Benny Lewis, I want to buy you a steak dinner.

I find this whole thing incredibly amusing, and I thank you for that. I think it's one of the more interesting things I've ever seen related to studying Japanese. Granted, learning Japanese isn't exactly Rock-em-Sock-em Robots, but still.

If you want to poo poo the JLPT, that's fine as far as I'm concerned. I think it's a valuable test, but whatever. I think a lot of crazy stuff. We just need some standard for measuring proficiency. "Fluency" is unfortunately vague. So poo poo on that too.

Speaking's great, but it's only half the equation. Three months is plenty long enough to acquire some common patterns and words of vocabulary to substitute in. I like dogs. I like cats. I like goats. Do you like goats? Fabulous, me too.

Because it's not just speaking that constitutes ability--it's being able to understand the answer. You want to throw out the written language? Fine. Buh-bye. But show me that you can understand what's being said and I'll treat you to a steak dinner when you get to Japan. That's a promise, Mister Lewis.

So here's what I propose: Listen to the current day's NHK News Easy recordings ( http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/ ) and summarize what's being said. That's it. Summarize it in any language, I don't care. The articles are short. They're spoken slowly and clearly, and around an N3 level. They cover common, daily subjects. It's the news, after all. If you can't understand that much, then you've got further to go before you can claim "fluency." But if you can, then good for you. Please come and enjoy a steak dinner.

dtcamero Wrote:the grammar section is full of archaisms that one never comes across in actual written japanese.
all the questions basically come down to the splitting of semantic hairs between 2 similar terms.
and I could go on...

but that being said... if you want to get a job in japan, or to prove you have professional language ability on a resume, you must pass the jlpt. so we struggle forward on the long march toward this silly test.

I would consider the JLPT1 to be at a significantly lower level than having a business level of Japanese, honestly. You would have to study just as hard even if it didn't exist.

I don't remember any archaisms in the test or study materials and all the questions would be obvious to an educated native, it's all standard Japanese, so I don't think it's silly... no more than TOEIC anyway. (similarly TOEIC should be a walk in the park for anyone with a business level of English).

dizmox Wrote:

dtcamero Wrote:the grammar section is full of archaisms that one never comes across in actual written japanese.
all the questions basically come down to the splitting of semantic hairs between 2 similar terms.
and I could go on...

but that being said... if you want to get a job in japan, or to prove you have professional language ability on a resume, you must pass the jlpt. so we struggle forward on the long march toward this silly test.

I would consider the JLPT1 to be at a significantly lower level than having a business level of Japanese, honestly. You would have to study just as hard even if it didn't exist.

I don't remember any archaisms in the test or study materials and all the questions would be obvious to an educated native, it's all standard Japanese, so I don't think it's silly... no more than TOEIC anyway. (similarly TOEIC should be a walk in the park for anyone with a business level of English).

Someone I know was studying for jlpt n1 a couple of years ago and said that the kokugo teachers at his schools couldn't even get the answers right on some questions...

ktcgx Wrote:

dizmox Wrote:

dtcamero Wrote:the grammar section is full of archaisms that one never comes across in actual written japanese.
all the questions basically come down to the splitting of semantic hairs between 2 similar terms.
and I could go on...

but that being said... if you want to get a job in japan, or to prove you have professional language ability on a resume, you must pass the jlpt. so we struggle forward on the long march toward this silly test.

I would consider the JLPT1 to be at a significantly lower level than having a business level of Japanese, honestly. You would have to study just as hard even if it didn't exist.

I don't remember any archaisms in the test or study materials and all the questions would be obvious to an educated native, it's all standard Japanese, so I don't think it's silly... no more than TOEIC anyway. (similarly TOEIC should be a walk in the park for anyone with a business level of English).

Someone I know was studying for jlpt n1 a couple of years ago and said that the kokugo teachers at his schools couldn't even get the answers right on some questions...

Then they shouldn't be teaching Japanese.
JLPT N1 is a breeze for Japanese people, let alone teachers. The "JLPT N1 is hard even for natives" thing is a myth.

The level of the JLPT N1 is roughly equivalent to a Japanese native high school student.
If a kokugo teacher can't figure out the answers they need to quit their job. :|

That having been said, there's an obvious level in quality of knowledge, not necessarily quantity of knowledge, that differentiates a native high school student and a person who is studying Japanese as a second language. Understanding Japanese in a Japanese way, enough to pass N1, is apparently quite difficult. Even if the amount of words and grammar in your brain matches/surpasses that of the highschooler.

(I've also seen every grammar point and vocabulary word that I saw on the N1 being used in daily life so that's another nail in the coffin of the "difficult for natives/archaic" myth.)

The most valid and reasonable complaint against the JLPT is its lack of a production section. I found the N1 to be quite a decent test other than that.

Zorlee Wrote:JLPT N1 is a breeze for Japanese people, let alone teachers. The "JLPT N1 is hard even for natives" thing is a myth.

Ah, so I guess my (Japanese) friends who tell me they don't feel confident about passing it are then indeed morons... lol

ktcgx Wrote:

Zorlee Wrote:JLPT N1 is a breeze for Japanese people, let alone teachers. The "JLPT N1 is hard even for natives" thing is a myth.

Ah, so I guess my (Japanese) friends who tell me they don't feel confident about passing it are then indeed morons... lol

No they are more likely just being polite or playing down their ability, I have no doubt they would all pass just fine. I see N1 grammar all over the place and its hardly archaic.

Just to add, *passing* the exam is not in doubt -- what needing 70%? I suspect a Japanese person *might* make a mistake on one or two questions but get the rest correct without any trouble at all. All would get more than 90% with no trouble.

There's only a few questions on uncommon grammar anyway. Literally a few percent of the entire score.

ktcgx Wrote:

Zorlee Wrote:JLPT N1 is a breeze for Japanese people, let alone teachers. The "JLPT N1 is hard even for natives" thing is a myth.

Ah, so I guess my (Japanese) friends who tell me they don't feel confident about passing it are then indeed morons... lol

As has been mentioned in a couple of other threads, they're either a) being polite, or b) confusing it with level 1 of Kanji Kentei. From what I heard not many Japanese people who aren't employed in language teaching or HR have even heard of the JLPT, so when they hear about a "Japanese language test" the Kanken is the first thing that comes to mind, and that test has a pass rate of only 15% or so.

I studied Japanese intensively for about a year and "something" months, took the N1 test in Japan and finished the test in half the time without ever having to study previous JLPT tests/grammar books etc. I remember sleeping most of the time during the test. If I could do it, then I would certainly imagine that any other Japanese person can do it as well.

NightSky Wrote:

ktcgx Wrote:

Zorlee Wrote:JLPT N1 is a breeze for Japanese people, let alone teachers. The "JLPT N1 is hard even for natives" thing is a myth.

Ah, so I guess my (Japanese) friends who tell me they don't feel confident about passing it are then indeed morons... lol

Just to add, *passing* the exam is not in doubt -- what needing 70%? I suspect a Japanese person *might* make a mistake on one or two questions but get the rest correct without any trouble at all. All would get more than 90% with no trouble.

This too. Although the passing mark on N1 is 100 points out of 180.. so ~56%?
The idea of "passing" a test with only a little over half the answers has always baffled me.
A 90%+ on the N1 would be maybe right under C1 on the CEFR scale while being right on the pass mark - 70% would likely be more equivalent to B1 or low B2 or theresabouts. (Minus the production bit, of course.)

@mr_hans_moleman_aka_troll I've never heard of anyone (not even とっても hard-working Chinese prodigies) of anyone passing N1 in less than 2 years, but you did in 1 year and something and were sleeping most of the time during the test…

drdunlap Wrote:Although the passing mark on N1 is 100 points out of 180.. so ~56%?
The idea of "passing" a test with only a little over half the answers has always baffled me.

Note that the criteria for passing the JLPT is based on a scaled score, not on raw score. That the JLPT requires "a little more than half answers correct to pass" seems to be a common misconception. I'm fairly sure you need (a lot) more than half the questions on the test correct to pass.

As for Benny's adventure with Japanese, I look forward to seeing his results after three months. I remember reading about his similar attempt with Chinese (apparently he really, really didn't enjoy his stay in Taiwan for some reason), so it'll be interesting to compare with how he goes in Japanese. I think JapaneseRuleOf7's proposal to use the NHK Easy News as an ad-hoc listening test is actually pretty ingenious. If Benny decides to take up that challenge (which I doubt), then it'd be interesting to see how he'd fare with that as well.

youasuki Wrote:@mr_hans_moleman_aka_troll I've never heard of anyone (not even とっても hard-working Chinese prodigies) of anyone passing N1 in less than 2 years, but you did in 1 year and something and were sleeping most of the time during the test…

Counterexample:

English version
日本語版

It's possible that he lied about how long he had been studying, but I doubt it. It's common for the Chinese students at the language school I attended to go from learning あ・い・う・え・お to pass the N1 in two years or less.

There was even a Swedish guy who started from scratch and passed in two years. He had to study a lot more than the Chinese students. However, it's worth mentioning that his method of studying seemed a lot more fun and intrinsically motivating than that of the Chinese students. He excessively watched variety shows (especially しゃべくり007) and NHK nature documentaries and read manga and zoology texts, whereas the Chinese students only reviewed textbooks and drilled exercises. Not to say that he didn't review textbooks or drill exercises, but those things only took up 10-15% of his studying time.

Edit: I should also note that he did not use Anki or Heisig.

Guoguodi Wrote:

drdunlap Wrote:Although the passing mark on N1 is 100 points out of 180.. so ~56%?
The idea of "passing" a test with only a little over half the answers has always baffled me.

Note that the criteria for passing the JLPT is based on a scaled score, not on raw score. That the JLPT requires "a little more than half answers correct to pass" seems to be a common misconception. I'm fairly sure you need (a lot) more than half the questions on the test correct to pass.

The scaling changes the weight of each question to keep the test fair. 100 points is still around 56%.

ps mr_hans_moleman, what was your score after sleepytest?

drdunlap Wrote:Although the passing mark on N1 is 100 points out of 180.. so ~56%?
The idea of "passing" a test with only a little over half the answers has always baffled me.

As Guoguodi says, this is a scaled scored. However, it -is- possible to pass the JLPT with a raw score near 50%, or even below 50%.

The scaling is two-fold - first that the pass-mark moves around to make sure that not everybody will pass (intended to keep the difficulty of the test equal from year to year, this is just normal 'grading on the curve').

Secondly, the questions are weighted so that they are worth more if many people got them wrong, worth less if many people got them right, and worth the normal percentage of the test that they represent if an average number of people got them right.

As a consequence, if you answer all the 'hard' questions correctly and all the 'easy' questions incorrectly (unlikely as this is) you could pass with <50% raw score. If you answer all the 'easy' questions correctly and all the 'hard' questions incorrectly, you'll need to answer many more 'easy' questions correctly than just the passing threshold.

This per-question weighting is, I think, pretty unique and interesting and it discourages 'studying to the test'. Everyone studying from the popular guides will get the same questions right, probably making them 'easy', and people reading real native materials and functioning in the world in real Japanese have a better chance of getting the 'hard' questions not predicted by study guides right.

In theory, anyway. How effective it is at neutralizing 'studying to the test' is a great question that I'd love an answer to, but since there's no other credible test to compare against, I don't think we'll have an answer.

As for 50% passing - on a 4-choice multiple choice, random chance gives you 25%, so you need to be doing at least twice as well as random to pass a 50% threshold test. It's not normal to design a test with questions so hard that passing test-takers get half the questions wrong, but it's not an invalid test strategy either.

@vileru It'll probably take him forever to learn English though (maybe).

Guoguodi Wrote:I think JapaneseRuleOf7's proposal to use the NHK Easy News as an ad-hoc listening test is actually pretty ingenious. If Benny decides to take up that challenge (which I doubt), then it'd be interesting to see how he'd fare with that as well.

Steak dinner baby. This is a fair challenge, and I'm willing to back it up with my own yen. If you're going to make a claim, just back it up, that's all. Now, don't get me wrong--I'd love for Benny Lewis to succeed. Show me a way to take someone from zero to fluent in 3 months and I'll join your church and spread that gospel. Just put your money where your mouth is, Mister Lewis.

Considering the score required for a pass, JLPT1 is barely native middle school level.
Anyone claiming it's hard for a native adult is just making excuses.

I can accept native Japanese speakers considering the JLPT N1 to be "hard" in the same way that Eiken 1-kyu (a popular English test in Japan) is "hard" to me - obviously, I'd have no problem taking Eiken 1-kyu, as a native English speaker, but when I looked at some of the study material for it out of curiosity (some examples from the test site here), I could still appreciate that the content seems fairly advanced and that it would probably take someone studying English a good deal of effort to get there.

That being said, when I told some Japanese people I was taking JLPT N1, they were curious, and looked up some of the practice questions. They seemed to have no trouble with it at all.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Considering the score required for a pass, JLPT1 is barely native middle school level.
Anyone claiming it's hard for a native adult is just making excuses.

I think it's hard for a native adult to get all the questions right.

Hard for a native adult to get a passing grade? Ludicrous.

Hard for native adult to get 90%? Dubious.

Probably at around 95% or so you would start to distinguish natives who did complete high school from those who didn't.

It's hard for -anyone- to get 100% since a small percentage of the questions are somewhat debatable, but given the thresholds and scaling of the test, that hardly matters for legitimate learners. No grade is given, after all, besides pass/fail.

However, the score required isn't really the deciding factor. If put to it, I could design a language test in English or in Japanese that the majority of middle-schooler graduates would fail even with a 50% passing threshold. It's just a matter of asking hard enough questions to assure that threshold.

If I want a 50% pass rate for a 100 question test with a 50% pass threshold, I just need to ask questions hard enough that 2/3rds of the questions are on average answered incorrectly.

Then if you have an even distribution of 25% (total guessing) to 100% (know every answer), you can place the average student in the bottom of the score range and the above average student in the top of the score range.

The same could be done in theory for PhD candidates in any given language .... but I couldn't dare brag that -I- personally could design that test, I just say someone with enough knowledge of the candidate language could.

patriconia Wrote:I can accept native Japanese speakers considering the JLPT N1 to be "hard" in the same way that Eiken 1-kyu (a popular English test in Japan) is "hard" to me - obviously, I'd have no problem taking Eiken 1-kyu, as a native English speaker, but when I looked at some of the study material for it out of curiosity (some examples from the test site here), I could still appreciate that the content seems fairly advanced and that it would probably take someone studying English a good deal of effort to get there.

That being said, when I told some Japanese people I was taking JLPT N1, they were curious, and looked up some of the practice questions. They seemed to have no trouble with it at all.

haha wow that test is hard! I couldn't imagine anyone I know that learned english as a second language being able to tango with that thing...

maybe japanese just seems a lot more transparent because we also have ideograms to help out if we don't know a word. One of those test essays revolved around the word cardiopulmonary. good luck figuring that out without a background in european languages. wow wow wow.

is it just me or is that test much harder than the jlpt...?

I think Eiken is significantly harder than the JLPT from my impression. There's a speaking portion too. If they set the JLPT to be of a similar difficulty there wouldn't be enough test-takers for it to be profitable. It's a niche language after all.

dtcamero Wrote:I couldn't imagine anyone I know that learned english as a second language being able to tango with that thing...

There lots of foreign doctors, scientists, businessmen, etc. in the west though, aren't there? This is the level of English required to be a professional here.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:Considering the score required for a pass, JLPT1 is barely native middle school level.
Anyone claiming it's hard for a native adult is just making excuses.

I think it's hard for a native adult to get all the questions right.

Hard for a native adult to get a passing grade? Ludicrous.

Hard for native adult to get 90%? Dubious.

I taught at a kinda low-level school north of Kyoto for a couple of years, and when I had free time I would study for N1 at one of the tables in the courtyard for some good atmosphere. A group of girls that I thought were pretty funny used to come hang out with me, and they never got a single question wrong in my practice books/example exams, even though they weren't exactly the sharpest tools in the shed academically. They were 2nd-years at the time, so 17-ish. Seems to me that most adults could get 100% without too much trouble.

As you say, there is a chance of getting one or two reading questions wrong because sometimes they're a bit debatable. But other than that, it's smooth sailing for natives as far as I can see.

mr_hans_moleman Wrote:I studied Japanese intensively for about a year and "something" months, took the N1 test in Japan and finished the test in half the time without ever having to study previous JLPT tests/grammar books etc. I remember sleeping most of the time during the test.

Obvious lie is obvious.

dtcamero Wrote:haha wow that test is hard! I couldn't imagine anyone I know that learned english as a second language being able to tango with that thing...

Challenge accepted.

25/25 on section 1 in 3 minutes.
25/26 on sections 2-3 in 19 minutes. The one mistake was a typo.

There were two words I didn't know (inculcate and lassitude), but it didn't matter as they were wrong answers in section 1.