, but people in countries with a similar testing style (China, Korea, etc.) find it completely natural.

There's not a big difference in practical ability at the end of the process. People who study something for the same period of time in Japan or England get about the same results, despite the vastly different testing styles (and, therefore, studying styles). And if that's true, if you're thinking as a pragmatist, can you really say that one testing style is better?

[RawToast]

This will be interesting.

Just a note for anyone, Benny has already studied Chinese to a decent level (including hanzi recognition using RTK I believe). So it should be easier for him providing his Chiense hasn't slipped.

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to rocket through RTK lite (1000kanji) that should cover N2 and shouldn't take you long.

It would be nice to see some Chinese -> Japanese comparisons on your blog. Or the benefits knowing one has when attempting the other.

[Zgarbas]

Hirakana Wrote:There aren't four answers to choose from when listening/reading in real life.

Whenever I have something that I'm not certain about I picture a multiple choice type exercise. E.g. I hear a homonym and I'm not 100% sure which one of the words it was, I just list them one by one till I find the one that's the best fit. Or if I hear a word and I'm not sure about it's meaning I just picture kanjis which would match the readings.

Or does that not count?

Also, in real life it's unlikely that people will have you look at a picture and have you describe it in a manner in which you offer your partner enough time to describe it himself, but that doesn't seem to matter =/. I have the IELTS coming up and I am so not looking forward to memorizing the patterns and formats and recommended thingies again* because being fluent isn't enough for these kinds of tests.

*because the English certificates scene is silly and you have to re-take every expensive test every other year or so just because*

I feel the terms conversational, business level and native level are more appropriate than "fluent". I don't think it's appropriate to state that one is fluent on a resume unless you're between business and native level in every area of the language. JLPT1 is roughly equal to an English speaker having intensely studied French reading and listening for a year, considering Chinese people take about that long to pass.

There's a huge chasm between the first and the third yet "fluent" seems to get applied to the whole spectrum which creates a risk of causing misunderstanding.

Zgarbas Wrote:

Hirakana Wrote:There aren't four answers to choose from when listening/reading in real life.

Whenever I have something that I'm not certain about I picture a multiple choice type exercise. E.g. I hear a homonym and I'm not 100% sure which one of the words it was, I just list them one by one till I find the one that's the best fit.

It is funny is a way when people use the phrase along the lines of "real life isn't multiple choice", when in many ways it really, really is. For the most part, general day to day discussion consists of various interactions of set-phrases, depending on the level of intimacy and location shared between people.

While there isn't a multiple choice reaction box underneath people when they make various comments, there is really only a somewhat limited dialogue pool to draw from, with a small variety of patterns- each with their own give a little, take a little limitations- as to which are generally inferred and understood by others.

Stretching too far beyond these general limitations and you risk obscurity, or nuance is which is deemed "creative", "poetic", "complex", etc. Which, in reality, is appreciated and understood by the minority in any given social context. That which there is no real metric for standardized evaluation which can be used to reflect the general comprehension and practicality of the greater population.

Another one of those illusions many live their lives without being aware of, or being aware of to the extent of taking a general disinterest for literature, etc. anything which falls out of the common denomination of the general literacy/communication pool.

But I digress, as it may be peripheral to the overall discussion.

Quote:While there isn't a multiple choice reaction box underneath people when they make various comments, there is really only a somewhat limited dialogue pool to draw from, with a small variety of patterns- each with their own give a little, take a little limitations- as to which are generally inferred and understood by others.

Pretending this were a live conversation, would you consider what you just wrote as just a selection from a limited dialogue pool?

I don't think general day to day discussion is so basic either...