You know what? It's like $50. I don't think you're going to really miss it. Everyone here is right. In this world unless you can prove you know shit, you ain't shit. It's easy to understand why they do this.

Picture this...

You run a company and you're hiring and 10 foreigners apply at once. You're a real busy guy and you don't have time to sit with each of these gaijin for half an hour working out whether or not they understand left from right in your language.

So you look at the applicants resumes. The 3 that have the certificate get an interview the other 7 may just waste time you can't afford to lose. Sorry, better luck next time.

Just take it.

On the topic of university entrance, most JP universities now use or are moving to 留学試験 instead of JLPT. If uni entrance is your goal, do some research on your target institutions.

Jarvik7 Wrote:On the topic of university entrance, most JP universities now use or are moving to 留学試験 instead of JLPT. If uni entrance is your goal, do some research on your target institutions.

Very true, and 留学試験 is a more demanding test than JLPT (it includes production) so be aware.

Recruiters for bilingual jobs in the States use it as well. Before I decided to go the ALT route, I talked to a number of head hunting companies that specialize in recruiting Japanese speakers. JLPT was generally one of the first questions they asked. In fact, one of the main reasons I decided to spend some time in Japan is because many of them said "JLPT 3 [which I held at the time] is a good start... but most companies we hire for are looking for at least level 2, if not level 1... "

Are they going to back it up with an interview? Of course. But it's a weed out tool.
And there probably are some valid arguments about how effective the format is, etc. But that's one of the reasons that they're changing the format... along with the push for it to be used as part of long-term visa requirements.

But people saying that it's a waste of my time and money gets a little old. I'll decide what to do with my time and money, thanks. If I find merit in taking it, then I think that's my business.

At the end of the day, Khatz is just a guy with a blog... and can you really believe everything you read?

I'm someone who mocked the JLPT until it really counted. I have to have a tangible way of proving my JP ability for a translating job. Since having started studying for it I realize it's not that bad. At least at 2kyuu you don't learn anything ultra-archaic or unhelpful. It's all been good and I already have the sense of my vocab "growing up" a bit. There's a million other ways to do it, but a lot of us know that this is just something we have to do regardless of whether we like it or not. My success as a person in Japan is, at the end of the day, more important to me than the purity and idealism of my educational pedigree.

Khatz is right in a sense (although just plain wrong about JP employers not having heard of it), but his critique goes much deeper than the JLPT - take it in context.

Means to an end, dude. JLPT is not the holy shrine of Japanese ability that many foreigners think it is, but it IS useful.

Tobberoth Wrote:Very true, and 留学試験 is a more demanding test than JLPT (it includes production) so be aware.

I've actually heard it's easier than the JLPT in some ways. I think as far as vocab, and such, it's easier. However it includes writing, and other subjects (mathematics/sciences/arts, depending on the target major). However even if you score high on that test, many schools require you to take the same test that all Japanese high school students are killing themselves over too.

I get the feeling most people here don't want to go to university in Japan though, or are there some?

Quite obvious....it so damn hard to get into a japanese university for a 外人 that except for the sake of fulfilling a dream it s not really worth to do that....japanese university are not even well ranked on world classment either shangai or les mines.

I think the next generation will have some real opportunities to get admitted into japanese university but reforms are still in progress. Japan 2025 clearly stresses out the importance of increasing immigration especially toward students as , except for the big 4 東大　京大　慶応　早稲田, the lesser schools reported beginning to have trouble filling up classrooms owing to the weak natality/aging population. For sure chinese and other asian peoples are the first concerned but as the rest of asia is booming it will be hard for japan , the old man of asia, to get the top asian students .So in my opinion they re bound to really soften their rules for increasing westerner application . Right now it s still excruciating to get into a japanese university : the best way remains exchange agreements with your school , which doesn t even require you speak japanese (let alone have the JPLT.)as the courses are provided in english.

Having worked in Japan before, I can say that having L2 definitely helped me get the job.

The common objection I here most often is, "but I know someone who works in Japan and they don't really need Japanese in order to do their job." While this is often true, think of it this way: when the company or recruiter receives several similar resumes but one of them passed a higher level of the JLPT, who do you think will be called in for an interview first?

Also, I really don't understand why AJATT gets so much play here, since the vast majority of people I have seen try to learn that way spend a lot of time getting nowhere, but that's a whole another topic....

ghinzdra Wrote:...it so damn hard to get into a japanese university for a 外人 that except for the sake of fulfilling a dream it s not really worth to do that...japanese university are not even well ranked...

1. Agree with entrance requirement issues and ranking comment (although league tables are often questionable in their methodology/results) - like you said I think it is sensible to study 'in home country' and 'do an exchange' if feasible.

Universities in UK, US, Australia and Canada generally go *out of their way* to market to and attract foreign students and give them pathways inward (not just for the money); Japanese universities do not seem to do so, especially to 'Western' sphere countries. I think that they lose out because of this - lack of funding from overseas students and lack of international/research profile, but also weaker innovation and diversity etc.

ghinzdra Wrote:Japan 2025 clearly stresses out the importance of increasing immigration especially toward students

2. Thanks for the Japan 2025 mention - I downloaded the pdf and read it: http://www.keidanren.or.jp/english/policy/

I admire what 'Nippon Keidanren' are trying to do in this document especially re:

a. creating an environment where foreigners can actively participate
b. greater tolerance towards diversity
c. opening the doors to Japan to people around the world
d. pushing Japan to open itself to the world (integration and free market reform - the 'five freedoms' and a collaborative not competitive approach)
e. 'finalisation of a system for bringing foreigners to work and live in Japan' (by 2010-15)

But I'm wondering if anyone knows about the status of this document and whether the recommendations are being implemented? For example, they want to reduce pensions by 11% by 2011 and increase consumption tax from 5-16% (by 2014). This sounds like electoral suicide, even if Japanese people take to the 'buy Japanese' campaign they're wanting.

There does seem to some 'fluff' as well, eg- what on earth does 'promotion of global economic liberalisations' mean? Also, they want Japan to 'lead the way in creating a free trade sphere in Asia' but given diverse tensions in the region I don't know whether other Asian countries will take well to this idea or to Japanese 'leadership'.

In particular, while they say 'foreigners in Japan...will be a key element' and talk about 'opening [Japan] to the world' it seems to me this is restricted pretty much to the Asian sphere, and (from what I can see) there are no *specific* policies or policies about *higher education reform* outlined in the 'International Ties' section about what they intend to do to achieve this element.

Re JLPT I agree with what seems to be the consensus ie it's a necessary piece of paper for most/nearly all contractual full-time salaried non-English teaching jobs. If you don't have it you'll have to work damn hard and probably have a bit of luck/connections to get the interview.

I also agree that it doesn't reflect Japanese ability - I have met that many foreigners in Japan (in this case 70+ people, about 80% were Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean and about the same percentage were working in IT) who have 1kyu but can say *very* little. They don't need to, but they did need that piece of paper when they applied (for example, and according to them) with 300+ others for 5 positions.

Westerners trying to become Japanese University students (or any other Asian country for that matter) seems to be extremely rare. I'd be interested if anybody else here has that as their goal.

I know for my University Prep school for foreigners, I'm the only person from a western country. I also get a lot of "why would you quit school in the United States and come here?" from both Japanese, Westerners, and other Asians. I hear a lot of "Japanese schools are worse than those in the United States", but the few people I know who have gone to both, actually liked Japanese schools more.

I hope to find out first hand next year, or the year after. (I plan to fail miserably at the Japanese section of the EJU this year! )

There really shouldn't be an issue here, If you have the ability to study and work in Japan in a fully Japanese environment, you can pass the JLPT1. There is nothing obscure even in the vocab section of the JLPT that you won't see quite often if you do enough very basic reading in different fields.

Yes, if all you do is play Games/ Watch anime(I'm not a big fan of the ALL Japanese all the time approach done that way). Then it seems insane, but I've seen just about everything that's on the test outline (besides some of the Keigo/Letter writing things, which I don't deal with) out in the wild.

My argument is that it's not hard enough, doesn't test enough, for something that considered you to be Equivalent to a Japanese adult. I can come up with ten's of grammar points right off the top of my head that you see everday multiple times if you read japanese, that for some reason aren't on the test outline.

ghinzdra Wrote:You deal with the world the way it is , no the way it should be .

Maybe we deal with the test the way it should be? Yeah... yeah, that would've been a better way to put it... Instead of saying that Humanity should forgo trying to make progress !~
haha I am sure you didn't think of how that could be taken, but I took it there!
Yeah forget Women's rights!, forget equality, forget etc... Just deal with it!! haha Yeah, people would cut thy head.

k, go make your stand by giving yourself weak footing in job applications

*rolls eyes

Matthew Wrote:Also, I really don't understand why AJATT gets so much play here, since the vast majority of people I have seen try to learn that way spend a lot of time getting nowhere, but that's a whole another topic....

AJATT is:
RTK -> Kana -> 10000 i+1 sentences
(constant japanese immersion throughout)

It is not rtk -> kana -> 10000 sentences -> dont do JLPT because it sucks yo(opinion).

Also "vast majority of people I have seen ... spend a lot of time getting nowhere" Ridiculous claim. You probably know why.

I think it would be fun to do jlpt some day as a "hey, japanese class students you just got owned by a guy who was watching anime/hentai while you doing 'japanese homework' hehe". However, it would be insanely boring to actually study for the purpose of passing jlpt, but that is my personal opinion.

People on the internet like telling other people what they should and should not do. I think this forum is kind of useless once you're doing sentences with monolingual definitions. Actually it might be detrimental to ones progress. I understand why khatz refuses to setup a forum now.

nonpoint Wrote:

Matthew Wrote:Also, I really don't understand why AJATT gets so much play here, since the vast majority of people I have seen try to learn that way spend a lot of time getting nowhere, but that's a whole another topic....

AJATT is:
RTK -> Kana -> 10000 i+1 sentences
(constant japanese immersion throughout)

It is not rtk -> kana -> 10000 sentences -> dont do JLPT because it sucks yo(opinion).

Also "vast majority of people I have seen ... spend a lot of time getting nowhere" Ridiculous claim. You probably know why.

I think it would be fun to do jlpt some day as a "hey, japanese class students you just got owned by a guy who was watching anime/hentai while you doing 'japanese homework' hehe". However, it would be insanely boring to actually study for the purpose of passing jlpt, but that is my personal opinion.

People on the internet like telling other people what they should and should not do. I think this forum is kind of useless once you're doing sentences with monolingual definitions. Actually it might be detrimental to ones progress. I understand why khatz refuses to setup a forum now.

Do people really study just to pass the JLPT though? Or is it just something to do along the way because they can? I know it is for me. My main goal in learning Japanese is to become fluent in all aspects and not to pass some test. However, I'm going for 2kyuu in December because it's a nice goal and it's really motivating me to work harder. Plus the whole job thing. Iunno... just my two cents. Personally I don't think people discovered that Japan had the JLPT test available and so they thought they'd study for it just to pass it because it seemed like a good idea at the time. People have other reasons. It's just there so why not?

It's not those that are taking the test to show some sort of certification for their Japanese ability.

It's those that post on forums (not necessarily this one) things like:

1. Gosh, I hope I pass this time
2. Man, I've taken this thing every year, maybe I'll try 2kyuu this time.
3. If I'm lucky.
4. I've got to know all these 8000 words or I have no chance to pass
5. I need motivation to learn Japanese, so I signed up for...

For guys that say stuff like the above, I'd like to say "If you need this for a job, maybe that's a clue that you should also know Japanese for the job." It should not be a question about passing the JLPT, but by what degree you pass. You should easily be able to pass the JLPT if you think it's that important. If you need luck to pass, you shouldn't bother taking it. If you need motivation, the test ain't it.

Granted, I'm thinking of taking the damn thing next year just for a laugh. I won't "study" for it except for putting grammar sentences into Anki. However, I'll also take the Defense Language Proficiency Test as that can equate to an extra four hundred dollars a month. Only a moron would ride his high horse away from that deal, feelings about standardized tests be damned.

If there was more of a direct monetary incentive like that one for just passing the JLPT tests, I'd imagine many more people would sit the test...

Nukemarine Wrote:It's not those that are taking the test to show some sort of certification for their Japanese ability.

It's those that post on forums (not necessarily this one) things like:

1. Gosh, I hope I pass this time
2. Man, I've taken this thing every year, maybe I'll try 2kyuu this time.
3. If I'm lucky.
4. I've got to know all these 8000 words or I have no chance to pass
5. I need motivation to learn Japanese, so I signed up for...

For guys that say stuff like the above, I'd like to say "If you need this for a job, maybe that's a clue that you should also know Japanese for the job." It should not be a question about passing the JLPT, but by what degree you pass. You should easily be able to pass the JLPT if you think it's that important. If you need luck to pass, you shouldn't bother taking it. If you need motivation, the test ain't it.

Granted, I'm thinking of taking the damn thing next year just for a laugh. I won't "study" for it except for putting grammar sentences into Anki. However, I'll also take the Defense Language Proficiency Test as that can equate to an extra four hundred dollars a month. Only a moron would ride his high horse away from that deal, feelings about standardized tests be damned.

Defense Language Proficiency Test?

mezbup Wrote:Defense Language Proficiency Test?

It tests your AJATT-fu!

Nii87 Wrote:If there was more of a direct monetary incentive like that one for just passing the JLPT tests, I'd imagine many more people would sit the test...

actually there is one if you work in most big japanese companies....
the same way natives gets a bonus if they get a minimal score at TOEIC , foreigners can get a bonus if they get the JPLT1 ....
can t remember where I read this though.

mezbup Wrote:

Nukemarine Wrote:It's not those that are taking the test to show some sort of certification for their Japanese ability.

It's those that post on forums (not necessarily this one) things like:

1. Gosh, I hope I pass this time
2. Man, I've taken this thing every year, maybe I'll try 2kyuu this time.
3. If I'm lucky.
4. I've got to know all these 8000 words or I have no chance to pass
5. I need motivation to learn Japanese, so I signed up for...

For guys that say stuff like the above, I'd like to say "If you need this for a job, maybe that's a clue that you should also know Japanese for the job." It should not be a question about passing the JLPT, but by what degree you pass. You should easily be able to pass the JLPT if you think it's that important. If you need luck to pass, you shouldn't bother taking it. If you need motivation, the test ain't it.

Granted, I'm thinking of taking the damn thing next year just for a laugh. I won't "study" for it except for putting grammar sentences into Anki. However, I'll also take the Defense Language Proficiency Test as that can equate to an extra four hundred dollars a month. Only a moron would ride his high horse away from that deal, feelings about standardized tests be damned.

Defense Language Proficiency Test?

military are among the first employers interested by language....
it s well known that the most efficient language program ever have always been developed by defense/intelligence/contre intelligence service: in the wake of the world war 2 US army trained a full pack of japanese interpreter within 6 months . The same way KGB is said to have done wonders with german .

so obviously the military have test too... Military language tools are frequently refered in the language communauty. Thus the difficulty ranking table.

I've seen torrents with old JLPT's now and then, I really don't get why it's becoming such a huge deal for some people. To me it seems simple - just keep learning Japanese and when you start thinking on taking the JLPT do one of the old tests for the level you want. A) you can't confidently pass it -> keep going with your studies and let the test wait B) You succeed and feel like you had a good grasp of the test instead of relying on luck -> you do the real deal.

I mean, what's up worriers. If you want to learn Japanese at a (near-)native fluency level ANYWAY you'll obviously reach that point. It's not like Japanese adults would have a problem doing the test. And when you already know beforehand you'll pass the test it's what, 50＄? (not sure here I've heard different numbers) Throw in an extra 50＄ for transport costs or whatever and you have 100＄. That's not much, at all. It's a minimal investment for a guarantee you'll have a chance in the working field in Japan - provided your social skills etc. don't suck.

For anyone rallying against this type of test because it's dumb (which I tend to agree with) - you, me, as individuals that would be added to the working force of Japan (I don't plan to work there really but yeah) aren't that important. There won't be a huge change from us NOT doing the test because the great majority will not even take note of these discussions. If you want to make your voice heard on this matter and make people listen to you, one of the best preparations is taking the Goddamn test. Trust me, I do this alot - when you can show that you're not doing it for your own selfish reasons by argumenting against something that's actually to your 'benefit' at the moment, you get respect. Some will look at you oddly and be like "man what why do you even care" first but that's something you can build on. Of course, this is provided you're NOT being selfish and will forget about the whole thing when your own little problem has been solved; much like ex-student activists who magically lose all interest in school politics once they're out and are doing quite well for themselves.

So stop whining. This won't change anything. What could change things is if the ones who really care, who could make a stand for future 外人, go to Japan when they're fluent and try to influence employers to realizing the JLPT is an insult (because it really, from what I've seen/heard of it, doesn't let you show you know Japanese fluently and is largely ineffective) through Japanese channels or whatever. Because in the end it's the employers' interests that really count. Or you know, have fun using your valuable lifetime, hours that won't ever be given back to you, for moaning on forums and in classes instead of learning stuff.

Nukemarine Wrote:However, I'll also take the Defense Language Proficiency Test as that can equate to an extra four hundred dollars a month. Only a moron would ride his high horse away from that deal, feelings about standardized tests be damned.

My brother will be taking Russian test again. He failed the first time. Like you said 300/400 a month extra without doing anything is a great deal.

He's been studying by reading Harry Potter. Same way I'm studying Russian as well. I tried to study Japanese by reading Harry Potter and it wasn't nearly as effective. I guess it helps that my listening and speaking in Russian is fluent.

Btw, I'm not a fan of Harry Potter, never seen the movies, the book is just easy to find in English/Russian/Japanese.

nonpoint Wrote:

Matthew Wrote:Also, I really don't understand why AJATT gets so much play here, since the vast majority of people I have seen try to learn that way spend a lot of time getting nowhere, but that's a whole another topic....

AJATT is:
RTK -> Kana -> 10000 i+1 sentences
(constant japanese immersion throughout)

It is not rtk -> kana -> 10000 sentences -> dont do JLPT because it sucks yo(opinion).

Also "vast majority of people I have seen ... spend a lot of time getting nowhere" Ridiculous claim. You probably know why.

I think it would be fun to do jlpt some day as a "hey, japanese class students you just got owned by a guy who was watching anime/hentai while you doing 'japanese homework' hehe". However, it would be insanely boring to actually study for the purpose of passing jlpt, but that is my personal opinion.

People on the internet like telling other people what they should and should not do. I think this forum is kind of useless once you're doing sentences with monolingual definitions. Actually it might be detrimental to ones progress. I understand why khatz refuses to setup a forum now.

Actually, everyone I know who has gotten to both a very high level for both reading and speaking without exception have done it through "boring homework."

The problem with anime/manga is that there is a fairly small, repetitive amount vocabulary and grammar used, so by using these things to "study" you're missing out on a good deal of important material.

If someone enjoys AJATT or watching anime, great, I'm not telling anyone what they should or shouldn't enjoy. But for busy people who are simply trying to get the most results in the limited time they have, there are definitely more efficient ways of going about it.

Matthew Wrote:Actually, everyone I know who has gotten to both a very high level for both reading and speaking without exception have done it through "boring homework."

You don't have to do "HOMEWORK", you just have to get away from all the anime and games that are targeted and made for middle schoolers.

Read academic/books targeted towards adults On subjects that interest you. heck this is Japan if you want to read academic books on videogames and Anime(even about the history of light novels!) you can find them. I saw an book targeted towards adults at the bookstore the other day about the appeal and the background and structure of RPG video games.

I just finished reading an academic book on the history of pirates, it contained almost all the JLPT 2 grammar and a good amount of JLPT 1 grammer, not too mention vocab.